Transcription
How are you making money in property? What's your strategy at the moment?
I've got four SAs in Manchester, but I also have a building company. What that building company does is HMOs in Manchester.
You're a builder, you know the industry, you've been in the game a long time. You're left with £1,100 a month passive income, and that really is passive.
Oh God, yeah, totally passive. What excites you the most? Uh, when I get my money through from my remortgage, I'm going to go on a bit of a spending spree.
What would be your biggest advice to someone wanting to get started in property? I would actually go down the route of going to the HMO. It's, it's, it's like a passive income.
Do you think that there's a lot of builders in the industry that are missing a trick because they don't understand how to make money? 100%. I was, I was that person. So you don't have to pay for the bills, nothing at all. It's just took off your hands totally.
So what do you think is the best investment strategy right now?
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Like, thank you for coming to Win Us on a Wednesday. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Yeah, so talk to me, Paul. How are you making money in property? What's your strategy and what is it that you're doing?
So at the moment, I've got four SAs in Manchester. So I used to have a bed and breakfast. Like I say, uh, as Co struck, we had to change our ways. So turn them to four SAs, so like Airbnbs. So we do really well with them. They're like six bedrooms, six bathrooms, do really well. So that's how we predominantly made our money. That's your kind of like passive income, so to speak.
But I also have a building company, and what that building company does is HMOs in Manchester. Yes. So we work with a provider called Ciro. So we'll go in, Ciro will get investors to buy the properties, usually from Hong Kong, if I'm honest, or China. And then we go in and turn a three-bed to a five-bed HMO. And we do, I've done loads, well over 50, I'd say 60. I've got four on like this month already. So you can imagine, I've been doing this since Co struck. So, yeah, we do get an awful lot of them.
So your knowledge of HMO conversions? Oh God, yeah. I know it like the back of my hand. Which is why I wanted you on Win Us on a Wednesday. To keep your brain. I know. Now as well, you've just refinanced your property. You're buying your own core HMOs. Yes. Um, you've been in the game a long time. How long have you been in the bed and breakfast, um, holiday home game? Probably since I was 23. Right. And I'm 52 now. So a long time. Yeah. Way longer than I have, even been in the game. Yeah.
So I bought a house and used to have like six bedrooms and then we did really well on that. I bought next door and then I just paid them two hours off. I worked for 10 years, me and my wife, really hard. We paid them off and we had like a year really enjoying ourselves. But next door but one come up. So I bought that. And then no sooner that came up, another, another house come up next door to that. So I bought that. Next thing you know, I've got 24 bedrooms, 24 on suites. We had seven staff, we had a chef. So then I opened a bar underneath the, the bed and breakfast. We had a massive reception built. So we were doing really, really well until Co struck. Yeah. Co killed us.
Did you, uh, 'cause at the time I didn't know. You joined Co. We had a lot of properties ourselves and a lot of our students did. So we just pivoted, you know, put contractors in. Yeah. That's what everybody had to do. That's what we had to do. Yeah. So that's exactly what we did. So we changed it from being a bed and breakfast to four. Like we changed the houses up so they were all like intermingled with each other. But we, we blocked them all back up and just turned them to four Victorian houses, which we do really well with. Because it was a bed and breakfast, they're all on suite. So it's six bedroom, six bathrooms, this parking. It's got, you just can't find that in Manchester. Not many of them anyway. And we've got four of them. In theory, we could have 30 people stay with us. You could have 60 people. We've got 24 rooms. So there's two people in the rooms. You could have like 58 people. Yeah. So it's quite rare.
What are you most excited about now then? Because you've got your connections with Ciro, housing associations, you've got your building company, you're buying properties, you've got your service accommodation units. Yeah. What excites you the most? Uh, when I get my money through from my remortgage, I'm going to go on a bit of a spending spree. And what my aim is, is in, like, I don't know, maybe a year's time, to get 8 to 10 HMOs all with Circle, earning say £1,000 to £1,200 each. And that's my new goal.
So what do you think is the best investment strategy right now? Like, you've got, how much are you going to get in the bank when you refinance? Oh, £300,000. It'll pay me over mortgage, so maybe £210, £220 fluid. I want to know your business plan, man. Oh God. What you doing? Don't do it. No, because you're very experienced. You're a builder. You know the industry. Yeah. What, what are you looking at? Where, firstly, where are you going to find a property?
So I've just actually bought a property at auction. Uh, I've bought it in Chadderton, which is in like, uh, the Northwest. I bought it for £85,000. I reckon once it's done up, we'll spend about £25 on it. Once it's done up, I'm hoping to get about £135 to £140. But it's not that that I'm in the game for. I want to do it up, remortgage it, and then just get rid of it. So with Circle, they always lease it. It's always 6 years, 11 months. I'm not too sure. I think there's a reason why it can't be seven. I think it's something to do with tax, or but it's always six years, 11 months to take it for. So I'm hoping to get a few properties to like stack them up so I'm earning £1,200 for each property. That's my.
So how much will Circle pay then for, for in rent for a house? It sounds really, when you say it to people, I know I've said it on the academy to people from like, say, down London and the like, "Wow, that's..." You get £78 pounds at the moment per room per week. But when you times that by five, so if you're buying a house at £75 grand and you're getting £75, £78 pound per room, times that by five, then times that by four, I think it's £1,460 or something. Yeah. And then you've got your insurance to get out of that. And then you'll remortgage it with an interest only. So you're usually coming out with about £1,100 after everything. And that's no voids, no maintenance. That house is just gone. So you don't have to pay for the bills, nothing at all. It's just took off your hands totally. Right. And, and there's many housing associations that do this. And the, if you ring them up, they'll, they love you. Everyone's always worried about, "Oh, how did you get the contact?" Just give them a call. Right. They're there to help. That, that they need accommodation. People need accommodation in every town.
What does Circle actually do then? Who, who's living in the property? These are all different. They do loads of different ones. But the ones I work with is like illegal immigrants. It could be battered wives. All different traits to them. But generally, it is like illegal immigrants or that type of thing. So the government, yeah, have budgets, yeah, for people that might be vulnerable people. It could be homeless people, asylum seekers, people fresh out of prison. So Circle basically bridged the gap between the government funding, yes, which is by the way, hundreds of millions. Yeah. So they bridge the gap between the government funding and the property. Yeah. And they lease properties. Yeah. And there's a big demand for it. Like I say, it could be, it could be for ladies who have been abused, abusive stuff at home. It could be young girls with babies. It's, it's, there's millions of different. And like you say, the government are just offering money for that. And there's also hundreds of housing associations. Circle is one. Circle's one of the cheapest ones. So there is other ones. Like I think there's one called Helping Hands. There's quite a few of them. And some of them you can get like £100 per week per room.
Why did you choose Circle then when they pay a bit less? It's just because of the industry I'm in. I've just worked with them for such a long time that I know them like the back of my hand. Right. You know what they want, you know what their criteria is. But in my house in Chadderton, we, we may might not go with Circle for that. We might go, we've going to try and find the most, the most money obviously for the rooms. Yeah. So, okay. So you bought this property in Chadderton for £85 grand. Yeah. You know that the refurb is going to be about, it's about 20 odd grand, I'd say, say 25 to 23. I'm hoping. Yeah. And then you'll refinance it. Yeah. Pull out the bulk of your money. Yeah. And then you're left with £1,100 a month passive income. And that really is passive. Oh God, yeah, totally passive. That just be gone for seven years. That's the last I will see in that house. And I'll just take that money again and just keep on doing it. So that's my goal. But also I want to do a bit of deal sourcing. So I want other investors to come.
What happens with us with our? I was speaking to an investor the other day and he was saying, like, "Well, you can only do say eight jobs a year, Paul, because..." And I was like, "Well, no, not really. We need quantity." So all the joiners will come to one job and we'll be there for a week or whatever. And then once the joiners are done, we all come off. So it's like a circle. So I need them joiners to go to another job. So a few months ago, we were doing eight jobs a month, say. So everybody was, it was like a time machine. Everyone was going from job to job to job. It needs to be like that. And I need some investors to help me to get to that stage.
You know what's funny, Paul? I've kind of got into property initially through being working on a building site. Yeah. Um, I know I've got not builder's hands, but I was working on a building site when I was 16 years old. And I was working in Birmingham. And the guy I was working for, the builder, mhm, was saying to me, I was, I was, I was plastering. Yeah. I know, right? You know my story. I was plastering. And the builder said to me, he said, "This house," he goes, "Do you know how much the, um, the investor's going to get for these rooms?" And I was like, "No idea." And he pulled out a little pen and paper and he just sketched it out. And he said, "He, I know," he goes, "I know he bought this house for £95 grand, he's spending £25 grand to us doing it up. It's then going to be worth this much. But then he's going to get £95 per week per room. There's five rooms." And he was all sketching out. And I was like, "Wow." And the builder was almost like, I don't know if he was like annoyed or he was almost saying, "Oh, that's how much money he's making. He should be paying us more." But I was just thinking, "I'm in the wrong business," or "I want to do what the investor's doing." Yeah.
And you can change. We, we can do them housing six weeks, literally. So quick. So I'm just doing a house at the moment in Warrington. We started on Monday. The painters in there. So what we try and do now, so for a lot of the investors, they won't buy a rundown house. So the investors for like China and Hong Kong, they're buying houses that don't need much doing. Something like a house that just needs new doors, dated, dated. Yeah. So we don't, the house I'm doing now, it doesn't need a new kitchen. It's just fire doors. It's just to bring it up to regs, right? So we've, in the, I reckon the painter is going to be in there within two weeks time. The painter will be in there and that'll be gone. And we'll move.
Are you increasing the value as much? Not so much. They don't seem to be bothered about that. It's about return on investment. Exactly. So they're thinking, if I buy a house for 80, 90 grand, it's more the yield for them. It's more. I'll spend 20 grand just converting it. Yeah. And then I'm making £1,100 quid a month because the, the like investors from abroad, they're hoping the property is going to rise in value. Well, the, once you've got a Circle contract signed, does that in, can you get any lenders that will give you a commercial valuation? Or are you increasing? With the properties I've done in the past, they're too small for the commercial. So when I ring commercial people, they're like, "Well, it's not really. It needs to be over five bedrooms, really." It does. It does. And it needs six bedrooms, on suites. It needs to be bigger. Yeah. This, I've tried that. 'Cause people say, "Oh, you can get well more." But you can't. They won't go. A commercial person just will not go. And when they value the small houses, sometimes I don't even think they go. I think just sort of Google Maps it and just sort of, it's just a bricks and mortar valuation. There. Exactly. Yeah. Definitely.
So what are, are you going to be doing the same thing? Looking for properties that are just a bit dated then? So I'm, I'm wondering if I'm Paul right now. Yeah. With all of your knowledge and experience. Yeah. You're on the computer. Where are you going? Are you going on Rightmove? Yeah. We go on Rightmove. We're going to start looking at, once I've got this money, I can start looking at auctions. So I start looking at houses that haven't got kitchens in. So I don't have to pay the stamp duty.
How many properties do you own right now then, to date? I own four, five properties at the moment. Five properties at the moment. Are they HMOs or service accommodation? Or four, or service accommodation. Right. Like I said, the big Victorian houses. The other ones in Chadderton. Yeah.
Do you have any rent-to-rent properties? Just the one that's the lease option. Okay. Tell me about the lease option. That's fantastic. So the lease option is, I was working on a job and every single day the painter in the, not, sorry, not the painter, the electrician was moaning every day about this flat that he's got. So every day we come in, we have a chat. And he's like, "You're never going to guess." And he had some crazy guy staying in there. It was a two-bedroom flat. He was getting £800 a month for it. But his mortgage was £1,000 a month. 'Cause it was two bedrooms. But he said that he just had nothing but trouble. That's perfect opportunity. So he was £200 a month down. And he's just had nightmare tenants. Also, he's in negative equity. So everything was wrong. So he said, "I can't sell." By the way, just for the record, there's a hell of a lot of people in that situation right now. Loads, especially up north. Absolutely. Yeah. And in London, because the prices have dropped a lot the last few years in many parts of London. So for him, it's a burden. But for me, I was like, "God, that sounds great." So I said, "Can you come and have a look?" So we went, we went, had a look around. I was like, "This will be good." So we've looked to see what it's like in the area. Like we get taught on the academy. I was like, "I think this will go." So we've been there. It's not open yet. But we've been, we've done it all up. It's literally ready to go. On the back of that, I've said to like the lease option agreement, I was like, "I'll buy this off you." So he doesn't understand. Like I didn't only a few months ago. So it's explaining to him how much do you want for it? So we come to an agreement. So he's like, "How much is the, uh, flat in this apartment block?" So he's come up with an agreement. So I'll give you that amount in five years' time. That's what we've agreed. So I'll pay the pound. Like you say, I'll pay for the solicitor fees. And hopefully five years down the line, the property would have lifted. I'll take my money for the SA money. And hopefully I'll be quids in. Yeah.
So you're going to be paying him what, £800 a month? It's, I'm going to pay him the £1,000 a month, I think. Yeah. 'Cause he's happy. He's happy. And now he's finally not losing money. So he's happy. Actually earning money. In, he's earning 50p a week. And he's got no hassle at all. But then you're going to be renting out on Airbnb? We'll get about £120 to £130 hopefully a night. Yeah. That's what we're hoping. Maybe a little bit less during the week. But we'll easily make. But even if you're doing £100 quid a night, if it's two bedrooms, you've got the living room, put a sofa bed in there. You, you, you'll probably, if you do £100 quid a night, that's £3,000 a month. Yeah. Minus voids, minus maintenance, minus everything. You'll probably make a grand a month profit on that. Yeah. And you then you can save that. Yeah. Five years. And you've got all the capital appreciation on it. Exactly. That's what. And, and also he's over the moon. It's not like he's absolutely chuffed to bits with all of it. He's even come and put lights in for us. Just to help us get started. 'Cause it's just a burden off his shoulders. He said it's been a nightmare. So it works out really well.
Do you think that there's a lot of builders in the industry that are missing a trick because they don't understand how to make money? 100%. I was, I was that person. 100%. Yes. The same with like SAs, rent to rents. I didn't even know what a rent to rent was. But a lot of people are skeptical about all this stuff. Oh, it's all, yeah. I hear it all the time. We all in the academy do. But, yeah, you know, because we see winners every day in the academy. So just inspired. Yeah. You see people doing really well. So. And Manchester is a really, really good area. And there's some great, there's some really good places to look. Like, some, once you start going out the city, you can get houses. Like you can go to Skelmersdale, get a house there for five bedrooms for £85 grand. You give that to Circle, you're earning, you're earning very good money. Some of them are actually done up as well. You don't really need to do much apart from change the fire.
What does Circle look for then, Paul? What are they wanting to see? So if you said Circle, and also how do you know before you buy that the Circle will definitely want it, or you can definitely get that rent? First thing you do when you, before you even buy a property, look at a property. Get the postcode. So we've seen a property, wherever in Chadderton, get the postcode. Ring up Circle straight away. Give them the postcode. And they'll tell you over the phone within five minutes. They'll say, "Yes, we do that area." You can ask him what the rate is. He'll tell you straight away. Once you get past that stage, if you buy the house, you can ring them back up and they'll arrange to come out and see you. So you'll walk them around and say, "I'm going to turn this three-bed to a five-bed." You'll walk around, say, "This is going to be a bedroom." They'll talk you through that stage. And then they'll have a form with them, which is a letter of agreement. So you'll get that form out. They'll sign it. We'll go through what you're going to do. So I'm going to turn to a five-bed. And then they'll put a date on it. So today's date. And they'll go, "Paul, you have got this letter. It is set in stone for six months." Just to save Circle. Move out of that area after that time. So they do do it. Sometimes they'll just move literally from one area and just stop doing anything HMOs there. So if they do that with that letter, you're, you can still get rid of it to Circle. So to sign that letter of agreement, and you've got that set amount of time to do that.
HMO. So basically, ring them up, tell them about the property that you're thinking of buying. Yeah. And they, they're dead helpful. They're really. Everyone in, everyone's always like worried about ringing. They're so nice. Right. Then buy it. Get them to come out. Yeah. And tell them what your vision is. And they'll go, "Yep, if you do it to this standard, in this way, there's this many rooms, we'll rent it for this much." Yeah. You get a pre-release agreement signed. Yeah. Which will last for six months. You've then got six months to get the property ready, give it to them, and then they'll rent it for six years and 11 months. That's correct. Yeah. Or three years. But generally, they'll try and go for the long lease. And also, once it gets to the end of that, they have to get the day before you give it to them, you'd walk around that property and video it. And they have to give you that property back in the same condition that you gave it to them. So they can't give it you back as a wreck with holes in the doors and stuff. It's got to be. But I've never known them to give a place back just yet. And I've been doing this quite a while. They always just keep, keep the lease going generally because they don't want to move the people out. They're usually settled then. So they say seven years, but it could easily be 10, 15. 100%. I've, I've never really known. I've never been to a property yet that they've gone, "Oh, this isn't an HMO now." Always been. And give it a lick of paint. Do the.
Are the rents fixed or do they go up over time? How they go up? If, if the LHA rates go up, they'll, they'll go up in time. So it will go probably about in line with inflation. Exactly. Yeah. Definitely. What a brilliant strategy. It's brilliant. A lot of people should do it. They should. If you've got £50,000 in the bank and you're thinking, "What should I do?" Well, put it down as a deposit on a house, or maybe even two houses. Yeah. Rent it to Circle, get a grand a month profit. It's just an absolute no-brainer, isn't it? It is. It's absolute. And then you can recycle the money, get your money back out. Yeah. Go again.
Why did you join the academy, Paul? Because you've been in the game a very long time. What was it that you saw in the academy that was attractive? Yeah, I joined, like I say, because I'd like lost the wind in my sails, type of thing. I was doing okay and I was doing okay with money and stuff. So it weren't for that reason. It was more to sort my life out and give me a bit more of a vision and a push. Yeah. So when I joined, I was like an, a bit of a low. And I wanted to learn a bit more about. So I've got my SAs, but when I've been on the academy, it showed me like how to do it properly. So I was doing like, I've been doing it well and we do earn good money, but now it's like streamlining. So we do a lot better. And also, I wouldn't have got into Circle. All the, the contacts I've made through Circle have been through the academy, literally. Or being like on the internet and just checking all these different ideas. You tell us to do. I mean, the networking is insane. It's unbelievable, honest to God, it's unbelievable. And when you've got someone like yourself that's got a lot of experience, you're a builder, you've got a building company, and you're on the academy and you're giving value, you're helping people. Everyone helps me as well. It comes back, doesn't it? 100%. And the more you help, the more it seems to come back. And that's what I've learned. Like I said, three months in, I was like quiet on the academy. Where after that three months, I was like, "That's it." And I made like a promise to myself. I'm going to really go out and help as many people as I can. I really do. And the people that you're helping, they're in property, they're in business, they're well-connected. So they can return the favor. 100%. 100%.
I personally think all builders, and not just builders, letting agents, estate agents, I reckon they need to get in on the community and level up, scale up. Definitely. 'Cause there's so much money left on the table. So many builders are just going out and they're, yeah, they might be getting paid all right. They're making all right. They're making a living. But it's all active income. Yeah. But if they started joint venturing, buying properties, it's so easy to get into. You don't need so much money to get you started. And once you've started, you're done. Yeah. And once you get known in Circle, they sort of know. So when they come and see me now, they're like, they know who we are and they know what, what standard of work we do. So it works a treat. Yeah. And, and if you're not a builder, you could deal source. Like you've, you sold a deal recently, didn't you? Yes, I have. I've sold a much. How much did we get? £5,000 for it. And what was the deal that you sold? It was a commercial property to an HMO in Chadderton again. I do a lot of work in Chadderton, so I know the area very, very well. Yes. So, yes, that was the deal. But anyone can do that. Anyone can go into an area, find deals, build a power team together, and then get an investor on the academy. 100%. Sell a deal. And there's a lot of people on the academy that haven't got time. They're doctors, lawyers. Yeah. They'll pay you five grand because they've got to pay stamp duty, they've got to pay legal fees. And they happily pay a deal sourcer. Yeah. There's a lot of work into deal sourcing as well. It does take a bit of time. You need to know your market. Not something that you just roll into. But yeah, definitely. It's, it's a skill that you've got to learn and master. Um, but ultimately, it's a good way to make fast pound. Yes. Definitely. And then once you've sold a few deals, you can use that to put down a deposit on your own property. And like I say, if you're buying a house up north for £70 grand, you don't need that much of a deposit to get you started. And you could do it as a joint venture. Like say, you could do it with two people.
If you were struggling in the future, what I'd like to do with the work that with Circle is have open days. That's one of the things I'm thinking of in the future. Because I've got four jobs on at the moment. So you can take people to the four.
So have the time, Paul, to do. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm in property every day. So I don't know. I just find it. I love. How many guys do you have working on the building on, on the height of me? I had nine people working for me at the height. What is? I have all the joiners that work for me. But all the others are subcontractors. So the electricians don't work for me. They're just, they've got their own businesses. But that's why I was saying I need. So when we've got a lot of jobs, no one wants to go anywhere. Like at the moment, I've got four jobs on. So everybody's working. The electricians have sort of got them the next six weeks. Yeah. But I also know that Circle now, they start of giving us another four straight away. So if we can just keep him busy, that's my idea.
And another thing is as well, I would say to people listening to this is don't just think, "Oh, oh, use Circle." Find housing associations. There's hundreds. And they're so nice when you ring them. And also find people that connect with you. In terms of, if you're passionate about, you might be passionate about children that are coming out of foster care. You might be passionate about women that are fleeing domestic abuse. You might find something that you're passionate about. I've done, I've done a one for disabled children. So it was for five disabled boys who wanted to move away. But they just needed a little bit of help. So we had a living person in this house. But this was a beautiful house, a really big, nice house in Stockport. And we did that up for them. That was a great job. Same again. And that was that was an investor through abroad, a really expensive property. And they were getting, I don't know the exact figures, but they were getting very good money for that. Well, the thing is, we know how expensive it is to go to a care home. And this is like the in-between, isn't it? 'Cause some people don't want to go into a care home, but they do need a bit of care. They do need a bit of assisted living. Yeah. There's someone living in just to help them. And the moment that the parents used to come every day. And like, it was a lovely house. It was a lovely job.
Do your HMOs need licensing? Yes. Well, if it's up to, up to five people, you don't need a license. After five, you have to apply for a license. Is it five or more? Yes. Five or more. Right. So five or more, you need a license.
What about, um, planning permission and Article 4? You don't need, sorry, you don't need planning permission. Well, Article 4 is an area where the local council have said, "That's it. We're having no more HMOs." Yeah. So the only time you can get an HMO in that area is one that is already an HMO. Right. So you get grandfather rights. So if it is a, if you are going to to buy one in that area, you can't. It's stopped. That's no more HMOs in that area. So you then have to find properties that have got grandfather rights. Yes. Or go on the outskirts. Yes. Is Chadderton Article 4? No. So you're going to the, you're. And there's, there's many ways to get around Article 4. One way is to go what you're doing, go on the outskirts. Yes. Of the areas. Because Manchester is Article 4, isn't it? In the center. You, you'll get places where Article 4 will be in the town, but it'll be certain roads. So you have to check. So it's, you have to look into. And this is why you say earlier about being a deal sourcer. You need to know what you're doing. Exactly. You can't just, you can't just really nearly look. You might buy something on a road that actually is Article 4. The road next door could be full of HMOs. Right. You've got to be really careful and just do your due diligence. You have to. 100%.
What would be your biggest advice to someone wanting to get sort of started in property? Um, maybe a builder, or maybe someone starting from scratch? H, I would actually go down the route of like getting some cheap properties and go into the HMO. 'Cause it's, it's, it's like a passive income. It depends what you're looking for. For me, it's passive. I'm looking for. So yeah, I would either get a small deposit and go and buy a cheap house of say £50 or £60 grand, which you can find. Yeah. They'll be run down, but you can find them. And then turn them into an HMO. You could do a HMO where you manage it yourself. It could be a posh HMO. There's millions of different. Everyone thinks HMOs like a, like a bit of a dirty, oh, but it's not. You can get some really. Where I live, uh, in Manchester, you get like £850 for a room. So you can do nice HMOs. It depends where you want to enter in the market. And also, what I would say is, if you're in a regular job making £3,000 a month, it's going to take you forever to save the deposits. Partner with people, raise finance, and be creative. And don't forget, because we're up north, we're lucky, we can get the investors from down south who just haven't got the time to do that. You've got a lot to offer, I think. Yeah. You're the eyes and ears in Manchester, or wherever it is. Chadderton.
First, get connected with me. How did you hear about it? Was through my daughter. Oh, my daughter. She was heavily into it. And, uh, she taught me into come into a pound crash course. So we drove to Birmingham, the first one I went. And we sat there and I was like, "What is going on?" I was really shocked. But then I was listening to your speak and I was like, "God, I really enjoying this." Because I obviously got properties myself, it sort of opened my eyes a little bit. So then the month after, we looked again, and he was in Manchester. So we said, "We've got to go." It's a pound. It's one pound. So we came to the Manchester one. And if I'd have had my card on me, I'd have been joining there and then. But my daughter was, uh, doing her exams. So it sort of put us on hold. So when I got home, I was thinking about it for about a week. And I thought, "You know what? I'm having this." So my daughter couldn't do it. So I ended up just ringing up and I just put it on a card and I just joined the academy. It's the best thing I've done. It really is. I've met so many people. It's been a life changer for me. And I've only been in six months. So if you can do this much in six months, I can't imagine in another 12 months where I'll be. Hopefully, it'll be amazing. I'll be sat back here. Well, you've done really well. And you've been a massive asset as well for the academy. And really appreciate you coming down. Shout out to your daughter who's with you as well today. Come down. Um, so thanks so much, Paul. And appreciate what you. Community. Really appreciate it.