Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Paul Pickering. Now, Paul is a guy who's got a lot going on in his life. He has got a little girl who's two and a half years old. He's just had a little boy with his wife who is currently four weeks old, it's also his birthday on the day we recorded this. So massive Happy birthday to you. Paul is in the process of transitioning out of his career in the military and he's just going into business with a builder that he's been working with for the last couple...

Join me today as I discuss the recent sale of a significant property in our portfolio - one of our first-ever HMOs. Selling properties is not something we usually do, so I’m diving deep into the reasons behind this decision and exploring what made this particular project a candidate for selling, what the process of selling looked like, and of course, how much we actually sold it for! ===============================Join our exclusive mastermind group for experienced property investors looking...

Today I’m delighted to be joined by Jane Scroggs, returning to the show after a couple of years since her last appearance, not to talk about property this time, but about her business Beam, which supports property investors with her team of UK based virtual assistants and property specialists.  Jane is  a real pro when it comes to outsourcing, delegating, and generally helping you free up your time from the day to day admin of running a property business so that you can focus on the real...

Michael Lawson is a Dubai based investor who rapidly scaled his portfolio whilst holding down a successful career and living about 3,000 miles away - and when I say rapidly, I’m talking to the tune of 15+ new purchases per year.  How does he do this?  Well it’s a family business, and he has his mum back on the ground looking after more of the customer facing tasks while he focuses on the business growth and strategy; he keeps his attention on just two postcodes in Fife that he knows like the...

This week, I’m sharing our story of how we got into property full time - thanks to HMOs.  During the episode, I share our background before we discovered HMOs, including our corporate jobs, early flips, and our limited single let experience, as well as the progress we've made with HMOs - from our first accidental 3 bedroom HMO in 2009 to our first intentional HMO in 2015, and beyond. I talk about the time required to create career replacing income from HMOs, and tackle the question of...

This is possibly my most awkward interview to date, because Jerry is a true expert when it comes to commercial property investing and I spent the whole time trying to think of answers beyond ‘we just make it up as we go along’.  Jerry Alexander is the host of the Commercial Property Investor podcast and invited me on to talk about our own experiences in the world of commercial property investing.  I could talk all day about commercial to residential conversions, and in fact if you’re...

I think you’re going to love today’s episode as I chat with Courtney Bryan about his investment story so far, specifically looking at the details of his first HMO - what worked well, what didn’t go to plan, how he selected his investment area, sourced the deal, and so much more, including all the numbers of that first project.  Courtney mentions our Inside HMO Investing programme a couple of times throughout the interview, and I’m thrilled it’s had such a positive impact on his confidence to...

Since last being on the podcast in 2020, Kim’s business and life have changed dramatically.  From a property perspective, she’s switched her focus from R2R to buying HMOs, giving her much more security for the longer term by actually owning the assets that she’s renting out, although as you’ll hear during the interview, she still obviously has a soft spot for rent to rent and the opportunities that model created for her in the early days.  But more excitingly, at least from my perspective, is...

Today, I’m joined by Jack Smith, and I think you’re going to enjoy this episode. Jack’s an investor who started off flipping houses, after spending time spinning his wheels and getting distracted by all the different investment options that were available to him.   He made a £30,000 profit on his first deal, and quickly moved on to deals 2 and 3, but during his search for good projects, he realised he had a knack for finding off-market deals that were valuable to other people.  His sourcing...

Lauren and Martin Plummer did pretty much everything with their first deal that the mainstream advice tells you not to do.   In their defence, they’d built up some experience from renovating their own home a couple of times before they thought seriously about investing, but as far as first deals go this, was a biggie - the conversion of a period property into 5 flats, including a loft conversion which, as we discuss during the interview, may or may not have been worthwhile.  But despite...

Unicorns really do exist, although the point of today’s interview with Jess Leader is that whilst we can occasionally find those projects that give us all of our money back out, they’re usually pretty rare and we certainly don’t need to focus on them in order to build a life changing income from property.  Jess had completed 7 projects before she finally caught a unicorn on her 8th, and today she gets into the details of what her own investing story has been like.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,...

Sometimes, life doesn't go to plan!  Lawrence got first hand experience of this when he was diagnosed with Lime disease after years of major health issues.  Despite barely being able to get out of bed or walk up a flight of stairs, he focussed first of all on his recovery with the help of functional medicine and a lifestyle overhaul that now sees him spending a 3rd of his time looking after his health and wellbeing, and then on his financial future, ensuring his wife would continue to have...

This episode is from a talk I did a few weeks ago for Tom Dylan and his Cuppa Property network meeting.  In it, I'm sharing my thoughts on succeeding in business when the property market is full of uncertainty. This isn't about how to source deals in a down market, or handling with low valuations, but tips that have stood me in good stead at all stages of our business growth that I hope you can benefit from as well.  Ready to make private finance a focus in your property business? Join our...

Are you living in a different location to the one you want to invest in? Do you wonder why renovation projects always seem to be so inefficient, and wonder what can be done to improve things? Have you ever thought about making the move from single lets to HMOs?  If any of these questions are on your mind, then today’s episode is for you as I’m joined by Howard Giblin, an investor who recently made the switch from his stable single let portfolio to the higher rewards of student HMOs;...

Private finance continues to be a huge focus area for loads of you - or at least it’s something that you WANT to focus on in your business.  It’s the subject of today’s podcast, as I outline the 4 steps of your marketing plan that you need to be thinking about to bring investors into your business. In fact it’s pretty much the 4 steps to market anything in your business, whether that’s your serviced accommodation properties or your property management services, so keep that in mind as I...

This is a quick intro to a relatively long podcast I recorded just before Christmas with Paul Lanfear.  For a change, it was Paul asking me the questions for his own podcast, The Property & Investor Podcast, with a particular focus on burnout, how to cope with it and how to come back from.  It’s something we’ll all experience at some point as we try to grow our business, and I think it’s important to shine light on some of these less instagrammable moments that we experience so that if...

Nikki and her husband Mark have got over 35 years experience in the property world through their construction business, creating bespoke homes for their clients.  But in 2020 during the first lockdown they decided it was time to put their experience of developing properties for other people to better use for themselves, and started to build their own recurring income by investing in their own deals.  They joined our Inside HMO Investing programme, and since then they’ve moved quickly,...

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a great 2022, but the reality is many of us didn't. And unfortunately, I don't see 2023 being much better, in terms of market stability or certainty.  There will be challenges ahead, but challenges also mean opportunity.  This is my pep-talk to myself to set myself up for a successful 2023, and I hope it inspires you as well.  Ready to make private finance a focus in your property business? Join our free training on February 16th at...

Today’s guest is Lee Chaloner, one half of passive.property if you’re on the Instagrams. Along with his wife Ceri, they’ve been building a portfolio since 2019 in and around Wrexham in North Wales.   I’ve got a lot of admiration for these guys - they’ve taken a long term view to building their property income, and only recently started to think about scaling back their day jobs as their business gets to a point where it can sustain them and still allow them to grow.  They started off...

Candice & Dan, are still pretty new to the property world, but with a couple of deals under their belts their on the right path and by the sounds of it, doing all the right things.  It was great to hear about their progress so far and some of the decisions they’ve made - like why they started out investing in flats even though they don’t think they’re the best long term investment; how they’re balancing the time requirements of investing along with days jobs, and how they made the...

As we transition back to the UK for winter, back into our winter schedule, and back into a regular podcast calendar, I thought it was long overdue to provide an update on our own projects.    There are a few specific aspects I want to call out on certain projects in more detail, like how we saved almost £40,000 with our approach to a planning application on IPI Carrwood; and why we’ve been forced to go from plan A to plan C on IPI Washway, so I’ll do that in upcoming episodes, but for today...

Today I’m delighted to be talking with Jackie Tomes - a favourite of mine in the property world who has built an amazing portfolio and property business along with husband David. I’m such a fan of hers for a couple of reasons: She is laser focussed on creating a business that works for her, meaning she does exactly what she’s passionate about and outsources everything else; She has created a business that does exactly what it’s supposed to - allow her to live her dream life, which in this...

Today I’m delighted to welcome Saif Derzi back to the show.  He’s been a guest a couple of times now, and since it’s been a while since we released an episode I wanted to start with an update on what’s working for a couple of my favourite investors in the industry.  This week I’m talking to Saif, and next week I’ll be welcoming Jackie Tomes back to the podcast, before hopefully settling into a more traditional routine as we transition back to like in the UK for winter.  Anyway, Saif operates...

Whilst we’re not actively sourcing any deals at the moment - nothing to do with the market, but more from a desire to focus our energy on progressing our current projects as quickly as possible - I know a lot of our listeners, and maybe you as well, are looking to find your next deal in the near future, and as the market continues to evolve, there will be some good opportunities to be had.  In fact I first mentioned these 3 types of deals to follow up on back at the start of the year, but...

Today’s episode was inspired by a masterclass I’m preparing for some of our IPI students, called personal productivity for property investors. And whilst going through it I noticed that the number 3 is a recurring theme - there’s a lot of power to this number from a planning perspective, so I wanted to share some of that with you in the hope that it helps you get more clarity on how to structure your business, your goals, and your productivity for maximum results.  ********* Join our...