The national debt is £2.73 trillion, or 94% of the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The baby-boomer generation is leaving the work force, going into care homes, or dying off. Today’s Millennials can not get onto the property ladder due to high purchase prices and associated costs, while Baby Boomers delay selling until their 80s due to health reasons or death, thus causing a bottleneck in the market. Concurrently, large corporate landlords have been buying up UK housing while new development is mostly focused on turning a man’s “house” into a man's “shoebox apartment”.

With the above just a fraction of today’s playing field for property investors, you can be well assured that government will continue to squeeze and control you as a landlord with further rules, regulations and taxes as you pay more and more for their gross incompetence and inflatory policies that affect building costs.

“David, why is it a race? We all know that property is for the long term.” As with the waterlogged football pitch, you and your team may have prepared for fine weather, a smooth and fast-paced field, ideal for a passing and attacking game. But instead, 30 minutes before kick-off, there is a deluge and everything you expected has changed and you are not prepared. You, as a property investor, know that “what goes up must come down”, so have you prepared for that?

I’ve seen it before in past market cycles, the majority do not have any strategy up their sleeve when there is a sudden change in the market, and downward changes happen much faster and untimely than upward ones. Your “race to the finish” is to get your profit into your pocket before any downward changes due to sudden changes in the playing field. Yes, over the long term, property has performed well in the island nation with limited land, but it doesn’t make for pretty reading when property investors had an imbalanced portfolio that couldn’t withstand the “financial downpour”.

After 40 years on this playing field, I’ve learnt to spot the warning signals. As a landlord, you carry weight in many forms — debt, sudden repair bills, and the constant cash flow pressures. At a recent property meeting, one landlord admitted he’d been wiped out this year simply to cover unexpected repairs.

Some investors try to manage that risk with short-term projects like renovations and quick flips. Cash keeps flowing, the exposure is limited to one property, and the holding risk is passed on quickly to the next person. But I prefer to avoid carrying that weight altogether.

Instead, I use a wide range of vendor finance strategies (beyond just purchase options) to invest without mortgages, deposits, or obligations. As a middleman investor, I work with sellers to sell and buyers to buy, while focusing on higher-margin opportunities close to home in London. I’ve seen this “movie” before, and this remains one of the lowest-risk ways to invest with minimal cost and no debt.