Photo by Innova Property
I’ve been reflecting on the last 15 years of being in the property game, covering some of the things that I’ve learned and the trials and tribulations. And I’ve packaged this up into the top pieces of advice that I would give to my younger self.
So, if you’re just starting your property business or perhaps you’ve already started but want to level things up more quickly, read below or listen to the full episode on The HMO Podcast for 10 pieces of essential property advice that I would give to my younger self to help me achieve more in less time!
1. It’ll be harder and take longer than you think, so strap in and don’t be impatient.
I’m a very impatient person, but I’ve learned to manage this better over the years. A degree of impatience can be a driving factor, but it’s easy to make bad decisions out of impatience, particularly when you’re frustrated by a lack of results.
In the beginning, I sometimes made decisions emotionally and in haste for short-term gains and discarded much bigger and better long-term benefits. Property is very capital intensive, and things move at a glacial pace, making it a very testing industry. So, it’s easy to be frustrated and impatient, but strap in and really try to be patient!
2. Think much, much bigger.
When I was getting started, I didn’t think beyond one property or maybe the one after that at a stretch. I never for one moment thought that I was going to build successful property businesses. I just thought property would be useful alongside my professional career. But what I’m able to generate now is significantly more than what I was making as a physio.
And as I’ve achieved more and learned along the way, I’ve realised the importance of thinking bigger and setting much bigger goals. It forces you to do things quite differently and bring all of your resources and efforts together. Doing this can help you generate three or even four times the results!
3. There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
This is a quote from Colin Powell, and it’s so true. We see people claiming to have the secrets to building a successful portfolio, but I promise you that there are no secrets! It really is all about preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
It’s that simple, and if I knew that from the beginning, that would have given me the confidence to get out and do it. Back then I thought you needed a stroke of luck or genius, and that’s not true at all. So, I probably wasn’t putting my efforts in the right place. But now I’m so much better prepared when going into projects and new business deals and ventures.
4. Time is the most valuable asset that you have, so protect it at all costs.
Do you say ‘yes’ to too many things? Are you staying in a job because it’s comfortable? Do you need to free up more time to put towards your property business? I’m time conscious with everything I do. I consciously look at how anything I agree to do will impact my time availability in my property businesses and the other things I have going on.
Personally, I should have left work sooner and gone full-time in property. I made the leap in 2016, which was around the time that I founded my property business that I recently sold. I could’ve left well before that, and actually, I should have.
Leaving work made me get out there and make stuff happen. It was an incentive and driving force, and I responded quite well to that. I’m definitely not telling anyone to leave their job right now. But it’s important to understand when the right time is for you.
5. Property is a people business, and this is where all of the opportunities are.
When I look at what I’m doing and what I’ve achieved, I’m able to do all of these incredible things because other people have helped me and enabled me to do them! Over the years, I really have learned the importance of other people in my own success. So, you have to prioritise things that will help you meet the right people.
I’m not just talking about potential JV partners – I’m talking about people you can learn from and find support, motivation, encouragement, and guidance from. These are the kind of people that can put you in front of the right people, open doors, and maybe even potentially invest with you and lend you money.
6. Trust people, but verify anything they say or claim.
I am naturally a very sceptical person, but I still made the mistake of trusting people on a few occasions when I shouldn’t have. There are a lot of people out there who will tell you what they want because it suits them – not because it’s the best advice for you!
And it’s a really difficult lesson to learn with property as we’re often talking about huge amounts of money. So, big decisions can really affect our lives and the direction of our business.
Additionally, there are so many people out there talking about property, and somebody’s experience may lead them to forge an opinion in a different way than someone else. But we shouldn’t take just anyone’s word for gospel. It’s important to do your due diligence and get evidence, because there are people out there who will try to rip you off!
7. Prioritise getting access to finance as it’s a key ingredient to building a property business.
Borrow, save, add value, and recycle cash out of your deals wherever you possibly can! The more finance you have access to, the more deals you can do simultaneously and the bigger deals you can do too. Often, we’re all scraping the barrel to buy properties and do refurbs, and I’m still doing that on every single project. This never changes – the goalpost just moves.
There are a lot of different ways to get finance on the table. Make sure your credit rating is as good as it can be, have an experienced HMO mortgage broker on your team, and ruthlessly save. It’s amazing how just putting even a small amount away over a number of years can really help!
8. Pipeline everything from relationships to opportunities.
Pipeline relationships with people and potential opportunities to buy deals or do rent-to-rent projects. There have been countless property viewings or negotiations I’ve had that ended up going nowhere initially…
Sometimes weeks and months of work were put into a deal that didn’t work out for whatever reason. And other times my offers were just rejected. But months or years down the line, these people could reach out again, and all of a sudden, that opportunity could be back on the table!
And because of the rapport you built back then and the work, effort, and time you put into that relationship, they trust you and want to work with you. So, it probably puts you in the best possible position you could be in to try and renegotiate.
It’s always disappointing when a deal doesn’t work out. But one thing that I learned to prioritise is protecting that relationship. I wasn’t frustrated, and I was always really honest. That meant we always had a good base to work from. And subsequently, I did some great business with people because of the relationships I pipelined.
9. Prioritise cash over capital, and start building a business that generates cash flow.
As property is really capital-intensive, we need large sums of money to buy the assets, and often, at the end of a deal, even if we have added value, a lot of that equity is getting sucked back in. It’s staying there as sort of a residual long-term deposit.
Eventually, your capital gets sucked up more and more, and right now it’s difficult to pull a lot of value out of projects. So, to bridge that gap, you need cash flow, and my rent-to-rent business provides that. It’s a very powerful cash-flowing model. For me, it didn’t take long to start earning £10,000 per month from this business.
But rent-to-rent isn’t right for everyone, so make sure it’s right for you before getting started. You can generate cash from any sort of business. Whatever it is, build that up, create that recurring income stream, and then use that money to invest in your property business to help plug the gaps as you grow it.
10. Stay in your own lane, and don’t worry about what anyone else is doing.
Lastly, don’t worry about what anyone else thinks about you or what anyone else is doing. Just do your thing and do it really well! I’m not bothered about what anyone else is doing. I still love seeing people do great things and seeing different ways of doing things. But I don’t see someone doing something really great and feel envious or wish that I could do that.
I genuinely love the process of building businesses, buying assets, converting them, making the deals work, and everything in between. And that’s allowed me to stay in my own lane. I haven’t been distracted when I’ve seen other people doing things differently. I’ve been really clear on my goals, objectives, and values, and I’ve stuck to them.
So, those are the 10 essential pieces of advice that I would give to my younger self that I think would help HMO investors achieve much more in a shorter space of time. I hope that this helps you shape your own property business and gives you the confidence you need to grow it!
If you want to work on these lessons and really level up your HMO business, head over to The HMO Roadmap today!
About the Author:
Andy Graham is the founder and the lead trainer at The HMO Roadmap! He is also the co-founder of The HMO Mastermind and Smart Property, a specialist HMO property investment and management company. He writes as a regular columnist in different magazines about a variety of HMO topics and is the host of The HMO Podcast! Follow Andy on Instagram!