Parmi Janagle – July 2008 - Short-listed as a Finalist in the National Landlord & Buy-to-Let Awards 2009
Parmi Janagle dreamt of being a property tycoon. He quit his career in pharmaceutical sales and marketing and bought 12 properties over the course of four months using his hard-earned savings of £12,000 as deposits. But in no time, he found his dreams disappearing as fast as his money – as he was forking out an incredible £4,000 month to meet rental shortfall. The property club he had bought from had over-promised and under-delivered. But, amazingly, he managed to turn his fortune round to owning a £2 million pound property portfolio – within six months. Today he reveals how.
“Everyone I met seemed to have property they were renting out, even the taxi driver,” said Parmi, 39, who lives with his wife Neena and their two children in Sutton Coldfield.
“So a year and a half ago, I decided to take a career break and invest some of my hard-earned savings in property. I saw an advert for a property club offering off plan developments with discounts of up to 20 per cent. You only had to put down £1,000 to reserve one, then pay 10 to 15 per cent once it was built and take a buy-to-let mortgage to cover the rest of the costs. The idea was the value would go up once the property was built and the developers would look after letting it out.”
Parmi’s 12 properties included everything from luxury apartments to four bedroom houses from Solihull to Leeds, Sheffield, Hull and Hartlepool. But his downfall was that once the properties were complete, there became a glut of rental property on the market compared to the number of tenants wanting homes and so he couldn’t get the rental figures he was promised.
“Even when I looked at the different options such as selling, I realised the value of the properties had gone down and I’d have lost even more. At my worst point I was spending £4,000 a month to cover mortgage paymentsand fees,”said Parmi.
Then Parmi read an article about a free property investment workshop being hosted by Tigrent Brands Inc. The speaker described Parmi’s situation for him in a nutshell, as an amateur investor who had been seduced by the package rather than seeking out a top quality education from property professionals. Parmi said: “They came up with different strategies for me to work on.
“First of all they told me to draw up a cost sheet so I could see just how bad things really were. Then they suggested I used my experience of sales and marketing to come up with ideas of ways to market the properties to prospective tenants myself. I found I was able to market the properties to the local press, create flyers and come up with special offers, such as including gas and electric, and multi-lets to those who wanted to share.”
As a result, Parmi not only managed to secure much-needed tenants, he was able to increase his rental prices by an average of 61 per cent.
“In six months I managed to turn myself around from being £4,000 in debt a month to owning a £2 million property portfoliowhich gives me a monthly income and is now my full time job.”
