Good IFA around Berkshire + what to do with a lump sum?
Discussion
Imagine you acquired a chunk of cash – lets say a nice round £100,000. You want to use it to generate some additional income.
You are: 40, own your modest home outright, live a fairly frugal life, earn a pretty average (for Berkshire) wage of £40k, and have no kids and no debt. You also have no real experience of “finance stuff” and so the money is currently resting in a current account earning zip.
You just want the money to maintain the capital and/or increase, and also generate some extra money every month to supplement income, start spending extra on toys and sweets and stuff, and start putting a bit more away for pensions.
Two options appear to be:
1) Buy to let. With one-bedroom flats starting at ~£150k around here, what should the plan of attack be – put £100k down and £50k on a BTL Repayment mortgage? Or put a much smaller amount down on an interest-only mortgage and hope that property value increases? Is BTL still a viable way of generating extra income if you only have one property and a full-time “normal job”, vs career property investors who have a portfolio of properties and can also do up places themselves to reduce costs? The extra stamp duty, and general feeling of hatred from the government to BTL’ers makes me think the ship has sailed on this one for amateurs.
2) Investments. What would a realistic return be on £100k invested, in a medium-risk scenario? If you know nothing about investment, where do you start? How do you even chose a financial advisor, and trust that they are aiming to generate you the most income, vs using your money to generate themselves the most commission? Does anyone have any experience of a Berkshire based IFA that they trust and have had good experience with? Presumably its not advised for a financial noob to just investing here and there without expert help?
Appreciate this is a pretty broad topic, so if nothing else would be interested in some IFA/Fund manager contacts in the area that could give professional advice…
You are: 40, own your modest home outright, live a fairly frugal life, earn a pretty average (for Berkshire) wage of £40k, and have no kids and no debt. You also have no real experience of “finance stuff” and so the money is currently resting in a current account earning zip.
You just want the money to maintain the capital and/or increase, and also generate some extra money every month to supplement income, start spending extra on toys and sweets and stuff, and start putting a bit more away for pensions.
Two options appear to be:
1) Buy to let. With one-bedroom flats starting at ~£150k around here, what should the plan of attack be – put £100k down and £50k on a BTL Repayment mortgage? Or put a much smaller amount down on an interest-only mortgage and hope that property value increases? Is BTL still a viable way of generating extra income if you only have one property and a full-time “normal job”, vs career property investors who have a portfolio of properties and can also do up places themselves to reduce costs? The extra stamp duty, and general feeling of hatred from the government to BTL’ers makes me think the ship has sailed on this one for amateurs.
2) Investments. What would a realistic return be on £100k invested, in a medium-risk scenario? If you know nothing about investment, where do you start? How do you even chose a financial advisor, and trust that they are aiming to generate you the most income, vs using your money to generate themselves the most commission? Does anyone have any experience of a Berkshire based IFA that they trust and have had good experience with? Presumably its not advised for a financial noob to just investing here and there without expert help?
Appreciate this is a pretty broad topic, so if nothing else would be interested in some IFA/Fund manager contacts in the area that could give professional advice…
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