Further signs of a reduction in confidence by UK Buy to let investors are seen by the latest news from the UK’s largest property investment company Inside Track. The property investment organisation which operates weekend-long investment seminars at £2,500 a head announced cuts in its workforce.
Inside Track plans to axe 40 of the company’s 220 employees the cutbacks will affect only the property seminar division of the company. Its three other divisions – a mortgage brokerage called Fuel the property sales arm Instant Access Properties, and AfterCare Solutions support services – will continue operations as before.
Tony McKay managing director “Our seminar company has seen a fall in the number of people who want to invest in the property market for the first time and that is understandable in the current climate,”
Inside Track and its parent company, Instant Access Properties, were believed to be behind one in 10 of all new-build apartment purchases in the UK. Nearly 60,000 people attended Inside Track’s free workshops in the year to March 31, 2007 but that figure was down on the year before, and has fallen further since.
At the workshops, held in hotels around the country, investors are encouraged to spend £2,500 for a single or couple for weekend-long seminars in which they are shown the secrets of property millionaires.
At the paid-for weekend seminars, investors are asked to part with a further fee, typically £5,000 to £10,000 to obtain membership. By becoming a member, investors are given access to the “hottest deals in the UK and overseas”.
The last available figures for the entire Instant Access group – to April 30, 2006 – showed turnover of £44.8m and pre-tax profits of £10.9m, a fall of £1.1m on the previous year.
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