The property cycle is a powerful concept: one that can give you the confidence to act when others are fearful, and avoid making moves (like most investors do) at exactly the wrong time. I'm joined this week by the UK's leading expert on the property cycle – Akhil Patel – to talk about what the cycle can tell us about where we are right now, and how you can tell what's going to happen next. See this episode on the Property Geek website: https://www.propertygeek.net/podcast/property-cycle

For many investors, finance is a critical part of the property growth plan – and it can also be one of the more painful constraints if you can't find your way through the mortgage minefield. So it's always important to keep on top of what's happening in the mortgage market, and never more so than now – with lenders grappling to come to terms with a whole new set of restrictions that have just come into effect, and more to come later this year. In this episode I'm joined by mortgage advisor...

We're back! In this first episode, I run through what to expect in this new series of the Property Geek Podcast. It's a reboot not just for the podcast, but also a time for property investors to be reconsidering how they operate in general. So in this series, we'll be talking about everything that's changing: lending restrictions, legislation, incorporation, and ticking over into a new phase of the property cycle... See this episode on the Property Geek...

Anyone can pick a property off Rightmove and negotiate 5% off the asking price. You know that the real profits are made when you can reliably track down those elusive "below market value" or lease option opportunities...but where do you even start? My guest, Mark Dunsmore, used to be an estate agent (don't hold it against him) before he learnt to apply the same skills to sourcing properties for investors. Having built up a nationwide sourcing business, he's now teaching other investors how...

They say that you make your money when you buy, not when you sell – but there's no doubt that how you approach selling a property can make a huge difference to the result you achieve. My guest this week, Anna Hart, specialises in helping her clients to sell at the best price within their desired timescale – and avoiding the nightmare scenario of having a property languish on the market. Even if selling couldn't be further from your mind, our discussion around presenting a property and doing...

Another way to (indirectly) make money from property is to lend money to others who need financing for development projects. Alternatively, you might be looking to borrow from private individuals in order to do more deals without relying on expensive bridging finance. In this episode, I talk about my recent experience of lending money out. If you've got spare cash on the sidelines, I cover how to lend safely and reduce your risk as far as possible. On the other side, if you want to raise...

Rupert Chapman is relatively new to the property game but is a veteran of business – and as such, he's got a broader perspective than most on the changes the property industry is going through. If you're concerned by what lies ahead, you should find this conversation reassuring and inspiring – encouraging you to appreciate the increasingly rare value of your knowledge and skills, and to take practical steps to respond to our current challenges. See this episode on the Property Geek...

Adding properties to your collection is fun, but for all of us there's some deeper reason why we're investing in the first place – whether that's to leave your job, provide a pension or just to give yourself a second income. That's why I like to look at property in the context of financial planning more broadly, and I'm joined this week by Stuart Bailey from Wealth Help to do exactly that. We get into setting plans, allocating assets, and – importantly – knowing when to stop! See this...

Jethro East dived head-first from a successful music career into property development – and it wasn't long before he made his first six-figure profit from a single buy-to-sell project. If that sounds easy, it's because I missed out the builders walking out in the middle a project, the months spent living in a half-finished house with no heating, the routine three hours of sleep and the rats drowning in the toilet. He's made extraordinarily rapid progress and has huge plans for the future,...

When people start out in property, it's a common long-term goal to replace their income and become financially independent. My guest this week, Mark Coates, has accomplished exactly that – in only 4 years, while holding down a full-time job! He didn't start with a huge amount of money, or any experience: he just put together a solid plan, and worked hard at developing the skills and knowledge he needed to execute upon it. The question is: how did he manage to achieve his goals in such a...

It's the start of a new series and a new year! As a prelude to the fantastic interviews that are lined up for future weeks, I wanted to start with a summary of where we are as investors following the many shocks of 2015. We've had plenty of nasty surprises, but there's plenty of potential upside too – if you approach investing in the right way... (As you might be able to hear, I had a very sore throat when recording this – a less painful-sounding voice will resume next week!) See this...

Do you associate your local council with costing you money or making you money? Yes, me too - but my guest this week, Mark Morris, has found three ways of turning his local authority into an important ally. He secures excellent yields from accommodating Housing Benefit tenants, has properties where the council pays a guaranteed stress-free rent even if they're empty...and has even scored free improvements worth thousands of pounds. In our conversation, Mark shares how he makes it all work -...

You can buy a property for as little as £20,000 (probably less) in some parts of the country. So if you're tight for funds to get started with...should you? Even if you've got more cash to spread around, should you take the view that when prices are so low and yields are so high, you should just go out and buy a load of them? There are a couple of obvious reasons why that's not the right move for everyone, and also a couple of less obvious ones - and it's those that I talk about in this...

You may have bought a property in the past hoping that there will be regeneration to the local area...but chances are you're not secretly hoping that regeneration will involve demolishing your property! Well, that notion might seem less ridiculous than it first appears when you've finished listening to this week's podcast. My guest is Dan Knowles, a Chartered Surveyor who specialises in the field of Compulsory Purchase. Dan's company helps people whose homes are the subject of a Compulsory...

Property investment pays off in terms of capital growth and rental income - but the proportion in which you’ll benefit from each is determined to a large extent by exactly what you buy. In this episode I share a personal case study to make this point - which demonstrates why it’s so important to have thought-through goals in mind before you get started. Plus there’s a listener question that takes us into deeply geeky economic territory, and tips on dealing with estate agents from a hostage...

I give this whole episode over to an in-depth case study of a listener’s project - which serves as equal parts inspiration and warning. Ryan Slater spotted an excellent opportunity which, on paper, would create a big monthly profit without leaving any of his own money in the deal…but he nearly lost his entire deposit when his mortgage was unexpectedly refused. When the project is finished Ryan will have achieved a fantastic result - but the end result alone masks the grit, resilience and...

The ROI of investing in property is clearly better than leaving cash in the bank - but as investors we clearly need to keep some cash on hand to cover any voids or unexpected spending. The question is…how much? In this episode, I talk about 4 different models you can use to determine the size of your “emergency fund” - as well as answering a listener question about where we are in the property cycle, and announcing a new audio book! See this episode on the Property Geek...

Insuring your property portfolio is a necessary evil. It’s nobody’s idea of fun, but as we’ve got to do it anyway we might as well know how to do it quickly, cheaply, and in a way that won’t cause any problems if we need to make a claim. That’s why I invited Jason McClean from The Property Insurer onto the podcast. Jason is a portfolio landlord as well as running an insurance company, so he’s perfectly placed to tell us what we should be thinking about when insurance renewal time rolls...

How many people do you know whose first investment property had 8 bedrooms? What about people who bought that huge house while still at university, having actually chosen where to study based on the prospects for the local property market? Unless you know Johann Rowan, I’m pretty sure the answer will be “none”. In this episode I talk to Johann about his amazing journey from foreign student to a full-time student landlord with 10 properties, and find out how he’s still managing his whole...

Repairs and maintenance are part and parcel of being a landlord - they’re not anyone’s favourite part of the job, but it makes financial (and ethical) sense to keep the property in good repair and the tenant happy. Now, a change to the law means that it’s more important than ever: if a repair request isn’t adequately dealt with, it might be impossible to take back possession of the property for six months. My guest, Rajeev Nayyar from property software company Fixflo, explains all -...

To most residential property investors (me included), commercial property seems like another world. But mixed-use developments bridge those worlds, providing a useful stepping stone for residential developers to stretch themselves - and can be highly profitable in their own right. To find out more, I’m joined by Phil Stewardson - one of the most popular guests we’ve had on the show - to share over a decade of experience with these kinds of projects, and give you pointers on how to get...

Do you have oceans of time, and you don’t know how to fill it all? Thumbs starting to ache from twiddling them so much? Thought not: that’s why this episode is designed to help you free up more time, and get more results out of the time you’ve already got. Time is the #1 barrier that gets brought up by investors I speak to, and it’s the only thing you can’t get more of. So invest 20 minutes with me on this episode, and I’ll offer some suggestions which I hope will free up a lot more for you...

My experience is in simple buy-to-let and buy-to-sell projects, but I know there are plenty of listeners out there who are doing - or aspire to do - far more ambitious projects! Those projects need to be financed, of course - so in this episode I grabbed development finance broker Adrian Cormican to find out how lending works in the development market. See this episode on the Property Geek site: https://propertygeek.net/podcast/finance-development-projects

I wanted to take 5 minutes out to let you know about a huge new project we’re working on over at The Property Hub. That project is…a quarterly magazine for property investors! Sounds crazy? Old fashioned? Expensive? In this episode I explain why it actually makes total sense - and why you might want to become a subscriber… See this episode on the Property Geek site: https://propertygeek.net/podcast/new-property-magazine

According to a recent MoneyWeek interview, global demographics mean that we’re heading for an inevitable financial contraction - and our “over-inflated” house prices could be heading for a 50% drop as a result. In this episode, I get deep into an analysis of whether this is true. While I don’t think that UK house prices as a whole are likely to see anything like these kinds of falls, the theory of “the great unwinding” does have some interesting takeaways that we as investors can put to good...