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All you need to do is to join our mailing list to receive regular investment updates. When you see one that you think you can offer to your friends, family and other contacts, download the brochures and price list form our web-site and show your contacts. Alternatively, you can email us and request ''blanks'' (direct from our advice email) and we will send you the brochure without our Logo on. To be successful, you need to have a group of people that you will be confident will work with you as their 'team leader' and invest either individually or as a syndicate in property residential investments. Your point of contact with us will be one of the people listed on our 'Contact Us' page. Enquiries you receive will be directed to them by you. Its unlikely we shall be contacting your people; unless you specifically want us to. As you filter all enquiries, your knowledge will build up and you will, in a short time, be able to handle many of the general enquiries directly.
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We put all of the details that we have available on the download section of our Development section, that investors can access, upon very simple, basic registration (click here). There is little else we can advise about the developments, however, you are welcome to contact us. You will be the main point of contact between your investors and ourselves.
Well, if you don't try you won't know will you? We cannot say you will be able to carry off the sale to your friends, but lets face it; the property business is the business everyone wants to be in. Since there is no cheaper way for anyone to get in that the way we re-package investments, if you can't make it work this way, then there is nowhere else to go. Since there is no financial risk, why not give it a go? You would be best downloading brochures and reading the FAQ's and tons of other information contained within the web-site. The more you know, the more confidence your buyer will have in that ''you know what you are doing''. Some of our agents are highly successful indeed, they charge their clients a fee on top of our initial pre-payments. Some then give their clients a refund or partial refund of their commission at completion, some do not. Its up to you.
4) What other rules are there?
Hopefully, not too many! You will only be allowed to offer opportunities and information supplied from this web-site. The details cannot be altered or embellished, or adjusted in any way. We must know at the point of reservation that you are the 'commission agent' for the buyer. We are not able to unpick everything after the reservation has been accepted. You must not under any circumstances pass off as UKPW or offer your clients anything else that proports to come from UKPW which it does not. Other than not advertising this opportunity, we cant think of any other 'rules'.
5) What and when do I get paid?
The average fee is £2,000 GBP* (USD$3,500) per sale at the time of the sale. In this business, its all medium/long term. Even the developers have to wait until completion before they get their pay-day. The commission earned by you is paid (by the Lawyer) direct to you at completion. How it works in reality is, you will build up 'completions' over your first few months and the future completions will start coming in on a rolling basis - hopefully for years thereafter. The amount you get paid for a 'sale' is £2,000 flat fee. This is subject to an average property being sold of around £160,000 or more mortgage/selling price. You also get paid if you bring developments or development opportunities to us. You can; on a property you both brought to us and sold, get two bites of the cherry.- click here. *There are some occasions where we sell new properties for less than £160,000, or in which case we do not have the same margin and there will be a pro-rata settlement. These are in the small minority of cases, as most of our sales are for more than £160,000. Incl VAT, if not VAT registered or non-UK; payment will be net of UK VAT rate of 17.5%.
6) What if my contact deals direct with you?
We would have no idea if someone that approached us, would do so as a result of you advising them, unless they specifically mentioned it. Therefore we would not know to advise you and the result would be - no commission on the sale. What you need to do, is ensure you are the filter for your enquiries (as mentioned earlier) where you are the co-ordinator for your group, then we will know to credit you with the fee. Once we have their name on the system, we will then know that their purchases should attract a commission for you. For your own financial safety, you need to keep control of your group. You can't stop them asking questions directly, but you can co-ordinate their reservations and ensure you get credited. Its not in our interests to 'cut you out' as you are unlikely to offer us more business. However, we would need to know at the point of reservation that a Commission Agent is involved.
7) What can I offer my contacts?
You can offer them anything you see on this web-site, including the downloads. You have access to a rather unique product/service and what you need to focus on are the following:-
8) Do you have non-UK properties?
Well, maybe from time to time we will; but we generally don't as although we do get offered non-UK properties from time to time, they really do not represent the same good investment value that UK Investments offer. Look at this typical comparison.
In simple terms, for every non-UK property, you could have 3 UK properties with the same cash. We are not saying ''all non-UK are rubbish'' but generally, the amount of cash you need to non-UK properties is significantly more than that required for UK properties.
9) What's all this about £1,000,000 of property, but no mortgages then?
Again, its quite a simple concept. If you reserve a property in year 3 - say as planning permission has been granted, prior to the two year build, and you get an immediate discount (say year 2 price), then that's your contract price; the year 2 price although your value in year 5 is the current market value. (Click Here) - Click Here for Currency Converter. Now, because no-one, even if they wanted to, can get a mortgage on a property until completion - in year 5, the property is yours for 2/3 years having had the original discount and 2/3 years of capital growth - all without a single mortgage in sight. You have a choice in year 5 and that is:- I reserved a property in year 3 for, but for year 2 price = £120,000, its now year 5 and ready for completion.
Now, think for a moment. Rent it out.......... hang on a minute......... you mortgage is based on £120,000 and someone else ''normally'' if you like, has a mortgage based on £180,000 - who wins? That's just one property with a value of £140,000 at reservation (that you get an immediate £20k on by reserving at £120k), now, multiply that by 6 and there is your £1m. But don't forget, also multiply all the other figures by 6! (or by 10, or whatever your portfolio is). Then what you MUST do - is compare that with your Pension, that you have perhaps taken 20/25 years to fund. We will leave the conclusion to you.
10) So! I have to wait years & years for my money do I?
OK, its like this. If you are in a hurry to make £4k next month, you have not found the right web-site. You can make £4k by next week, by getting your contacts to reserve 2 properties between them, but it will not be in cash. Not all developments go on for a couple of years, some are within 6 months and some are ready at the moment, so in those cases, your commission will be paid a lot quicker. Its like we said earlier, as time goes by you will see that you are building up future commissions that then they start flowing on an on-going basis for as long as you have built up commissions
11) What happens if I want to stop acting as Agent?
Basically, you just stop. You don't need to let us know. As far as commissions are concerned, these will still be paid at completion by the conveyancing Lawyer. They will have your details and send you the payment as originally envisaged.
12) Do we need to get a mortgage?
If the property is not going to be completed for, say, 6 months or more, then at this stage, you don't need to apply for a mortgage. If you do and the development runs a little late (as often they tend to), your mortgage may expire and it could cost you money to get it renewed. We therefore advise investors to arrange their mortgages about 6 months or so from the anticipated completion date, which may be different from your originally advised date. It is quite normal to make tens of thousands of pounds on a property, without actually having to buy it - when it gets nearer to completion, you can (in most cases) sell to the end buyer. Its their mortgage that comes in and clears your obligation. We would need to talk this through though, there are other considerations.
13) We need a mortgage on this property, can you help me?
UKPW is not authorised by the FSA to offer mortgage advice, but we do work with one of the UK's largest and most respected (full authorised) advisers. They are a national Company with an international reputation. For mortgage facilities and other finance, we would appoint our advisers to work with you and pre-qualify your clients for a mortgage, should they need to get a mortgage. Of course, if you have your own advisers, then that's fine, you can use them.
14) My group are interested in buying non-UK properties, can you help/advise?
Unless you see a site on here, then we can't really offer any guidance at all. Certainly many people invest very successfully in properties all over the World. We do on occasion take a non-UK site, but as we said before, cash requirements and often 3 times what is required in the UK. There are other matters that we have found out over the years too, and it revolves around 'Good Title'. Clearly there are many countries that can offer Good Title on properties that are sold, but there are also very many that ''appear to'' but in the end, you may end up with a worthless piece of paper, as ''someone else's piece of paper'' out ranks yours! Don't make the same mistake as a lot of people make when they say to us ''But Romania (or Bulgaria, or wherever) are coming into the EU!'' as if that will; like a magic wand, mean everything is OK. You cannot know that. What you do know is that if you buy a property in the UK and you have a piece of paper to prove it, no-one can come along with another piece of paper you didn't know about and out-rank you. In 2005, in Spain (yes Spain Europe, the one that has been in the wonderful ''EU'' for a few decades) currently has people going around to investors/residents that bought properties decades ago and doing just that - not only that, they are bulldozing - quite legally - peoples houses and even charging them for the privilege. In Jan 2005 Bulgaria was on a UK Channel 4 programme A Place in the Sun, and came top of the investment league for capital growth over the next 10 years. What the programme didn't make clear was the 400% return on a £5,000 home equals £20,000, where as a lower % growth of, say 300% (what they had the UK down as) but on a UK average home of £200,000, would mean a £400,000 profit, not £20,000.
Additionally, there was no mention of other major pitfalls with their ''winner'' Bulgaria (perhaps they did not know) during a recent BBC Radio4 programme (From our Own Correspondent Romania Special, broadcast 4th Feb. 2006) it was reported that the ownership of around 30% of homes in Bucharest (capital) is disputed! No wonder we steer clear of all the myriad of rules, laws and regulations of 200 countries.
Not really, its something that is best done in your spare time; its quite likely you could easily make more money than your ''day job'' - but then since we don't know what you currently do that would be impossible to say really. How much you earn, and if/when you could give up your job, depends upon many things, including:-
This is a commission based opportunity, there will be invoices flying about between us and everything will be above board and in line with any current UK tax rules. If you are domiciled outside of the UK then you will be paid gross in any case and have your own tax authorities to consider.
16) What other opportunities are there for Commission Agents?
You can find sites for us; Discounted properties Property deals similar to the ones you see here. As a guide, any property sales need to come to you with 15% discount or more from the current market price. From this we can construct a sensible offer to our investors, to incorporate fees and deposits paid etc., There really needs to be a minimum of about 10 plots, we wont put 1 or two up - there is too much work involved. You will also need to supply all the details that you see on our brochures. Including ''back ground checks and comparables'' so as we know the offer is genuine. We can help you with this if/when. You will get a finders fee on these properties; averaging about £1,500 per plot. If you are also the seller, you add the sales commission to the finders commission. The specific level of commission will be advised to you at the time; before we take any plots from you. You can then decide what you want to do. If you bring us a development for release, you must not have pre-sold to any UKPW clients you have, before offering the balance to The UKPW - even if these are your personal friends. The rule is, on each case, the whole site is made available to everyone at the same time. No-one has prior notice or an advantage as this is not only morally wrong, but it is also against our Code of Practice.
Land and development sites England & Wales only - click here for further details. Again, we can pay commission on the purchase value of the Land. Work on roughly between 0.75% and 1%; its about right. The thing is - for the right deal, we can move very quickly. If the cheque has to be £25m - £50m don't be shy.
17) OK - I'm interested, what do I do next?
Get in touch, initially by email. Copy & paste into your email then answer the questions below, tell us a bit about yourself and how you see your role as Commissions Agent. (To whom you would sell, how, when etc.,).
We will have a quick look, so you don't need to give us any ''personal'' information - we are just after a guideline. We will then get back in touch with you; probably by email to start with and take it from there. If we move forward, you will be passed to one of the people on the Contact Us page, to take matters further. They will then assist you in your new career.
18) We have now spoken, remind me what I need to do.
Best thing to do is to click here (How it works) and familiarise yourself with the info and links from this page; this is kind of ''the bible''. Most of what you need to learn/know about will be linked from this page. We will allocate you to one of the people shown on the 'Contact Us' page. They will be your point of contact with us, preferably by email. You will feed in enquiries from your clients to them. We don't want to deal directly with your clients, that's your job. Next you need to decide how you present the opportunities to your prospects; download brochures from our web-site, show them our web-site or whatever. There is no financial advantage for your clients to deal directly with us, so as long as you keep close to your people, they will keep close to you and operate through you. Read these supplementary questions, they may assist in you deciding how you want to operate.
How will you know they are my client? If people register with us, as you have through our 'developments here' section; we have no idea who they are as we don't take personal information. Even if they supplied it; our system only retains their email address. They, like you, will get updates as and when a new site is launched. Your job, is to make sure you keep close to your own contacts and talk to them as their local contact - which you will be. You could 'register' your clients name and town with us, so as anytime that persons information came to light, we would know they ''are yours''. When my client reserves, how do you know they are 'mine'? On our Reservation Form (click - see section 5.) you will see the place your name is inserted; when we receive the form, we tie this up and ensure the cash allocation to you is made. We advise the Lawyer and they will pay you directly. If you wish, you can put a 'fee note' into the lawyers for the completion/pay day. If you or your client forgets, then frankly, all you need to do is supply us with the information of their reservation, and we will add your name. Our safeguard is, how would you have known those details? So you will get paid. There is no point in our not adding your name and paying you out; you will be talking to your clients and they are bound to let you know what they are doing. If we don't add your name, how many more sales are you going to make for us? Probably none. Trust, once broken cannot be repaired.
What if my client contact you direct? There is no financial benefit from your client ''buying direct'' as they pay the same price, yes we will keep the £2,000 commission, but the client won't be better off, so there is no incentive really. You, being their contact, will be the person to whom they turn for advice etc., We wont know they are yours, as we have said earlier, so its likely if they send in an enquiry, it will be dealt with. However, as we said earlier, in your conversations with your clients, you will be showing them 'deals' and keeping on top of whether they continue or not - all you do then is drop us a line with the details - and you get paid.
How can I stop them contacting you? Truth is, you can't and you need to chill on this one for all the reasons mentioned above. You will know your clients and what they are doing, won't you? If you have already registered their (very basic) details with us then, there is no issue either. If you have not, but they bought, you will know and you can tell us.
Can I shield my clients from you altogether? Probably no., Well you may, up until the point of reservation, then they have to complete and sign the reservation form along with confirming they have read our Terms of Business. We can't accept reservations on non-standard forms as we have to be sure your client knows under what terms they are proceeding. There is no way around this. This protects them, us and you. Partnerships are not successful if, for the sake of a lousy £2,000 commission, we cut you out. Imagine how many more sales we would miss out on from you? 19) What does it cost me to be a Commission Agent
Essentially, you don't have to put your hand in your pocket for any money at all. Lets say you reserve a property in your name or a name of you and your partner/friend etc., then that would proceed in the normal way. There is no commission paid to you as you are not a Commission Agent, as such. A Commission Agent is someone that sells a property to a 3rd person. If you buy a subsequent property from us in your own name, then we will pay you your own commission back and count that as a commission sale. When your first '3rd party sale*' comes through with your name on the reservation form or as notified by you if your client has 'forgot' to put your name on, then the commission on this sale will be owed to you.
So! No cash is required from you and after your first completion, you are away! On full pay. To recap:
* 3rd party sale = where you have offered our properties to another person and they have reserved one with us.
20) Can I charge my clients a fee?
Of course! But we recommend you keep it 'reasonable' as you don't want to put the client off. Our standard £1,000 fee (or whatever it is) will need to be paid, along with the initial property deposit (between £1,000 and £2,000) and your fee on top. Say our registration fee is a non-standard one of £1,995; you add your fee to this, also say £1,995, which totals £3.990 plus £1,000/£2,000 property deposit. Then you can pay us our fee and keep the rest. You could then offer your client the £2,000 commission we will pay you at completion back, or keep that as well. There is no shame in keeping both fees! You have earned it and your client could not have made so much money for such a little cash outlay. You will, of course, be getting your commission on the sale at completion of the property, therefore there is no need for a large fee at the reservation stage. However, you know your business best and we leave it to you. You will be competing with an industry norm of between 2% and 3% plus VAT of the property value! On top of that the ''industry norm'' also often requires clients to stump their own deposits as well! Sometimes well established Commission Agents already have their fee structure already set up and agreed with the clients, you can just pay us from your fee, and later be reimbursed from your commission. That way, our fee wont be in addition to your normal fees. If you obtain payment by credit card through out card facility, you will need to deduct 3% card fee from your portion of the payment, as we have to make a payment to the merchant for the card service.
21) Do I have to operate in a specific area?
No, your contacts can be UK based or overseas. However, what you cant do, is to advertise the opportunities we have here, anywhere other than within your own contact base. Your contact base can include:-
Your contacts cannot include:-
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