Having been in property for several years, there are still many things that surprise, shock and baffle me.
Here are three things in property that shocked me when I first learnt or realised them:
1. How much prices, cost and values vary. Something is worth what someone is willing to pay. And whether that is a house purchase, refurbishment work, or materials, the prices vary vastly. And sadly, I too have had a couple of experiences where contractors have given me stupid quotes where they’ve added on a “female tax” – ie tried to give me a stupid price to rip me off, because they think I’m just a thick, daft woman who doesn’t know any better. Yes, my friends, sexism is still alive and well for some people – shocking, I know! 😱
2. The second thing that shocked me in property is that not everyone behaves in the same way you do. Not everyone has the same morals values, ethics and integrity, and this includes tenants, contractors, and other people in property investment. It is a real surprise sometimes to see the way that other people behave, especially when you would never dream of behaving like that. What can I say, some people are just wretches!
3. The third thing I was shocked about was how friendly most people in property are. This surprised me, as you would think that with limited housing sale choices, and the reality being that other developers are effectively your competition, people would be cut-throat and not willing to share their time, knowledge and expertise. But that’s simply not the case, and the majority of people I’ve met in property have been lovely.
So there you have it, three things I learnt in property that shocked me.
I also considered talking about how ‘doing property’ is not as easy as everyone makes out, or how difficult refurbishment actually is – but perhaps that’s for another day!
THE TOP FIVE BOOKS I’VE READ… in the last few years, of a self-development nature, although two of them were audiobooks I listened to but I’m still counting them…
Well, the title pretty much tells you what this blog is about!
I’m so old now, I have to wear my glasses to read…
I’ve always been an avid reader, but I switched from fiction to self-development books when I started my property career.
I meticulously log the titles of all the books I read, but it was only in January 2021 that I started grades for each book, giving each one a mark out of 5.
So this is how I can easily pick out the best I’ve read to share with you. Well, from the ones since I started grading them that is!
So here we go, in no particular order:
1. Happy Sexy Millionaire by Steven Bartlett
An audiobook, which I listened to the majority of whilst driving to and from Birmingham earlier this year. I like authentic storytelling of genuine hardship childhood stories, mixed with no nonsense fluff, so this was good for me.
Here’s the tinterweb link I used to listen to it for free!
2. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari – Robin Sharma
I bought this on the recommendation of a lovely lady, and it got one of my (few!) 5-star ratings. Again, an interesting biographical story, about, well again, the clue’s in the title!
3. Atomic Habits – James Clear
Another audiobook I’ve given a 5 to. This was over a year ago, and with memory failure I’m not sure why – that’s the problem with driving and listening, you can’t make notes or plan out things to implement immediately! I do remember thinking at the time though: this is useful to help with my (as yet undiagnosed) ADHD traits – so I will definitely be revisiting this book. And making notes this time!
4. Eat The Frog – Brian Tracy
I go through phases where I’m a terrible procrastinator, so this book definitely helped with my mindset to stop faffing about and gerronwi’it. And I tell you what, Mr Tracy must have had a positive effect on me, because he’s made it into my list twice!
5. No Excuses – Brian Tracy
Doing well for ‘clues in the title’ today, aren’t we?! Anyway, Brian did well again with inspirational mindset work which fired me into action. This was an audiobook too, get yourself a bit of Brian ont speakers!
BRUCIE BONUS –
Yes, I know I said Top 5, but this one’s also down in my list graded as a 5, and so I’ll feel bad / unfair / it will upset my Libra sense of righteousness if I miss it out! So, last one:
6. Get Rich, Lucky Bitch – Denise Duffield Thomas
A lady that changed her mindset around money and gives inspirational help and insight into how to do it too! I like Denise, and I follow her on various platforms. She’s no nonsense, casual in her approach, and non-ranty (sorry Mr T. Robbins; I like you, but forced positivity is hard work for us Brits!). Anyway, DDT’s a top lass 😊
So there’s my best book recommendations for you, and before you go, here’s why reading self-development books is so beneficial:
You get to learn in a few hours, key skills and knowledge that has taken other people spent decades of experience and research to learn.
How’s that’s for a quick-fix, easy way ‘cheat’ to success?!
And books are mere pounds in cost, compared to hundreds or thousands spent on courses and seminars!
It is said that Warren Buffett spends 5-6 hours a day reading, and look where that has got him: one of the five richest people in the world.
So if reading is good enough for Uncle Warren, it’s good enough for me!
UNCLE WARREN SAYS: GET READING, GET CLEVERERER! (or something like that, probably!
Best wishes, and happy reading (or audiobook listening),
It’s a very rare occurrence, but I rarely walk away from a property once I’ve had an offer accepted on it.
But that’s what’s happened recently.
I was initially very excited about this property – but also, a little baffled about how quickly the vendor accepted my low offer.
Further due diligence revealed that there was a flying freehold issue – which meant the loft space above the property’s main bedroom belonged to a neighbour in the house attached to the back of that property… very strange layout.
So the room in the loft space was someone else’s space, with their bedroom / bathroom above our bedroom.
I think it would’ve been very difficult to get a mortgage on that sort of flying freehold issue – hence why the vendor was desperate for a cash offer, having already had other buyers drop out.
It’s no good doing a load of work on a property and then not be able to pull the funds back out – I don’t take scary risks like that, especially not with other people’s investment money.
So today’s blog has three main points…
How do you know when to walk away from a property deal?
Or in the words of Kenny Rogers: know when to walk away, know when to run!
1. WALK AWAY IF…
A property isn’t mortgageable, or it will be very difficult to get a mortgage on it… assuming you did intend being able to get a mortgage on it at some point, and not just buy it cash outright and leave cash in it. Yes, sometimes unmortgageable properties can be made mortgageable, e.g. by adding in kitchens to make it habitable and so on.
But you can’t do much about someone else’s bit of house over your bit of house!
2. WALK AWAY IF…
The deal simply doesn’t stack. If you’re going to end up leaving way more money in than you ever imagined, perhaps the deal isn’t really a good deal at all.
3. WALK AWAY IF…
The house is a turkey. If there’s something terribly wrong with it, which is either unfixable, or it will cost you a massive bomb to fix it eg. major subsidence.
So those are three reasons to walk away. Unless of course you’re super rich and are willing to pay for fixes and problems and headaches, or can afford to leave loads of money in the problem.
Is it really worth the cost, stress and sleepless nights?!
That’s up to you to decide, dependent on your available funds, your mental wellbeing and your risk factor!
But I don’t take high risks. I like to sleep at night, and have an easy, calm, drama-free, stress-free life – so I always play it as safe and securely as possible.
In my view, yes, it’s a shame if things don’t work out to plan, and it’s disappointing when it rains on your parade… but it’s better that than being struck by lightning!
SO DON’T TAKE CRAZY RISKS!
It’s not worth the stress, hassle, and major risk to yours or other people’s investment funds!
PS – I saw the late great Kenny Rogers in concert in Manchester back in 2010… but I can assure you, I’m no Gambler…
And had I known I would feature him in my blog a decade later, I would have taken much better photographs!!
Not just a writer’s block, although that too has been an issue too as I’ve put off and put off writing a blog.
A mental block, if you will.
Some sort of life block, which is stopping me moving forward, and I can’t work out what it is – but it’s very frustrating.
If you remember that awesome TV game show Blockbusters, you’ll know how the contestants had to work their way across the board without getting blocked. They had a route in mind and a plan to get there, and when things went wrong, they had to work out a way around the blocked hexagons.
That’s how I feel.
Except I can’t work out what the blocks are.
I feel an enormous sense of frustration at not moving forward, and all year I’ve been trying to work out why this is happening, and what’s the solution to fix it.
I’m consciously aware that we’re nearly in June, and as we reach the halfway point of the year, it is blatant that I’m not yet halfway through my planned targets.
Very concerning, frustrating, demotivating, annoying and bewildering as to what’s going wrong, and why 2023 is not panning out as I’d planned.
I’ve never been in such a rut before, and it’s jarring.
I feel stagnant, still, stuck, and can’t work out how to move forward.
It’s been said that if you’re not growing, you’re dying, and that becomes glaringly apparent as the days tick on, and nothing of any real property progress has been achieved.
Yes, the housing market’s a struggle at the minute, and house prices have soared, which is very frustrating for me looking for a cheap, cheerful deal 😤
But I’m not overpaying for a property that’s not worth the price, so I’m having to sit on my hands until the mad buying frenzy calms down.
This is difficult, as I’m not the most patient of people.
What’s to be done?
How do I bust my blocks?!
How do I become a blockbuster?!?
Still scratching my head trying to work it out…
…Can I have an A please, Bob?!
We have this board game at my Air Cadet group.
Before we play it, I show them a video of the retro TV show with the music, teach them the hand moves dance for it, explain the immature nonsense of asking for a P please Bob, and them we play in two teams… and they get absolutely wildly and ridiculously giddy over it!
ITV, might be best to bring back this belter; Blockbusters is banging!
You might have seen on social media over the last couple of months that a tenant left one of my rental houses in a horrific state.
Despite the tenant only being in the property two years, and the first/only tenant since it was all newly refurbished, poor choices meant things spiralled out of control in their life, and the property suffered badly because of this deterioration.
This included: trashed and ruined carpets throughout, broken kitchen units, smashed windows, a kicked-in door, damage to the walls and electrical sockets, a garage filled with illegal waste removal items, plus a couple of tons of asbestos dumped on the drive.
I was left to deal with all this, along with the disposal of all the furniture, rubbish and items left in the house, which had been abandoned. Oh and I nearly forgot to mention getting rid of the cannabis farm that had been set up in the loft.
Deep joy, eh?
It took several months and many thousands of pounds to get it back to a lettable state. It caused me stress, headaches, drama, worry, sleepless nights, and money.
But still, I’m a strong believer in karma, so I’m not too worried about those people getting justice. Everyone gets exactly what they deserve in life; whether that’s good or bad is down to them!
And writing this blog is almost cathartic – because if we don’t learn anything from the harsh unpleasantries in life, we are destined to repeat our mistakes until we do learn the lesson!
So here we go:
Five things I’ve learned from my house getting trashed:
1. Some people just don’t behave themselves.
No matter how nice or helpful or trusting you are of some people… some people just don’t give a shit about how much time, effort or money you’ve put into a property. It’s not theirs, so they’re not bothered if it gets trashed.
If you get an initial unusually cautious feeling in your stomach when meeting them… even if it’s only a teeny tiny gut reaction… listen to it, and don’t let your empathy in wanting to help someone overrule the concerns.
Even pink flags are closer to red flags than white ones!
So check, but verify.
Especially if you get *that* feeling, no matter how minute.
2. The council doesn’t give a shit about you.
Don’t think for a second the council want to help you as a private landlord.
They don’t.
And even if they say they do, they drag their feet, and you have to chase them for weeks and weeks to get them to do the thing they’re are supposed to do.
There was only one lady at the council I was impressed with during all this fiasco, and she didn’t even work in any of the departments for housing, lettings, tenants or social services, but the environmental waste team. She worked harder than all the other civil servants I dealt with put together, and this issue wasn’t even her remit.
Also, the council actually provided me with this tenant to begin with, under a housing private landlord letting scheme. Let me be clear about why they do this: not only because they have a shortage of houses, but sometimes they are actually glad to have problem people off their books and onto yours. They are glad to have washed their hands of certain tenants, because now they become your problem, not theirs.
The insurance loss adjustor man told me this, which leads me onto our next point…
3. The insurance company doesn’t give a shit about you.
Listen carefully: Insurance loss adjustors are not your friend.
They might come and assess your house damage and smile and say nice reassuring things and pretend to be helpful, but they are not on your side. They are there to mitigate their loss.
In fact here’s an industry secret, told to me by an insurance broker: many loss adjustors actually get a bonus if they can manage to reduce your claim. ie – they get monetary bonuses for you not getting money from the insurance. That’s a sly little secret they keep quiet, isn’t it?!
Thus, my claim for malicious damage was pooh-poohed away as ‘tenant lifestyle choices’ and ‘wear and tear’, despite photographic evidence to the contrary. Oh, and if need be, they also pull out about a million tiny clauses from your policy, meaning unless you can manage pull some particular minute obscure piece of evidence out of your arse, the claim ‘cannot proceed without it’. ie: you get nothing.
4. People are wretches when a house is empty.
Fun and games whilst the property is empty sometimes… not all neighbours are nice ones. Apart from the asbestos dumping the tenant allowed, other lovely people also took the opportunity of an empty property to fly tip the drive. Several times.
One person lovingly handballed black bags of rubbish all the way to the front door’s path, and a horrible landlord developer decided to offload all their property refurbishment waste of rubble and plasterboard onto my land. Wretches.
Oh and then local naughty kids/teenagers set fire to said rubbish in the garden, meaning two nights running the fire brigade had to be called out to put out the arson fires… whilst hooded teenagers watched them undo their incendiary work. Lovely, eh?
This is what I did: asked the police to patrol the area more often. Allowed the council to put up a warning notice flytipping / CCTV sign. Locked the gate with a bike lock to deter more reversing vehicle flytips.
This is what I should have done: Put the actual camera up, fast. Get a timer switch much earlier so the lamps inside went on to make it look occupied at night. Got the mess of the trashed house sorted out quicker, and filled the house quicker.
Still, we live and learn; every day’s a school day, eh?
And sometimes no matter what you do, certain people will always behave like scumbags.
5. Don’t become jaded because of one bad experience, and continue to give people chances.
Final lesson… listen: one bad tenant does not mean all tenants are bad. In fact, since starting landlording in 2008, that’s the worst tenant experience I’ve had in all that time, so that’s not bad going in 14 years.
Statistically it had to happen at some point!
We can move past it now and just call it what it was: a bad time in the business.
Sometimes bad things happen so that better things can occur instead.
In this case, a new and very lovely tenant. In fact there were three lovely families who viewed the property on the same day that I would gladly have housed, all pleasant, polite, family-orientated, and genuinely nice and good people in need of accommodation.
I have a favourite phrase: don’t bleed all over someone who didn’t cut you.
This means you shouldn’t take things out on people when they didn’t cause you the distress in the first place. It’s not fair to them to do that.
Thus, a new tenant, a fresh start, with the same positive hopeful attitude towards them that all my new occupiers get.
We cannot tar all tenants with the same brush. I have many other lovely long-term tenants that always do the right thing, and for that I am very grateful.
So a snippet of bad luck, a stressful, horrendously difficult and unpleasant time, but now it’s time to learn from it and move onwards and upwards for the future.
I do hope you never have to go through such chaos, but at least we’ve learnt some lessons if you do.
And remember, when bad things happen, remind yourself: I’m too stubborn to let this take me down!
Having read this morning about yet another “property investor scammer” extorting millions from people, it’s important to recognise in this industry who’s a good guy – because sadly there are a lot of sharks.
So let me reintroduce myself.
I’m Kellyann, and I buy property using investment loans from private investors.
I have real tangible property assets, and a real company that really makes money.
I live in a real house I really own, and own my jazzy motor, jewellery and my other stuff outright – no leased items here for show off purposes!
Every investor I’ve ever had has been paid back in full, with their agreed interest.
The only thing I owe money on are my house mortgages.
I’m a real person, an open, honest, fair Libra. And for the benefit of doubt, this is a real photo of me, taken at 10:23am today, hashtag no filter, using portrait mode.
Please be very clear who you are working and investing with.
Get to know them very well, their lives, their morals, their ethics, their integrity: everything.
If they can’t back up their claims with evidence, it’s very likely they are talking bullshit!
In my property career I have a couple of regrets and disappointments over a couple of properties that I didn’t buy.
In fact, I have a folder, with a name inspired by Bullseye’s Jim Bowen, entitled LOOK AT WHAT YOU COULD HAVE WON!
This folder holds sales leaflets or details of around ten properties that I really really wanted, but didn’t end up getting, for a myriad of reasons.
This folder includes:
⁃ the house next door to my childhood home. Why didn’t I buy that?!? It was such a good price at the time! 🤦🏻♀️
⁃ An old hairdressers shop that I could have converted, but was too scared to. 🤦🏻♀️
⁃ A direct to vendor lead where she was about to be repossessed, in an estate where I have three others houses. 🤦🏻♀️
⁃ A really cheap flat next to a lovely church, one which the solicitor made an absolute balls of and caused me to lose the deal. 🤦🏻♀️
I occasionally look back in my LOOK AT WHAT YOU COULD HAVE WON folder to reflect on what went wrong with these deals, and what I could have done better.
Reasons, and more importantly, key learnings, include the following:
⁃ Having it drilled into me that every property deal should be an ‘all money out on refinance deal’. This cost me a lot of potentially good deals, because for far too long I believed that you shouldn’t end up leaving any money left in a deal. FOOLISH!
⁃ Faffing about, umming and ahhing, not making a decision quick enough. Success loves speed, and if you sit on the fence too long deciding, you get splinters in your arse!
⁃ Being a little bit too tight with my offers. Some of them eventually went for only 5-10 grand above what I’d offered. I’d have made that back within a year in rental income.
⁃ Hiring absolute garbage solicitors that didn’t know what they were doing. Incompetence on their part, really can, and did, ruin my deal.
⁃ Not knowing exactly what to do in a certain situation and then not asking for help.
⁃ Being too soft in thinking that because I hadn’t done a particular type of refurbishment before, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I should have said yes anyway, and then learned how to do it on the way!
I’m a very low risk person, and hate being uncertain, not getting things rights, and even worse, the ultimate Yorkshire sin: potentially losing money.
But I have to take responsibility for all these actions – me not getting each of these particular deals is Entirely. My. Fault.
Hey ho, hindsight’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?!?
Dude, that’s a real bummer #facepalm
Nobody’s perfect, and nobody knows it all. I’m continuously trying to learn.
But if you don’t learn from your mistakes, then making them was futile – because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
Also pain is a much stronger driver than pleasure.
So I keep this folder to remind me of those painful disappointing lessons.
That feeling of regret spurs me on to LOOK AT WHAT YOU COULD HAVE WON! – to avoid doing those same silly things again!
# IF YOU’RE NOT EARNING, YOU’RE LEARNING
# Did anyone ever regret not winning that speedboat in Bullseye?!
Most of us live miles away from the sea!
———————————————
Kellyann is a property investment strategist from Leeds.
In her work she creates wealth for private investors through refurbishing properties.
Repairs and maintenance is my number one pet peeve in property – I just hate hate hate it when things break – and sometimes it’s not even the tenant’s fault.
Then you have to deal with the call from the tenant saying that something’s wrong, work out how to fix it, who to call to do so, have to faff about getting various quotes and solutions and appointments in order, and then finally set fire to my money to remedy the problem.
Or even worse, sometimes it’s a product or service that needs addressing by a telephone call to the dreaded call centre or customer service department… where you waste endless hours of time to untrained people on the other end of the line, who can’t deal with it, aren’t competent, put you on hold forever, or just fob you off. There’s nothing more draining than a call centre department.
This week’s issue has been a young 14-month-old integrated Logik oven from Currys which has stopped working after minimal use. Currys customer service seemingly couldn’t give a shit about their faulty product, nor helping me fix it.
Here’s my advice: don’t ever buy a product from Currys – it’s a waste of your time and money buying their substandard products, then a waste of your time, effort, energy and patience trying to get them to do the right thing.
PROPERTY HATE PART 2: NAUGHTY TENANTS
Aha, I bet you thought this would be the first on the list, didn’t you?!?
Not me, because the majority of my tenants are great, nearly all of the time.
Occasionally though, one goes rogue, and starts acting in a naughty manner.
I have three key rules I tell all my tenants:
1. Respect the house and keep it tidy
2. Respect your neighbours (and housemates)
3. Pay your rent on time
…and it’s when one of these three rules is not followed that things go wrong, tenants do naughty things, I get irate, start dismembering their wayward corpses into pieces and setting them on fire etc etc…
I jest, of course…
But there have been instances where people have not paid their rent, given me a ream of bullshit about why not, told me barefaced lies to my face, behaved in ways which damaged the property, accidentally set fire to the kitchen, made an absolute tip of a pigsty to the house / their rooms, hoarding more things than I ever thought possible, not cleaning up after themselves in communal areas, carrying on and arguing so that the neighbours complain and the council send me whinging letters etc etc blah blah…
Thankfully, these things are not common ongoing occurrences, because naughty tenants don’t end up lasting long in my properties.
So yes, naughty tenants annoy me, because they are the exception to the norm in my portfolio.
But I must reiterate that on the whole my tenants are good people.
And when good people do the right thing, there’s nothing to worry about, is there?!
PROPERTY HATE 3: LE FINALE – EVERYTHING IS SO EXPENSIVE!!
I’ve already wittered on about the expense of repairs and maintenance, so I’ll not revisit that route… but EVERYTHING in property is just so bloody expensive!
This includes house purchase prices, the survey fees, the legal costs, the stamp duty land tax, refurbishment costs, gas and electric works, the insurances, the ongoing certificates and legislative measures.
It all costs a bomb, and that bomb frequently explodes in my purse and bank balance!
You know I’m Yorkshire, and you know that for me every pound is a prisoner.
It is always a sad day when money has to be traumatically prised from my parsimonious whimpering fingers to pay for necessary costs!
WHICH IN PROPERTY IS NEARLY ALL THE TIME!!!
*cries*
So there we have it, the 3 things I hate most about property.
But hang on, let’s not be a negative Nellie.
Because although there are many thunderstorms and showers in property, there are plenty of sunshine-y moments too!
Such as:
Providing housing for people
Acquiring assets
Long term pension pot plan
Majority of property portfolio work is now passive
Time freedom and independence
Gives me a salary!
Can’t have all these nice smooth bits, without a bit of rough too, eh?!
People new to property and who are looking to buy their first residential house(s) to make rental income.
𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗬 𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗡?
Things I wish I’d known at the start of my own property journey – many things that would have made the process so much easier, faster, and less stressful.
𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗖𝗔𝗡 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗣?
I would be most grateful if you would 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 to help reach my target audience, and I thank you kindly in advance for your support! 🥰
Link to buy here:
Help new property investors learn from my experience… in order to make their experience much more pleasant!
You might know that I help people build wealth passively, through the vehicle of property.
But have you ever wondered why people invest?
Why would people with funds want to work with me?
In this blog I’ll be exploring the reasons of what’s in it for them as private investors.
First of all, a key reason people choose to invest is that it gives them somewhere safe to invest their funds.
They realise that property is a good solid asset, and is unlikely to be stolen or magically disappear or reduce in value, like stocks, shares and other volatile online investment vehicles.
Property is a safe investment option, because it’s a tangible asset which really exists.
That’s why we have the phrase “Safe as Houses”! 🏠
Another great reason people choose to work with me is that they know it involves socially responsible investing.
They’re not putting their money into dubious activities, products or gambling – they are directly benefitting local families by providing housing.
There’s nothing more socially responsible than helping low-income families get a safe, secure home to comfortably bring their kids up in.
Here’s another key reason that I know many people want to invest with me: it gives them the chance to help me help others.
Not only does it help provide housing for people, it helps me build my own future, and it helps them build their own wealth!
It’s nice to be nice, it gives you a good feeling inside. It is often said that we rise by lifting others, and that helping others is the secret sauce to a happy life.
I fully believe this, in fact I even wrote a blog on the subject – do click here to have a read!
At present in Britain, there is a severe housing shortage. Every year we need an extra 300,000 homes in addition to the new ones that have been built, just to keep up with demand.
Investing with me gives you the knowledge that you’re helping create much-needed homes.
Demand vastly outstrips supply, which means your investment funds are providing a much-needed commodity.
There’ll always be a need for housing, meaning there’ll always be investment required to fund this, meaning you will be financially rewarded for the value you provide through investment funding.
Finally, a good draw for private investors is that they have the opportunity to make far more interest on their funds than they would by having it sat in the bank.
If you have £20,000 idly sitting in your high street bank, at current Bank of England interest rates, you are only likely to make around 25p interest per month.
Whereas if you put that £20,000 into one of my property projects, you are guaranteed a minimum of 6% per annum, which means you would receive £1200 interest per annum – which equals £100 a month in interest!
That’s a much better return than 25 pence, isn’t it?!?
How can I afford to give you such a high return?
Well, that’s because of the magic of uplifting the values of property development.
There’s always enough money in the deal to enable me to do this, and you deserve a great return for your trust in me and helping me deliver these projects.
Win-win for all!
You help me provide housing, and I help you grow your wealth passively within short periods of time.
It’s a great feeling to give someone back a large chunk of money in interest, knowing you have effectively beaten the banks!
So there we have it: a range of reasons explored as to what’s in it for private investors who choose to invest in my property project opportunities.
If you would like to discuss becoming an investment partner to gain these benefits, do book in to have a call with me, by clicking the link below.
You might know that I have a property rental portfolio here in Leeds.
What you might not know is that half of my single let rentals are occupied by tenants on benefits.
Now whilst benefits tenants often get a bad reputation, many low-income families are just like you and me: decent, pleasant people, that have found themselves in a certain situation.
Being on benefits does not mean that you are a write-off, or a bad person. It does not mean you are scum, a degenerate, a waster, or any of the other negative connotations the media try to impose on us.
Of course, there are some people who aren’t as savoury as we would hope, throughout all areas of life – but we cannot tar everyone with the same brush.
Not all benefits tenants are bad ones, in the same surprising way that not all high paid ‘professional tenants’ look after the property and pay their rent – as some of my landlord friends will vouch for! 😱
As with anybody, carefully check out your prospective tenants, and be convinced that they are a good choice.
So here’s my reasons for the benefits of renting to tenants on benefits:
✳️ They are usually families, looking for a long term home, which means they stay longer.
✳️ There are lots of them looking for housing, as the council has a severe shortage of available local housing authority accommodation.
✳️ Often the council will provide a deposit for them or a scheme whereby they will fix damaged items
✳️ You can request for the rent to be paid directly to yourself as landlord. This massively reduces the risk of rent not getting paid.
✳️ You are helping vulnerable families by giving them a chance to build themselves a secure lifestyle, and a steady foundation for their children to progress in the future…
… because that’s exactly what happened to me.
I’m the product of a single parent on benefits. And although we were poor, our council house was immaculate, and we tried hard to improve our situation.
I’m not scum, a reprobate, a degenerate, a lowlife, or any of those things.
I’m a good person, just like my tenants are.
I was a kid who had a good grounding to want to do better than the situation I found myself in.
A couple of these kids in my class are from benefits families, can you tell which? Of course you can’t – but all kids deserve a decent start in life!
I appreciate everything, because I still remember what it means to have nothing.
And that’s exactly why I choose to rent to low income families – because I’ve been there, and know how important is it for someone to just give you a chance and believe in you.
So as there’s over 3 million people claiming housing benefit in Britain… why not consider renting to them?!?
Today I will share with you my love of property, and why it features so highly in my affections… so here’s 5 things I love about it! 😍🏠
❤️ 1. How property is magic and transformational ❤️
You take an utter wreck of a house, give it a little love and care and tenderness (and a shedload of refurbishment money!) et voilá, it magically transforms into a lovely cute little property, all smart and tidy!
🏠❤️
❤️2. Putting families in homes ❤️
Creating a rental property means you have a home for a family to make memories in. My target audience is families, often low income people, often with children. I have housed families who have found themselves homeless and domestic violence escapees, which I find really fulfilling and a worthwhile task.
It’s never too late to live happily ever after!
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❤️3. Giving private investors loads of interest ❤️
If you’ve had £30,000 sitting in a bank account for the last year, you will have made around £3 in interest, or roughly 25p a month on your thirty grand… big wow, eh?!? 😱😤
I love being able to give great chunks of money to private investors who have trusted me with their funds – and their generous investment returns enable them to buy way more than a cheap box of chocolates!
🍫❤️
❤️4. How property always increases in value ❤️
You know how you give something love and that love expands??
That happens to property… if you treat it nice and look after it well, it will always increase in value.
Think back to when your parents and grandparents were young lovers… and between them in the 1980s/70s/60s etc, they managed to buy themselves a whole house for a can of Coke and a king size Twix… well not quite, but you get the idea!
Those £5000 property purchases are now likely worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
What’s not to love about increasing house value?!?
💷❤️
❤️5. How it creates passive income – you do the work once and get paid forever! ❤️
Oh passive income, shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day?!? Thou art more lovely for allowing me to have time and life freedom to do all the things I enjoy!
But let’s be fair here: I do work hard when I need to, and in the past I have worked hard enough building my portfolio so that now I don’t have to work hard – if I don’t choose to.
Time freedom: there’s nothing I love more about property than that!
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So there we go, fair readers: I’ve managed to spread the love about property… 😍
And don’t forget, if you’d like to know more about investing or working together, do visit my website, or follow me on all the social media platforms.
In my career as property developer, I’ve made some mistakes.
It’s good not to make mistakes to start with, or even better, learn from other people’s mistakes!
Here’s a selection of my biggest howlers over the years… laugh along with me… but don’t repeat these daft mistakes yourself!
One big boo-boo I won’t be repeating: putting laminate floor in rental houses!
I have it in my own house just now, it’s already trashed after just 18 months so will be coming out soon… so why did I think it would be hardwearing enough for tenants?!
The one rental house I put it in, their pets kindly seeped that laminate in urine… lovely 😖
So into the tip that lot went when they left, a mistake never to be repeated! 😱
Here’s another property mistake I won’t ever be repeating: asking for investment funding on too short a timescale!
A lovely investor offered to lend me money for a project, but I only asked for 2 months to bridge a gap before my refinance money came through – which in hindsight was ridiculous on my part.
What happened next was that my planned project got gazumped, and I couldn’t get another property acquired fast enough and time ran out.
But because I always do as I’ve promised I then gave the investor their money back plus their couple of grand interest as agreed – despite not even ending up with a project! 🤦🏻♀️
But… that same investor, having seen I can be trusted, went on to lend me funds for two projects.
And although it was an expensive lesson for me, I now know to always ask for at least a 12-month investment period for projects, just in case something goes wrong!
Hey ho, we live and learn from our mistakes – we just don’t do them again!!!
Another mistake I’ve made was not creating enough storage.
This wasn’t apparent at the beginning, where the kitchen units were adequate for a single mum. My logic for not adding more was they might want to use that wall and space for a dining table.
But fast forward a couple of years, and the family of 2 had grown to a family of 6, and they were struggling for storage space.
There is never enough storage, even in my own house, so we added these additional six units to the kitchen to relief the storage burden.
Good learning for the future!
Today I’ll tell you another property mistake lesson I learnt the hard way – not inspecting enough!
In one of my early rentals, the family just had a baby, seemed nice, so I mostly left them to it.
Fast forward 3 years when they moved areas, the entire house and floor coverings stunk and were ruined by the fact the tenants had accumulated SIX dogs!
Bear in mind, their letting agency tenancy agreement stated no pets allowed, so the agency obviously hadn’t been inspecting either… it was the neighbour afterwards who told me about their illegal half dozen dog collection!
So there you go, keep inspecting your property on a regular basis!
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Oh gawwwd, another property mistake not to be repeated… dodgy decor colours!
Now bear in mind I am no interior designer…
My first few houses all had what I call ‘The BMW Treatment’ – Beige Magnolia White! 😆
That was when magnolia boxes were the “in thing”!
Then I got a load of cheap paint – about 40 tins of the stuff – which was used in the next couple of houses (hey, we’re always on a budget!)
I loved playing the “Mix these paints and see what colour we’ll get, it’ll be reyt!”game. 😆
Now I am also no colour-palette-knowledgable artist…
So on occasions, we ended up with some very questionable colours for certain rooms.
A glaringly bright 1980s custardy yellow adorned one hallway.
But it wasn’t as bad as the hideous minty green toothpasty chaos that one bedroom ended up painted with!
Even I was glad when the tenant covered that up with a dinosaur mural! 😱🦖
Thankfully, those dodgy paints ran out, and since then, I now simply whiteout all the rooms, perhaps with one coloured feature wall on a chimney breast if we feel brave.
White walls and ceilings are fresh, bright and airy, and are literally a blank canvas.
Dodgy decor is so last season – so choose your colours wisely! 🎨🖌
I’ve admitted before: I’m not very good at visualising things that aren’t there.
So when it comes to planning out where electrical sockets and switches should go, in terms of planning out where the future imaginary furniture would be in a house: mistakes, I’ve made a few!
Yes, I’ve had light switches put on the wrong side of the door, so it opens onto the switch instead of next to it. 🤦🏻♀️⚡️
Yes I’ve not added enough plug sockets to rooms and had to have more retrofitted afterwards. 🤦🏻♀️⚡️
The worst mistake I made was putting a switch for a hallway inside a HMO room, with the intention of converting that bit of hallway into a self-contained unit kitchen bit… until I realised that I would then be billed for two sets of council tax, so I scrapped that plan. 🤦🏻♀️ ⚡️
But it was too late! The electrician had followed my orders, and now that hallway -missing-switch-cos-it’s-in-that-room bit annoys me every time I see it! 🤦🏻♀️
If you’re not earning, you’re learning, right?!
Here’s the final property mistake I won’t be repeating, one I definitely learnt my lesson from… the first and only time I did it!
In my house of multiple occupancy, we were bringing a new room into use.
My beloved Mummio was helping, in the days before we started employing professional fitters – she’s a dab hand at laying the odd carpet in the odd room.
I was sent out to get a carpet for said large room.
Did I go for a high-quality, hard-wearing, decently thick and lovely textured carpet?
No: I went purely on price and got a cheap, thin, corduroy-type carpet, at a bargain price of just £39. 💥
And when she saw the utter cheap tat I had bought and brought back, she went absolutely nuts.
“Look how thin this crap is, it’s like bleeding paper, I can cut it with scissors it’s that thin. Don’t buy this sh!t again, we’re not having it.” 🤬✂️
And that was me duly told.
But of course she was right, because not only was it thin and poor quality, it wrinkled and ruffled up once on the floor.
So I never bought cheap crap carpets again! 🙄
That’s why we don’t buy cheap rubbish, ladies and gentlemen, it’s false economy – you get what you pay for 🤷🏻♀️
If nowt else, get better quality stuff just to save the earache and stop your mum whining!
Remember… nobody gets everything right first time every time. Mistakes are all part of learning, so embrace them – and learn what those mistakes teach you!
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Kellyann is a property investment strategist from Leeds.
In her work she creates wealth for private investors through refurbishing properties.
It’s very important that you get to know anybody that you’re considering working with!
So in this post, I’ll be sharing a little bit of background information into me… but more specifically, how my previous experience fed into my current property investor career!
When I was little, I wanted to be all these things at various times:
✂️ hairdresser – but too clumsy, and all my Sindy dolls had mohicans 😖 ❌
✈️ pilot navigator – but had bad eyes and likely not clevererer enough! 😵💫 ❌
👩🏻🏫 teacher – managed that, but that was waaaaay too much hard work for me! 🥵✅
🏡 property developer – by Jove, I think I’ve made it! 😁👍 ✅
But it’s interesting that lots of skills and things I’ve learnt along the way have all fed into helping my career in property.
ie, because I did this, or went on a night course on that, it’s massively benefitted me.
And I love learning, the latest benefit paying off is my accredited Diploma in Internet Marketing, which has been wildly helpful in building up my online presence.
So, here I go: some major skills that I learnt ages ago which still benefit me now!! 👊
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The biggest one you may know about me is that I used to be a high school teacher. This taught me a lot about patience!
But also it’s honed my public speaking skills.
I know glossophobia is the number one fear of many people… but once you’ve tried to keep smiling and be positive and talk to stroppy disinterested year 11s about Shakespeare, whilst they argue back with you, any crowd or audience after that is a breeze!
Another good skill that came from teaching was resourcefulness, and the ability to think on my feet: “Oh the interactive whiteboard screen’s not working / my photocopying’s not ready / there’s no work been left for the class I’ve been called in to cover, etc, I’ll have to think of something else on the spot” –
Makes you think of a resolution fast!
Most teachers are organised and time efficient, calm and enjoy planning and things running smoothly – me too!
Finally it’s a great ability to be able to start each day afresh and not drag resentment with you from the past.
This particularly paid off with Samantha, as no matter how disruptive she was one day, I never held it against her the next lesson. And although she was a problem for other teachers, being given a new chance every lesson led to one of my teaching career’s greatest moments: on GCSE results day, when she told me mine was the only subject where she’d earned her only grade C, and she thanked me for not giving up on her.
And thus another skill learnt: no matter their circumstances or issues, people matter!
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The next experience that fed into my current property investor career – photography skills! 📸
I’ve always been interested in photography, and have hundreds of photo albums documenting the last 30-odd years!
I firmly believe that a photograph captures a memory and freezes it in time indefinitely 🤩
So about a decade ago I did a photography course at night college to improve my skills.
And whilst I’m no David Bailey, I am pretty decent a getting a good photo shot, having some concept and thought process of lighting, framing, angles, focal planes, the rule of thirds, and so on.
This skill has been particularly useful for photographing my property projects, both to document the transformation process and as rental or valuation photos for the end result.
It also helps with my social media content; hopefully you’ve seen some of my jazzy photos online!
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Here’s another way that my previous skills and experience fed into my property career….
At Leeds Metropolitan University I studied an English degree and a few years later I went on to do a creative writing course at night school.
I’ve always liked the written word, and my mum informs me I could read and write before I even went to school.
This has meant I have built up a superb grasp of many written skills, and I love to use language and vocabulary to entertain people. And I can spot a grammar or spelling mistake a mile off!
So how has this benefitted me in property?
Well it effectively means I am my own copywriter. I write the content myself for property adverts, my website, my investor email mailing list, this blog and my social media posts.
This has the added benefit of all my content and resources being authentically me!
You’re welcome to check out all my written resources on the platforms I’ve mentioned!
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Here’s the fourth way in which my previous experience fed into my current property investor career.
I have studied a range of counselling skills and psychology courses. This means I have learnt some great interpersonal skills, and have developed my ability to understand people and get on with them.
Some find it really difficult to walk into a room of strangers and begin a conversation, but I’m quite decent at networking, and am reasonably good at making people feel at ease.
Learning about counselling helped me develop patience and empathy, whereas the psychology course showed me different ways in which people think.
I love the nature versus nurture debate, and it really interests me why people are like they are, usually because of the past experiences they’ve had.
How is this relevant?
Well, I have to deal with clients, tenants, investors and contractors – people.
It’s often said that property is a people business, so it makes sense that I should continuously try and improve my people skills!
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The final thing I’m going to mention on how my past experiences fed into my current property career, is computing.
Bear in mind, I’m from a time when your junior school had just one computer between us all… and you took your one hour go on it a year, one-finger typing out a paragraph to print off! 🤣 And you weren’t taught much more about computers at high school either.
Even when I reached the Sixth Form in the late 90s, the Internet was only just starting up, and a laptop in every home was still a good few years away.
So I cajoled a friend to sign up with me to Joseph Priestley College (named after the discoverer of oxygen, FYI!), and after Sixth Form once a week, we would go and sit at their computers and learn the new-fangled arts of ‘Word Processing’ and ‘Spreadsheets’. I’ve still got the certificates to prove it!
Anyway, fast forward twenty years later, and my keyboard wizardry skills mean I can do a range of computer-based tasks which are vital to my property business.
Creating documents, templates, letters, and most importantly, those fiscal spreadsheets showing me that things are going well in my portfolio (well, mostly, barring a few evil months involving excessive repairs and maintenance! 😅)
Eeeh, who’d have thought in the last century that everyone in the future would be taught these skills at school?!?
Shame they don’t do the same with teaching kids about business, tax and mortgages!
So thanks for reading… who knew I had so many skills, eh?!
What, you want to hear more?!
Oh go on then…
…but as long as you have a go at recognising how your own skills and experiences are beneficial!
KELLYANN MARTIN 
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