13-05-2025
I had five buy-to-lets but now I'm selling up to invest instead
For Jake Fletcher [surname changed], it wasn't when the communal oil stack leaked into his rental flat the first time, or even the second time. And it wasn't when the bathroom in the flat above flooded. It was a call about a broken toilet while he was on holiday that helped him to realise he didn't want to be a landlord any more.
Fletcher, 32, has always been interested in property. He and his wife bought their first home, a two-bedroom flat in Surrey, for £190,000 when they were 21. Just a few years later, they snapped up their first buy-to-let.
'It was in lockdown in 2020. We found a property on the Isle of Wight that had been on the market for quite a
