Ajay, aged just 34, currently owns about 150 properties, with numbers rising every week. And when he tells you that his aim is to boost that number up to 1,000 properties in the next five years, the equivalent of a large village’s entire housing stock, you find yourself believing him.

He is, after all, one of probably not more than a few hundred people across the UK who have made the transition from small-time owners of one or two homes, rented out on the side to supplement their income, to something far more spectacular.
In the process he has also build up a series of lucrative sidelines in property-related services, from maintaining a website and dispensing twice-daily newsletter tips to subscribers, writing books on how to invest in housing, to finding other people residential properties for a fee.

Yet the lessons learned by Ajay are universal. They apply just as much to people who are starting out on the buy-to-let path as they do for people ready to move on to the next stage.
Moreover, in common with tens of thousands of other property owners who became buy-to-let investors, his conversion to serial ownership of bricks and mortar was accidental, a by-product of needing to find a tenant for his own home.

The first property
In fact, when Ajay graduated from college in London in 1993, his first ambition was the music scene. “I wanted to pursue a music career, but although I was moderately successful, I could not earn a living from it,” he confessed.

So he decided to buckle down and train as a chartered accountant, working for the well-known firm, Deloitte & Touche.

It was while at Deloitte, in the second year of his three-year accountancy course, that Ajay, in common with many other twentysomethings, decided to buy his first property, a two-bedroom ex-local authority flat in Harlow, Essex.

The flat cost £49,000, of which he put up £500. The rest he borrowed from a bank.
Ironically, within a short time Ajay decided he did not like living there on his own.
“I did not really gel with the idea of having a home, so I decided to move out and live with friends,” he recalled.
“I then rented out the flat and was making about £100 a month on top of the mortgage. I called it ‘beer money’ at the time.”

The second, third and additional properties
But realising that this “beer money” was a potentially lucrative proposition spurred Ajay on.
He saved up for a second deposit and in 1998 bought a large five-bedroom house in Harlow for £53,500, which he also rented out.

Seeing how successful his efforts were, he continued saving and, one year later, bought his third property.
At that point it became increasingly obvious that, although now a successfully qualified chartered accountant, there was money to be made from concentrating on what previously had been a sideline. “I was starting to take an income of about £500 to £600 a month and it snowballed from there,” he said.

What also helped was the development of a genuine buy-to-let mortgage market.
Until now, it had been possible to go to a bank and borrow the money to fund a purchase. All you needed was a good business plan to put to the bank manager and the money was yours.

Ajay’s tips for the budding buy-to-let investor
Along the way, Ajay has also picked up a few tips for anybody looking to enter the buy-to-let market.
1 Don’t buy brand new flats off-plan
“People buy them and when you ask them what the yield is, they talk about the potential growth in value. This is the wrong way to look at it.”

2 Steer clear of Dubai
“People talk about Dubai as if it is the next big thing. But you won’t find lenders willing to offer a buy-to-let mortgage on properties out there.”

3 Do not furnish your flat
“The minute you start doing that, you get tenants calling up, complaining that their pillow case is ripped. Far better to allow them to impose their on character on the property.”

4 Avoid students
“They are young, away from home for the first time and they have no commitment to your property. You are getting not one set of tenants in a property but three or four separate ones. That said, if the rental yield is high - like 25% - disregard this rule. And the previous one, as student properties need to be furnished.”

5 Working tenants are not always best
“Most people survive from paycheck to paycheck. If they lose their job, it becomes much harder for them to pay the rent. But if you take a DSS tenant, the rent is stable and their circumstances rarely change.”

source: http://money.uk.msn.com/Mortgages/BuyToLet/article.aspx?cp-documentid=481267

I cant wait to finish school o!

You think real estate speculation is the ideal way to make money? (I need to read the article soon )

Yea read the article first
remember its the U.K and there's a[i] massive shortage [/i] of housing over here. its not speculation its real!
the money wont come flooding in immediately but in the long run it oh boy!

Real Estate is cyclical and should be considered as a long term investment. I have a two bed house in the south east area of London, I was lucky to have purchase this house sometimes in 2003 and it currently has an equity of roughly £25,000.  I don't believe you can go wrong with real estate anywhere in the world.

Seun:

You think real estate speculation is the ideal way to make money? (I need to read the article soon )

Its not real estate speculation, its Buy-To-Let property business where the Tenants pay your Mortgage for you and the value of the property appreciates at the same time. In the  long-run you are sitting on heavy positive equity and a steady cash-flow from rental income. Its just like the game of "Monopoly",where you leverage your acquired property to gain more and more.