However, as a full-time mother she needed to find the financing to fund the purchases, so Christina worked with a mortgage broker and has used financing from Together to buy the properties.
While buyers can use mortgages to purchase properties at auction, the short time from winning a sale to completion means it is often not possible to finalise a traditional home loan quickly enough.
As a result, a popular option for auction buyers is to use a bridging loan to cover the period while a mortgage is processed, and then repay it once the full home loan is approved.
“A broker explained our options to us and buy-to-let seemed like the one that would work for us,” Christina says.
“I use short-term bridging loans to buy and refurbish a new property to increase its value. I then pay back the bridging loan with a longer-term buy-to-let mortgage once the property is renovated and we have tenants in.”
Christina now works full time with her husband running their buy-to-let business, E4 Property LTD. Through the company she takes a salary of £12,500 then receives the rest in dividends. Rental income from the properties cover landlord expenses such as repairs and mortgages.
The houses they have bought have been in various states of dilapidation, she says, with some needing more work than others – although they have managed to avoid buying any that require serious structural repairs.
“We now have the turnaround time for renovations down to about four weeks,” she adds.
Most of the properties they’ve bought are in the Greater Manchester area. The couple favour the area of Middleton in the north-west of the city, which they think offers good potential for value growth. Being from Moss Side herself, to the south, Christina wanted to buy property around the city she grew up in and use her local knowledge to inform her buying strategy.