You see it all the time. Particularly if you are browsing property-related content on the internet, and those little gremlins that very few of us truly understand then “helpfully” direct your eyeballs to the highest bidder whilst you enjoy all these “free” sites that are happy to suck your time, “manage” your dopamine levels, and the likes. You know them - I won’t name them; I don’t have to.

Let’s get the pedantic points out of the way first. Firstly, the same people that tell you that “time is money” and that you should “leverage your money by paying for their expertise” (often in things they haven’t really done, but let’s not dwell on that). Then, they tell you that you don’t NEED money for property deals - because you can do them with “no money down”.

This is a lie, of course. Contracts need considerations, and in property those considerations are “money”. Even if an option contract works based on £1, and you are going to completely wing it and not use a professional to draft it - you still need that £1, and the paper to print it on or the computer to write the document on, etc. There’s no such thing as “no money down”.

Having said that, stop right there. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There’s “infinitesimal money down” (yes, salespeople and marketeers, I realise that this doesn’t sell courses) and there’s also “none of your own money down” - of course there is. Both take skill, expertise, time and effort. Both involve risk, considerable risk, which you need to understand, quantify, measure and manage.

Let’s just check my actual experience here, to see if I really should be commenting on this. 750+ UK property transactions, mostly to hold. “Infinitesimal money down” a number of times. Ending day one with more money than I started it after a transaction has actually released net funds on day one. Eight figures of JV funded financing, equity shares and debt arrangements. Seems reasonable, I hope you agree.