17 Sandon Street, Liverpool L8. Asking price £250,000. Our best and final: £311,500.

Fifteen offers on the table. The vendor, a housing association, went with someone else.

On a normal strategy the building would have done around £4,000 a month gross. Run the way we run our specialised deals, £8,000 to £9,000.

We didn't get it.

How we get to a best and final number: on this one it was four flats. We valued each one conservatively — a fully tenanted one-bed flat in that part of Liverpool, minimum figure we'd support was £120,000, so £480,000 for the building. Asking price £250,000. Even at £311,500 we still had roughly £168,500 of headroom before purchase costs and the cost of repurposing it — after those, closer to £80,000. The real reason we pushed was the location: long term, that building is worth £600,000 to £800,000.

We don't commission a formal valuation on every deal. At around £400 a time, across the number of buildings we look at every week, it would eat the margin before we'd bought anything — competition is too heavy to slow down like that. So we use our own conservative comps instead, and we stay disciplined at whatever number that gives us.

Never get in love with a property. The moment you're bidding to win the building instead of bidding to hit your numbers, you've already lost the negotiation — even if you win the property.

There is always something better coming your way.

If you want a second pair of eyes on your own numbers before you go best and final on something, book a call.