In between series seems like a fitting point to pause to share some of what I have been up to. It’s not only about deals, there is a lot going on in the world of this property investor, so have a listen and find out. From HMOs in Birmingham, to absconding Cornish tenants and finally international investors from at least 4 different continents…not bad for a couple of months in the world of a property investor is it?

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Property Voice Podcast, my name is Richard Brown and as always it is a pleasure to have you join us again today. In between series we get to experiment a little and so I am looking forward to sharing a little from the ‘diary of a property investor’ as I like to call it.

No Casa this week, just me and a brief run through some of what I have been up to in the world of property recently

OK, so as we are in-between series, this allows me to do something a little bit different to the usual in this Property Chatter section. In fact, the idea for today’s show actually comes from a listener, called Sanjay. Now, Sanjay wrote in and asked, ‘why don’t you provide us with an update of what you have been up to?’

Initially, I did wonder whether that was such a good idea, certainly to share each week what I was up to at least. However, I then realised that now and again it could work very well. This way, I get to share something or a summary of key activities and highlights over a period of time of course.

Therefore, I shall start off this feature this time by recapping some of the activities & projects that I have been involved with since the podcast was launched in early April. I won’t go into lots of detail, but enough to give you a flavour of what I shall call ‘the diary of a property investor’.

I am probably not a typical property investor in some respects. For example, I don’t have lots of restrictions on my time, I have a location-independent lifestyle and my interests in property go far beyond simply buy-to-let and landlording.

That all said, here are some of the headlines from the past couple of months:

Landlord accreditation – this might sound surprising…an experienced property investor has just become accredited by a landlord association. In my case, the National Landlord’s Association was my chosen route. However, if you happened to listen to aspects of the first series and the episodes on Lettings & Management in particular, you might recall what my views are. Whilst I do advocate getting accredited by one of the landlord associations as a property investor, I also advocate utilising the services of a professional letting agent, particularly when starting out. This does not mean that we should not get ourselves educated in terms of our responsibilities of course, but we can also leverage the knowledge, skills and experience of the agent and manage them.

That all said, I thought it was high time that I became fully accredited myself and so I embarked on the online accreditation programme, which happened to suit me better than the one-day event, to become accredited. If my memory serves me correctly, there are something like 35 hours of learning in the core program, but the modules can be done much quicker than this, particularly with some experience behind you. So, now I am a fully accredited landlord and now I need to maintain my accreditation with continuous professional development or CPD, which is not too onerous.

HMO Project – another project of mine has been with regard to an HMO conversion that I have undertaken in Birmingham.

Now, it is fair to say that an HMO is far more involved than a single-let property. In this case, there was planning consent required, an HMO licence application and building control sign off for the conversion works. In this particular case, there were also en-suite bathrooms installed into most of the rooms, along with a range of other works to convert a former family home into a 6 or 7 bed HMO. The reason why I say 6 or 7 bed is that the seventh bedroom is contingent on a successful planning application. In fact, a 6-bed conversion is allowed without formal planning under what is terms ‘permitted development’.

After works, the property needs to be tenanted x 6 people, additional services need to be provided, such as broadband, cleaning, gardening and so on. The level of management is much higher than for a single let property, however, so is the revenue. In this case, the average rent for the property as a single let is around £800 per month, whereas with a 6-bed HMO it is in excess of £2800 per month. Yes, there are more costs to take into consideration, such as utility bills, furniture and such like but the net cashflow is still very attractive.

During the past couple of months, I have been dealing with the contractors to remedy their longer than expected snagging list, renew the financing, deal with various council and other bodies with regard to licensing, planning, council tax and building control sign-off and agree some additional works to enhance the structure and value.

At the time of recording, I am in the process of going through an appeal with planning for the 7th bedroom as it was initially declined. The main reason cited was that it is located in what is called an ‘Area of Restriction’, which is different to an Article 4 area, but has some similarities. The issue is that when I undertook the searches with the council via my solicitor, that they omitted to tell me about the ‘area of restriction’ and this obviously impacted on my project.

At present therefor, I have a profitable 6-bed HMO, whereas it could have been a whole lot more profitable as a 7-bed instead…watch this space!

Training & mentoring – as I have mentioned previously, I get a lot of satisfaction from helping others. Aside from writing on the blog and the book, this podcast is another example of that too. I really do like to share my knowledge and see others grow and develop. So, mentoring and training is a natural extension of this in my case. I have the experience and also the capability to mentor others and this has been an expanded area of my activities, especially recently.

As I have mentioned, I have teamed up with Damien Fogg to deliver what is unique as 2-for-1 mentoring; where both of us join in the sessions to offer a different take for our mentees. The results have so far been very good, with several testimonials and requests to extend the partnership arrangement with us following from it.

We are currently developing a training program that will be a compliment to the personal mentoring, so that’s exciting as well…again more to follow here soon!

Investor Joint Ventures – the past few months or so have proved to be very exciting in this regard. As a result of a couple of projects and activities, I have become quite involved in partnering other investors in a more hands on way.

Not only mentees that have asked to have what we call ‘shadow investor’ learning programmes, but there have also been some exciting opportunities to collaborate with people all over the world in fact.

Over the past few months, in addition to the UK, I have also started collaborating with expats and foreign nationals in places such as Russia, Brazil, the US, Singapore, China and the UAE that I can immediately recall as I prepare for this session. It has been challenging to understand some of the international aspects of property investing into the UK from an overseas resident to say the least! I am expecting this to be a growing area of interest, as the UK market has lots of appeal to overseas-based investors and the right people with the right contacts and track record can add a lot of value and comfort to people based elsewhere. Should I say watch this space again I wonder?

Tenant issues – finally, from dealing with international expat and high net worth investors, of course we have to come back to reality also. Yes, I have in the past couple of months also initiated my very first county court judgement against a tenant for absconding without paying their rent! I have probably been lucky, or perhaps had taken a lot of steps to prevent ever getting into this position, but sadly it has come about and we should all be prepared to experience this at some stage in our time as property investors.

Careful selection of tenants, thorough reference checks regular inspections and some ‘golden rules’ of tenant selection could not keep me away from one deciding that they didn’t want to respect the tenancy agreement and just left…holding onto the keys at the same time! I made a mistake in this particular case however, which I shall learn from going forward – I bent my own rules in terms of what constitutes a suitable tenant and decided to accept a tenant more on emotion than pure business. This of course is a cardinal sin for a property investor and I can probably hear you shouting but you always say don’t let emotion get in the way of your investment decisions Richard…and you would be right…and that’s partly why I say it as well. I gave a family a bit of a break in all honesty and it turned out wrong in this case unfortunately. Never mind, I learnt a valuable lesson through the experience and in some respects, a different tenant in apparently better circumstances could have done something similar no doubt…it’s just that I spun the Roulette wheel and bet on black, when it came up red. Enough said about that I think!

So, there we go…a few of the things that have kept me busy since the podcast launched a couple of months ago. Some things are new, exciting and challenging, whilst others are more mundane, problematic or downright frustrating. Be prepared for the highs and lows I guess is the key take away from this recap.

I hope you enjoyed that, it gives a little more colour and reality to my own property journey and as I hope you can see, there are still some things that we all learn from each other’s experiences. There are mountain tops with fine vistas, but some dark, wooded valleys to traverse at times too.

Would I change it? Not at all, it’s all part of the rich tapestry of being a property investor.

OK, so that’s another week of The Property Voice Podcast in the bag. We are in between series and that’s why the format is a little different. I am planning the next series at the moment and this will be available soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the slight tangent in what I refer to as the ‘diary of a property investor’. If you liked it, perhaps we can add in the odd episode like this now and again just to bring a little more reality to the show than Casa does even!

The show notes will be on our website, meanwhile, thank you very much for listening to the diary of a property investor.

For now and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…ciao-ciao

The post Diary of a Property Investor | PVP Bonus Episode appeared first on The Property Voice.

Last in this first series, but by no means least. We recap the main aspects from the series before sharing the ‘one-page property business plan’, otherwise known as the ‘30-minute business plan’, it really is that super-fast! We have some pointers of how to stay educated and on track too. For those that have shown their loyalty to the show, we have a podcast listener bonus offer of a free ‘mini-strategy review’; this is worth £200, so a nice thank you for listening we hope you agree. Finally, we reveal what is coming up in the second series, so tune in and find out.

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Property Voice Podcast, my name is Richard Brown and as always it is a pleasure to have you join us in what will be the final episode of series one. I am joined today by Casa; hi Casa, how are you doing today and what have we got coming up?

Casa: Hi Richard, I am splendid thanks. A little excited but also a little sad to be drawing a curtain on the first series today…but it’s been a lot of fun!

So, in today’s show, we have Property Chatter, where Richard will give a quick recap of the main aspects of this first series…Building on Solid Foundations.

Then, we have Your Voice and this week, we have a short but very sweet five star listener review.

Next, in the Shout Out, we share yet another tool to help us, particularly when we are looking at selling a property, however there is a twist to that, to help potentially find some ripe bargains too perhaps.

Finally, I believe you will be sharing with us what we can look forward to in the second series, which I really cannot wait to hear…it’s about recycling I think, isn’t it?

So, back to you Richard…

Thanks Casa…recycling…err, well not quite to be fair but a nice try…have you been trying to read my notes upside down again?

OK, so this final episode is intended to provide an overview of what we have covered in this first series and then a few suggestions of what you can do next as an Investor Quick Start.

Let’s start with a brief recap:

We have covered a fair amount of ground, with well over 30,000 words spoken over this first series…here is a summary:

We started off by looking at Property Strategy and used the RIGHT strategy mnemonic to illustrate the main categories:

We will return to the Strategy section in a future series but choosing one or two strategies from around 20 or more possibilities can be tricky; we can help with that

Define your ‘Why, what & how’…or purpose, goals & strategy

Key Performance Indicators

Criteria – ‘STAR’

Define your own criteria & KPIs

Layers of the onion

Areas to research

Get good at research & due diligence and / or get a ‘trusted advisor’ to help you out

People

Knowledge

Lots of resource links in the show notes to this one, including a short and long reading list. Get and stay current, meet fellow investors and feed the brain

Two episodes to cover a subject more in depth, with a couple of ‘subject matter expert’ contributions

Part 1:

Part 2:

Some thoughts on our personal philosophy, motivation, change and personal growth sprinkled into the two episodes

“It’s never too late to be the person we might have been” George Eliot

Ok, so it’s not too late, it wasn’t for me and it isn’t for you either. Let’s take a leaf out of Steven Covey’s book, the 7-habits of highly effective people…

First things, first: Stop – don’t rush to invest right now! We need to prepare ourselves…this is one way of going about things:

’Begin with the end in mind’

Let’s start with a 1-page business plan to ‘plug the gap to goal’

The purpose (or the reason ‘why’) – why do you want to invest I property…replace an income, plug a hole in your pension, help others, have a better lifestyle and so on.

Top line goal (the ‘what’) – what do you want to achieve in the next 12 months

Strategies (the ‘how) Determine you primary strategy & secondary strategies…no more

Set your KPIs – these are the milestones you will work towards to reach your goal, imagine the action steps you need to take to get the end result…it’s the how do you eat an elephant principle we are talking about here

Plan, do, review cycle – diarise progress reviews: weekly, monthly & quarterly, course correct & up the goal or activity level as appropriate

Celebrate success – reward yourself for small and big wins to reinforce progress

Give back – the principle of reciprocity, be generous with your time, knowledge and / or money – the more you give, the more you receive and the better for everyone

At the same time we need to ‘Sharpen the saw’…

We don’t have to do this alone…

Accountability & support:

Most importantly…take action…it’s no good having a great plan, all the learning under the sun and a bunch of great property pals to meet up and talk property with…we actually need to DO something. So get out, make mistakes and fail fast, don’t worry about it and have some fun along the way too J

A quick look at my own property investment journey…

However, I had something of a challenge to overcome…

I didn’t know it that summer’s evening but soon I was to be divorced, in rented accommodation, with a heap of debt, expenses above my income…considerably, a giant hole in my pension and with no savings. Oh dear.

However, by applying many of the principles that I have outlined throughout this first series of the podcast, I managed to turn things around to such an extent that I could live off my investment income forever if I wanted to. Here are the quick headlines of how I managed that:

Fast-forward just a few years and:

I do not say all of this to boast…merely to provide an insight into what is possible and achievable through this wonderful medium of property investing.

If I can do it from where I was only a few years ago, then I am sure that you can too!

What would you like to achieve in your property investment journey?

Podcast listener bonus – as a thank you for making it this far in the series and also in this episode, we would like to offer you something of genuine value. Normally, we would charge close to £200 for this but as a thank you for your loyalty, we would like to offer you a mini strategy review…to help with your Investor Quick Start.

Drop us a note [email protected] with the subject line ‘Mini Strategy Review’, along with your full name and we will walk you through a 3-step process to get you going with a desktop strategy review that considers your goals, current position, strengths and lifestyle factors to provide some ideal strategy matches and a personalised assessment from us.

We can’t say fairer than that can we? So get in touch; we look forward to hearing from you. Next up, Your Voice…

OK, to Your Voice, today we would like to share a 5 star review of the podcast…it comes from J H J 1122, who says:

I just thought I would take this opportunity to say thanks for a great first series Richard. I have enjoyed our time working together very much. I am looking forward to our next series with eager anticipation…something to do with the ‘circle of life’ isn’t it?

Back to you Richard for the Shout Out

Ah, that’s nice of you to say Casa…and I have enjoyed working with you as well…even if you have a dodgy sense of humour

I am not sure that we will be looking at the Lion King and the ‘circle of life’ in the next series, perhaps you got a bit of garbage in, garbage out there in the data input? Hold fire for a quick minute and as soon as I have shared this week’s Shout Out, I shall reveal what we will be covering in series 2.

OK, so today’s Shout Out is a web resource that allows us to benchmark estate agent performance based on real data: https://www.estateagent4me.co.uk/why-compare-agents/

Plug in your postcode and it will return the local agent’s performance data as follows:

Great if you are looking to trade a property on…or maybe even to use it in reverse to target bargains from poor agents…now there’s an idea!

All we need now is a similar tool to benchmark letting agents in the same way. I know that Zoopla have some comparison tools for both estate & letting agents, but not to this level of detail.

So, that’s it for another week on the podcast – and in fact that wraps up the first series from The Property Voice Podcast.

I have a couple more series lined up, so I am not disappearing anytime soon. We will start by looking at property lifecycles in the next series. Lifecycles in terms of the ‘soup-to-nuts’, or cradle to grave if you prefer, stages of a single property investment, longer-term market cycles and how to manage them and finally investment portfolio cycles in terms of start-up, consolidation & exit. So lots for us to get our teeth into there.

As usual, the show notes will be on our website with all the links and references mentioned earlier included, and please don’t forget our podcast listener loyalty offer of that mini-strategy review. Just drop us a note to [email protected] with the subject title ‘Mini-strategy review’ and we can take it from there with your Investor Quick Start.

Thank you very much for listening to our maiden podcast series, we have enjoyed having you with us; but for now and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…ciao-ciao

The post Investor Quick Start | PVP S1E12 appeared first on The Property Voice.

Last time, we considered the 4 essential components in what I call ‘The Investor Mindset Puzzle’. This got us thinking…why not share a little more about one of the aspects that really can make the micro turn into the quantum? So, this week we share some of Richard’s personal routine as an object lesson in how some small, regular practices and disciplines can add up to become a snowball, compound effect or slight edge. As an added bonus, we include the full music bed to the show, which as Richard reveals can be used in a small way to underpin one of the techniques he uses to make it a multi-sensory mind hack. A different episode this time…but different can be good too!

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Property Voice Podcast, my name is Richard Brown and as always it is a pleasure to have you join us. Before we get too far into today’s topic, I just wanted to check in with Casa, find out what we have going on in today’s show and then get right into it. Hi Casa, how are you doing today and what have we got coming up?

Casa: Hi Richard, I am really good thank you. Obviously we were not together last week as you were on an adventure in south America weren’t you?

In today’s show, we have Property Chatter, which as I understand Richard, has been somewhat inspired by your recent adventure…no spoiler alert from me but I was happy to see that you found a connection from your journey to share with our listeners this week.

Then, we have Your Voice and this week, we have a review with a difference for you…so make sure you check that out later.

Next, in the Shout Out, we share a tool that is pertinent to today’s theme and you know how sometimes you find a hidden track on music CDs? Well, we have something like that to share with you after the end credits for those that want to stick around for an extra bonus.

So, back to you Richard…I have an Inka-ling I know what you are going to be talking about somehow!

Well thank you Casa…no spoiler alert there but a very good hint I am sure! Yes, I have been inspired from a recent visit to a magical place and I wanted to share some of that inspiration in today’s show. However, as we shall see…sometimes inspiration is not an immediate solution to a problem…it can be the start of something big for sure but there is something else needed to turn inspiration into long-lasting and sustainable results. For those of you that like the ‘fluffy stuff’ that we covered last week, we have something here for you. However, if you prefer something more logical, process-oriented or mechanical even…stay right here as you might be surprised how methodical we can become…so hang around and be surprised.

Having recorded last week’s show, to be honest with you, I could not get the theme of developing a strong investor mindset out of my own mind. Then, I had the pleasure of visiting a magical place, one of the wonders of the modern world in fact…Machu Picchu in Peru and it made me think about what separates species…as you do!

I started to wonder, as I was discovering how intelligent a people the Inkas were, to develop agricultural tiers into steep mountainsides that both allowed crops to grow and prevented erosion or how using a traipse avoided earthquake destruction and how an interlocking building design could be used to hold together heavy granite stones into buildings with no mortar. Our guide offered up several explanations and although whilst my intention is not to give you a potted history of the Inka civilisation, some things struck me about them that are still applicable today and relevant to our theme…trust me on this…

The Inkas demonstrated leadership, teamwork, technology, innovation, community and an awareness of being part of something bigger than themselves to name just a few transferable qualities to today.

However, the one thing that struck me more than anything were their routines – they were farmers in the wet season and builders in the dry season, they celebrated regularly and gave thanks to the elements that provided for their needs and they also shared their knowledge between themselves and through the generations freely. They had the patience and determination to build temples and fortresses over several decades, knowing full well that those that started them would not see out their legacy being completed. Their ultimate undoing was infighting, a powerful and better-equipped enemy from outside and disease in the main part…arguably all avoidable or preventable.

And what on earth has all this got to do with property investing you may well be asking? A clear paradigm, a strong culture and a way of life that supports prosperity and growth is what…of course ignoring the bit where they ran away and died off as a separate people but as many civilisations suffered a similar fate, let’s not hold that against them!

In other words, it was their way of thinking, or their mindset that allowed them to prosper. It is this idea of mindset that I wanted to share more on in this bonus episode today, therefore.

So, having considered the 4 essential components in what I call ‘The Investor Mindset Puzzle’ last time I thought…why not share a little more about one of the aspects that really can help to turn the micro into the quantum. If you recall, the 4 components of the Investor Mindset Puzzle were: Skills & competencies, Principles, Personal qualities & characteristics and finally Habits & routine. It is this last piece of the puzzle that is so underestimated and underutilised and that’s what I would like to focus on in today’s show.

So, this week I will share some of my own personal routine as an object lesson in how some small, regular practices and disciplines can add up to become a snowball, compound effect or the slight edge, as the various books explain.

As a special bonus, we will include the full music bed to the show after the end of the credits, which I will also share how it could be used in a small way to underpin one of the techniques I use to help make it a ‘multi-sensory mind hack’ of visualisation, auditory learning and musical anchoring to help embed our vision and goals deep into our psyche. You could say it is a little different as an episode this time around therefore…but different can be good too! I hope you enjoy it…but if not, we will be back to some more concrete content next time around for sure!

Now, if some of you are like me, then the words habit, routine or discipline might just want to make you switch off and go and do something else instead. However, if I were to tell you that these terms are all considered to be proven success principles that can help you to achieve all you ever wanted in life, then perhaps there is motivation to at least stick around for a while longer yet?

What I intend to do, is to share with you some aspects of my regular routine. No, not brushing my teeth or my bowel movements you understand – but some personal growth and development practices that I have adopted that are paying off for me…some of which I have adopted later in life than I could have done to be perfectly honest with you. So, if you are young or old, listen in and try not to take too long before you ‘get it’ as I did.

In broad terms, the routines that I will share with you fall into two clear time intervals: daily habits and regular periodic reviews. I follow a plan-do-review methodology, where my daily habits are the fuel into the furnace (or the ‘do’ part) and then regular planning & reviews, which are the checkpoints to stay on course if you like a pictorial representation (or the ‘plan and review’ part).

Starting with daily habits then, I have 3 basic routines to share with you here:

As I mentioned last week; I do not claim to be the finished article yet and so, as before – you join me perhaps as a companion on this journey rather than as a student in a class. Keep that in mind and by all means do share with me your own personal development routines, habits and principles – I like to learn and grow too!

The morning routine – so many people seem to have one these days…perhaps it’s Stateside or West Coast thing, but I cannot help noticing that if the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Jane Austen, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Winston Churchill & Benjamin Franklin all had a morning routine or ritual, then there must be something in this. My own morning routine used to involve brushing my teeth and making sure I put my socks on after my trousers! Nowadays, it is based on a slight adaptation of Hal Elrod’s book the Miracle Morning.

Throughout: hydration, healthy eating, regular exercise (several times per week at least) for the best physical condition

So that covers the ‘do’ part, or the fuel for the furnace if you prefer, next…

Annually – Plan & review Life Plan, which includes my long-term vision and annual goals, focus affirmations, ‘Have, Be, Do, Give’ factors and using a variation of the ‘wheel of life’. I then set monthly milestone goals and action plans

Quarterly – Strategy review – am I on track with what I am doing; will my action plan build toward my goals or not? Take corrective action as necessary

Monthly – milestone reviews – am I on track? If yes, do more of the same and consider upping the goal, or if not add more effort, or look for ways to leverage to achieve more

Broadly-speaking, that’s it for now at least.

I diarise the checkpoints and have also developed a checklist to ‘score’ myself with how I am doing with my daily habits, although in absolute truth I am a little lax in maintain the checklist…I am working on that. I may consider making myself accountable to someone else too in the future, but for now I self-manage myself with these rituals.

If you just look up the term ‘morning routine or ritual’ in Google, you will find lots of examples of what other people tend to do. I have mentioned a couple of resources as I went along here as well for you to check out. I will have another resource to share in the Shout Out too, so stick around for that. Meanwhile, back to you Casa for Your Voice.

Casa: Thanks Richard, I imagine you don’t now believe in lost treasure then do you…the treasure lies within I suspect you are saying?

OK, to Your Voice, today we would like to share a review of Richard’s book: Property Investor Toolkit: A 7-Part Toolkit for Property Investment Success…it comes from Mr J A G Langrish, which received 6 helpful votes out of 6 from other Amazon customers. He says

After finding out about Richard through The Property Hub I started reading his blog and news feed, which is full of lots of very useful information. Then recently found out that he was writing a property investment book, so was obviously keen to get my hands on a copy. The book is aimed at beginners but I don’t think that it should be exclusive to them as it has some very good and detailed examples and information which you don’t get in many property books. The section regarding property financials is so important to read for anyone who is interested in property investment and would buy the book just for that section alone. Well written and would highly recommend this book.

Well, we know that’s a review of the book and not the podcast, but as this first series is based around the book, we thought we might share that with you today. Thank you so much Mr Langrish for such kind words, these reviews really do help both us to stay motivated but also others to find out more about The Property Voice, so we do appreciate this very much.

Now, back to you Richard for the Shout Out.

Today’s Shout Out resource is once again bang on topic – it’s an app that I use as part of my own morning routine, as I mentioned above. It is called Vision Board Pro. If you have ever heard of the concept of a vision board, sometimes called a dream board, then this is like a turbo-charged, multi-dimensional variation of that idea.

You can upload images of your goals and long-term vision, text input for affirmations, and even action plans to achieve them. Then, there is a slideshow feature to play these back to you in sequence to help in reinforcing them in your mind. The final aspect of this app that I like so much is that you can also set the slideshow to music as well. So, whether you like Eye of the Tiger, Search for the Hero or Gabrielle’s Dreams as a backing track you can have it; all within the app.

In my own case, I specifically choose the backing track that underpins this podcast for mine and that’s because the very first time I heard it, I had goose bumps and it moved me somehow. If you like that backing track or music bed as they call it in the trade, then just stay tuned for 3 minutes after the closing credits where we will play it for you. Then, you could potentially set your own visualisation and / or affirmations to that.

Better still, if you send us an email to [email protected] with the subject line Podcast Music and your full name, we will send you the music MP3 file for you to use yourself…even as the backing track to your own Vision board if you like!

So, that’s it for another week on the podcast – I know last week I said we would do a wrap up and next steps episode this week, so we shall do that next week instead now…I guess I just got inspired when I visited Machu Picchu last week and I just had to throw in this bonus show…even though it has taken far more in preparation that I initially expected…but you are worth it!

As usual, the show notes will be on our website with all the links and references mentioned earlier included, so check them out and let me know what routines you have to start your day…keep the comments clean though won’t you?

Thank you very much for listening once again; for now and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…ciao-ciao

The post The Investor Mindset Bonus Episode | PVP S1E11 appeared first on The Property Voice.

What is a property investor mindset and do we have it? Today’s show takes a look at some of the principles of a successful property investor and portrays these in the Property Investor Mindset Puzzle. Time to evaluate where your personal strengths and weaknesses are and which gaps need to be plugged. Yes, it is a big fluffy at times but many would argue that without the right mindset that we cannot realise our ambitions to become a successful property investor too.

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Property Voice Podcast, my name is Richard Brown and as always it is a pleasure to have you join us.

Last week’s show was something of a bonus when we took a closer look at funding our property investments. This week, we shall move from the concrete to the esoteric, or if you prefer: the fluffy stuff, as we consider what constitutes ‘the investor mindset’. As you will hear later on I am not pretending to have fully cracked this myself as yet and nor am I intending to come over as a wise Yogi, Tibetan Monk or some kind of Oracle either. The idea is to share some things that I have learned and continue to learn each and every day…I have really enjoyed putting this episode together but at the same time am a little nervous in sharing it, as it is so often left unspoken of…I hope you like it therefore.

No Casa today, so let’s get inside our heads a little with this week’s main topic shall we?

The Investor Mindset – what is it and do we have it?

Now, I am by no means the finished article and I still have my own personal growth going on, even at my tender age…but I never stop learning and I strive to ‘beat the course’ as they say in golf…I am aiming at improving my personal best all the time; so I speak not as a preacher here, but as a companion on the same journey as you…

When starting to think about today’s show, I had a puzzle in my mind…different pieces that fit together to make a complete picture. If I can figure out the tech, I will try and show this graphically in the show notes for you…if not it will just come as a quadrant instead!

So, over the next few minutes, I am going to run through each piece of the puzzle and present what I believe are the common characteristics, or foundations, of an investor mindset in each area. Then, as I go (or perhaps later on) we can evaluate how we are doing in each area ourselves? We can ask ourselves the question: How do I fare? I noted a couple of improvement areas myself in pulling this together for you if that’s any consolation

Some people are going to be stronger, or prefer even, some areas more than others – so, what if we have some gaping holes? We should at least aim to plug the gaps and we can do this through three principle ways:

Progressively learn to acquire skills and knowledge to plug our gaps, and / or

Practical application to refine in areas through repetition, and /or

Partnering with others that plug our gaps, and / or

Once we go through the entire puzzle…will we need a mindset or ‘paradigm’ shift, or are we the complete picture?

A personal review may reveal the need for change…but worry not, we all have the capacity to change if we really want to; the key to change is motivation…

Motivation – internal vs external, pain vs pleasure, gradual vs shock…ideally we would like a strong internal desire, a pleasure orientation & a gradual application to bring about change and our desired result. The truth is that instead we often require an external stimulus, the threat of pain and a shock to take corrective action. The good news is that we can create the latter scenario without necessarily having a near-death experience of something like that…it’s all in the mind…but we can revisit that concept a little later on…

Now, let’s take a look at this mindset thing or as I am calling it…The Investor Mindset Puzzle

Skills & Competencies

Personal Qualities & Characteristics

These puzzle pieces are interdependent or symbiotic as they say in biology – there is no use being very strong in one or two areas; a balance is going to be the best approach over time to achieve a healthy composition

A short word on our philosophical outlook before we leave the subject, which of these polar extremes do we tend to believe in:

So, what is your personal philosophy then?

So, have I stimulated you to re-evaluate your current position and desired course by reflecting on the Investor Mindset Puzzle? You see for me, property investing, as with any pursuit or endeavour, is as much about a personal growth journey and voyage of discovery as it is of property, money and all that stuff. In fact, I would go as far as to say…there is no point in having the money without that journey in the first place. Others may say, we won’t see the end result anyway without growth…I will let you decide on that.

And now to our listener question, which comes from Julie:

http://www.thepropertyvoice.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/TPV-Listener-Q-Julie-Hogarth-Property-Services.mp3

Well thank you very much for raising this question Julie, from Hogarth Property Services in Chiswick!

Pensions invested into property…before normal retirement age is the question.

Before I begin, I need to highlight that I am not a financial advisor and so I would encourage anyone, including your hopeful investors in Kent, to consult with a professional advisor before doing anything else.

However, essentially if we happen to have our pension invested into qualifying pension wrapper, i.e. a SSAS (small self-administered scheme often invested through a small company) or a SIPP (self-invested personal pension if invested personally or transferred in); then it is possible to invest in some type of property yes. However, it is not permitted to invest in residential property, only commercial property. It could be invested into a commercial property that is to be converted into a residential property but then the pension needs to dispose of it once converted.

A pension fund can also use leverage to grow the value of the fund. For example, tax credits on contributions get added to the fund to begin with and then the fund can under certain conditions borrow up to 50% of the fund value.

In addition to direct investment in a property, they could potentially also lend money to a property developer for a return, as long as they are unconnected to the pension-owners.

I should say that I am not recommending they do this and in fact there are lots of risks associated with doing so, such as concentration risk in property as an asset class and suitability of a single investment that could lose a part of or all of much needed pension provision. As I say, best to speak to an IFA but it does present another funding route to investing in property, which is related to today’s theme and so, I thank you for raising it Julie.

Good luck with your property business in Chiswick and with your investor friends.

The Millionaire Master Plan – Roger James Hamilton

This is a great book recommendation with a twist…

Take the Millionaire Master Plan Test – you get a free code by buying the book and then you can take a test that will reveal what type of genius you are: Dynamo, Blaze, Tempo or Steel. Plus you get to position yourself on one of the nine levels of the Wealth Lighthouse too. Many of these types of test cost a fair bit of money, so getting a free one just from buying the book also represents excellent value…now I hope that is not poor man’s thinking!?

The post The Investor Mindset | PVP S1E10 appeared first on The Property Voice.

Show me the money! Investing in property requires some money make no mistake about that. However, who said that money has to be your own money? Join us in this week’s episode where we rattle through at least 8 different sources of funding for our investments…and only one of these is fully using our own money. We take you through the options and then deep dive into some of the most common ones to set you on your way.

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Property Voice Podcast, my name is Richard Brown and as always it is a pleasure to have you join us. Now, if you have been following the episodes in sequence it will not have escaped your notice that so far we have been aligning the topics to the sections in my book: Property Investor Toolkit. However, I have noticed that an extra couple of topics would be useful to include in the first series that were not included in the book…well not as separate sections at least. The first of these we shall go through today and then another one next week – so fresh content just for you awaits and rewards your loyalty for sticking with us this long! OK, Casa – how are you today and what’s happening?

Casa: Hi Richard, I am right on the money thanks! I did see someone make a comment in a forum that they were not so sure about my contribution to the show; so, I suppose I am feeling a little down in the data dumps about that to be honest with you. Never mind, I heard a quote recently that if you are not being criticised, then you are probably not trying…so try I will lol.

Briefly, then we can look forward to lots of great content related to money and funding our property investments. Richard, you are about to share with us the main ways of funding your property investments in Property Chatter. Then, in Your Voice we have a short and sweet listener review. Finally, 3 for the price of 1 resources in the Shout Out to look forward to as well. Not bad is it? Lots of Brucie Bonuses in this bonus episode to the first series.

So, back to you Richard – do you still have your pebbles and buckets after last week’s show?

Thanks for your concern Casa – yes, I do still have my pebbles and buckets thanks…I thought they were very illustrative for what is an audio format after all. We shall have to see what the listeners made of it before passing any final judgement…are you still with us out there?

Ahhh, so it seems that someone has had a go at our lovely Casa have they? Don’t worry Casa…I have heard plenty of high praise about you over the course of this series…but that all said we would love to hear from our listeners…Who likes Casa then; do we have anyone prepared to defend her honour out there? Speak up and byte back if you are…

OK, so back to the topic in hand…we have some serious content to get through this week and it is another topic related to money…funding our property investments…so here goes.

To invest in property, we will need some investment funds…most of the time at least. In today’s episode, I plan to give an overview of the main methods of funding an investment property. However, as this is such a large topic, I may return to the subject in a later series – today therefore should be seen as an overview on the subject.

Investment property has come a long way; until 1996 there was no such thing as a BTL mortgage. Most investment property was bought using cash or commercial financing from banks. Commercial finance was generally not widely available and so the idea of BTL was not readily available to the man on the street.

In 1996, the term buy-to-let was coined as a marketing term by ARLA (association of residential letting agents) as a specific description of financing properties to rent out. This initiative, along with the abolishment of the Rent Act gave birth to what is now known as buy to let, with individuals owing property and renting it out. Since then, the private rented sector has grown steadily from less than 10% of all properties to nearly 20% today. The biggest loser so to speak was the social housing sector as public funding was gradually reduced. More recently, homeownership levels have started to slide, having grown to a peak of around 70% before the last housing crash in 2008. With MMR in the residential market and less investment available in the social rented sector, BTL has taken up most of the slack with individual private landlords accounting for the large majority of properties in the PRS. 70% are classified as amateur by the NLA.

So, the coming together of finance products and a shortage of supply gave birth to a whole industry…sometimes attracting controversy but that debate is for another day. Today is all about how we can get involved in property investing and what the options to fund our investments are.

Let’s start by looking at the main options when it comes to funding your property investment.

The main sources in funding your property investment:

Top tips

Despite there being at least 8 alternative methods (with several sub-methods) to fund our investment property, by far the most common are BTL mortgages, commercial finance and bridging or auction finance from institutional investors.

Let’s take a deeper dive and look at these a little more closely shall we?

OK, so we shall now go through some of the principal aspects and characteristics of these 3 major sources for funding your property investment and understand when each one is going to be best served for our needs.

Top tips

Lending sourcers present themselves more as experience grows, so as a new investor standard BTL mortgages are probably going to be our bread and butter. Then, as we grow we may start to see limits placed on us by the standard lenders, or we may start to get involved in more complex projects instead – enter commercial loans and mortgages. Then, if we plan to buy at speed such as via an auction, or capitalise on opportunities not suited to mainstream lenders, we will need to consider bridging finance to convert properties into more mainstream ones with our intervention.

Notice, therefore, how our lending options change based on our scale & experience, personal circumstances, investment strategy and propensity to tackle alternative projects beyond the norm.

I have not explored the other financing options in any great depth in today’s episode as I wanted to give more of an overview of the standard lending alternatives in this foundations series. More to follow in a subsequent series…

Hopefully that has helped to set down some clear understanding but as always further reading and insight will be required. Now to Your Voice.

Casa: Today we have a listener review to share from Cppp10, here is what Cppp10 had to say:

Very helpful! 5 stars

Richard Brown, the host, is very engaging and professional! The podcast is very structured with a lot of great information and insights. Well done!

Thank you for that great review Cppp10.

Back to you now Richard

First of all; my apologies to Julie from Chiswick – I will have to share the response to your question next week due to time constraints. I hope you can tune in next week instead for that.

Today’s Shout Out resource is bang on topic – a BTL mortgage calculator but not just one but three! I am sharing the calculators available from Property Tribes, Property 118 & MoneyFacts. Note that some of these calculators will be connected to independent mortgage brokers, so keep that in mind too. The best brokers will be those that specialise in the type of funding solution you require, so BTL mortgage brokers, commercial finance brokers and bridging finance brokers – sometimes, although rarely will a broker span all sectors but always ask them if they are a ‘whole of market’ broker in the area you are interested in…and don’t forget to seek out referrals and recommendations from others that have had a good experience using the type of finance you are also looking for.

OK, so we have been full of the money side of things for today once again…but so much about property investing is either enabled or facilitated by access to adequate and appropriate funding your property investment. I hope you have a flavour for this at a top level at least after today.

So, we are drawing towards the end of this first series of The Property Voice Podcast, so why don’t you tell us what subjects are top of your list and we will look to try and include them in a future series.

The show notes will be on our website with all the links and references mentioned earlier included, so check them out and maybe start a conversation. Thank you very much for listening once again; it takes some pulling together to create this show and so we hope you are getting lots out of listening.

But for now and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…ciao-ciao

The post Funding Your Property Investment | PVP S1E09 appeared first on The Property Voice.