I'm a software engineer in London, UK. I just turned 27. The past 5 years, I have put as much as I can into paying off my student loan (that is from another country) and have only just cleared the entire loan amount. I am able to save around £800 - £1000 a month now, after all the expenses.
Few of my friends have bought houses with mortgage, and are seem to be doing rather well, with most of them renting out spare rooms. I don't quite understand a lot of how stock markets and trading etc works, but I'm hesitant to invest in stocks for the fear of losing everything.
My flatmate thinks this is a terrible time to be buying properties in the UK and his explanation to that is the UK property market are absurdly high and will be crashing a lot very soon. Admittedly, he's been saying that for the past 4 or so years I've known him and it's yet to happen now. He quotes a lot of references from a lot of people I have never heard about. He works as an accountant for NHS so I presume he understand finances a lot more than I do, after all, I understand computers way more than he does. He's trying to get me to invest in Gold and Silver (but mostly silver), but I neither know anything about gold or silver, nor know anyone who takes this approach.
At 27 (not particularly young), What is the best way to go about investing / saving up with the intention of:
- Making some extra income each month - either by rents, interests, dividends, or by any other means, (to help me save more...)
- If possible, have medium term commitment
Is buying a property now with the intention of selling it in a couple of years for profit (and repeat until I have substantial amount to invest in something big) a bad idea? If it is, what else can I safely invest in?
Thank you