Transcription
Freddy, Samuel, welcome to the conversation cabinet. To our first round table. Thanks so much.
Thanks for having us, mate.
So, two in three 20 to 24-year-olds now live with their parents, and the average 18 to 25-year-old renter spends half their income on rent. And we, I think we can all relate to that, um, at some point in our lives. Whose fault is it that young people can't get on the housing ladder? Freddy, could you, could you tell us first?
Whose fault is it? Mmm, it's like, I think it's a bit silly to think that we can blame one individual person or one single thing for the fact that young people are priced out of owning a home. And I'd probably enlarge it as well. You said 18 to 25-year-olds. I say it's bigger than that, about people who aren't able to own a home. It's not a problem that just affects young people. It's also a problem that affects pensioners as well, especially people who don't have an income.
Look, I would take it back to probably to 1979, unsurprisingly, as a Labour guy. Um, I think Margaret Thatcher has a lot to do with this. Structurally, what happens in 1979 is that an ideological shift occurs in the attitude towards housing, where in the previous decades, from the '60s and '70s, housing provision had not just been the purvey of people who worked in the private sector, but it had also been something that government did, local authorities. Through the '60s and '70s, you have local authorities building 100,000-plus houses, sometimes reaching 150,000 houses alone. Right, in that fiscal environment in '79 with Thatcher, two big changes happen. Well, '79 in particular, what happens is Right to Buy. So, you'll be aware of this, I'm sure, Samuel, in a lot of the work that you do, but essentially, council houses are, you know, you're able to purchase them right at a massively discounted rate, 33% to 50% in some cases. Over the course of that, uh, premiership, they think about one and a half million homes, approximately, I think, um, are sold to people who then own it. At the same time, house building itself under local authorities drops off a cliff because it's no longer incumbent on local authorities to build houses. And even the houses that they sold under Right to Buy, local authorities are instructed to go onto their balance sheets, right, so to deduct from other debts that they had. So they couldn't even take the money and reinvest it in building new housing provision. So, house building stops as an object of the government in that time. And in the, in '88, with the deregulation of, um, the rental market, what you have is a push for private interests to be the people who are dependent on creating new house building. Um, and so that's the moment, I think, everything changes in this country, where not just because governments are told that they are no longer their responsibility to create houses and to increase housing supply, but the market is told that it's going to be fair and true and competitive in creating a housing market.
So, Samuel, do you think, do you agree with that at all?
I think I'm a practical guy. I'm a businessman. If something breaks in my house, if something spills on the floor, I don't sit around the table and say, "Who spilled it? What happened? Whose fault was it? Who can we blame?" Because I don't think that's that practical. I understand what Freddy's saying. I wouldn't necessarily say that anything he's saying is wrong, but I think that taking personal responsibility and saying, "How can I make as much money as I can? Be as happy as I can." I don't think it's a practical, let's say we found the solution or the problem was the government or the landlords or the parents that didn't teach their kids financial education or something Margaret Thatcher did, who's now dead. I, I just don't see the point in the conversation. So, whose fault is it that we're in a crisis right now and people are financially struggling? It's not really something that I would spend loads of time thinking about whose fault it is. I would be more inclined to say, "How do we fix it?"
But it seems like you have to understand the illness before you can find the medicine, right? And and there is a clear problem. We're we're facing it. We're both 18. Um, we probably won't be able to move out for a very long time. Have to live with our parents. Yeah. And and when we do move out, we'll have to give half of our wages. So, look,
Half of this to landlords like yourself, which is a huge percentage.
And then I have to give probably all of this to the mortgage and the tax man and and and and the property manager.
So, how, how, how have you been able to become a multi-millionaire with that? Because I don't think many people have that conception of, um, landlords. They're not making money. So, can you explain that for us?
Well, well, landlords generally, if you, if you, we can look at the math. The average house in the UK is about £275,000. So, if you buy a house as an investment, you're going to have to put down a 25% deposit, which is about £69,000, I think, plus your stamp duty, that's going to be £20,000, plus your legals. To buy a normal house as a buy-to-let, you, it's going to cost you £100,000. That's why some of you guys are saying, "How are we supposed to buy a house?" But let's say you did have the £100,000 and you were rich. If you buy a house and you put down £100,000 and now you own a house for £275,000, the mortgage is now, what, two, two, £200,000 approximately with interest rates. Even if you just paid an interest-only mortgage, you're going to be paying about £850, £900 a month interest-only to the mortgage. Well, the average rent is about £1,200. So, you've only got a few hundred pound to play with. And that's before we talk about managing, uh, getting a property management company in, any maintenance, any repairs. So, actually, buying a house and renting it out is not that profitable.
But, but Samuel, like you, you say, like, it doesn't matter to you about why we're in this mess where house prices, as you pointed out, are like, cost way more than people are able to afford. But like, there is a story to this. And I'm not a housing expert, right? Like, I defer to people like Peter Raps. I defer to people like Vicky Spratt. I read their work and I've just come to develop an understanding because I care about the, the fact that these young men are going to be priced out of a home, right? Like, I'm not priced out of a home. Why? Because I inherited money, right? Like, I was fortunate to have a relative die, right? That's the way in which you get on the housing ladder at the moment. And I put all of my capital with my partner into a house, right? So I'm able to own a home. So we live in an inheritocracy. That's not fair, right? That's not fair because the myth that we're told is that if you work hard enough, if you struggle, if you educate yourself well, if you apply yourself, if you make sure that you use your talents, then eventually you will have the ladder to a very prosperous future. But that's not the reality that people are actually getting to live in. And and I get it. You're you're someone who's trying to find a profit margin within the system as it works.
But I think we can agree that the system itself is broken.
I think the system is broken. And I think I can, I can totally agree and understand that there is a problem. I don't think the solution is starting with "Whose fault is it?" Because I think that I believe in personal responsibility and saying, you know what, we generally live in a pretty good country to get on and make money. I mean, I've been to 47 countries and I think that the United Kingdom is one of, even though it's struggling, even though it's hard, and I get that it is. And but don't forget, I'm, I didn't inherit money. I'm, I came from nothing in a, in a working-class, um, family. I'm not saying I grew up poor.
You went to private school, didn't you?
I went to a private Christian school. Yeah. But that was like,
And your siblings did as well.
Yeah, we did. But, but it was basically free.
So was what? So it was on a bursary.
It was, it was, uh, like almost like a Christian home education, um, annual school. It's not, not rich people. Not probably the kind of school you went to, I imagine.
Yeah. My dad taught at a private school, so that's why I went.
Right. Fine. But I'm, I mean, if I did go to private school, I wouldn't be ashamed of that. If I did get,
That's right. I talk about it. I, I'm a lefty. You openly own the fact that I went to private school.
But, but, but I grew up pretty, not, not wealthy. I dropped out of school at 16 and, um,
Yeah, I'm not from any, any money.
Okay.
At all. But no. So what I'm saying is, I'm not, I don't, I don't disagree that there's a problem and there is a problem. But I'm just saying I don't think the solution is to say, "Whose fault is it?" I mean, I could talk about whose fault I think that it is. But I don't think it's, who's, who's. I am curious whose fault you think it is because I have, I have an idea in my head. But I, I would love to hear your, your thoughts.
I think that it's, it's, um, a big, big problem is the fact that landlords are actually, like, you know, I said, if you buy a house and rent it out, you lose money almost. That disincentivizes landlords to even buy properties and invest. I think that when they brought in, uh, I don't know if you have Section 24, where they, uh, landlords have been basically really badly taxed. Um, you can't even claim your mortgage payments as tax deductible.
Right, yeah, they changed their tax rules on that recently.
Not that recently. They announced it in 2017 and it phased in until 2020. But that really hit a lot of landlords. But as a result, rents then skyrocketed. So, I think that the government don't help property investors. I think if they, for example, one thing that they could do is they could scrap stamp duty on houses that,
Look, I agree with you on that one. I think stamp duty is a bad tax.
I agree. I, that,
It's aggressive. It stops people from moving in case they want to find work.
That would be huge. I'm actually in favor of Andy Burnham's, although he announced today that he never said that. But,
It was, it was, pitch the land value tax.
Yes.
We should, we should get on to that to talk about that. I, I do want to just raise something though, because, you know, we're talking at this specific moment in time in which it is true, you know, the Renters' Reform Act. Let me add to your argument, right? The Renters' Reform Act has come in. People, I've got friends who are looking to buy houses at the moment. House prices have come down in the last few years in London because a lot of people who were maybe working in the passive rental market, they had a second home, they rented it out, whatever. They thought, you know what, there's too much regulation now. There's too many hoops that I have to jump through. I don't want to have to do all this maintenance. I don't want to have to have all of these rights incumbent on me. So, I'm going to sell my home and get out. So, there's more housing supply in London, for instance. So if I bought, you know, a year or two later, I might have got a discount.
So, these things happen. I'm not, I'm not denying those things happen. But if we go back in time, right? Imagine it. 1970s, your parents' generation, your parents in a working-class community could afford to buy a house.
Yeah.
Why? Because house prices were about three to five times annual income, right?
No.
More, more than they're way more than that, bro. Like, what's,
Double? It's about eight times. So, so like, if you,
Yeah, that's just math. So, I wouldn't disagree with you on that.
Yeah, but so, but like, what? So, we need to think about structurally what has happened, right? On one level, we stopped building houses. So, supply has been constrained.
Surely there's many things. I mean, for a start, inflation. For a start, the Bank of England printing so much money that's put prices up.
Dude, quantitative easing through the 2010s, cheap credit has absolutely had the effect of assets becoming overinflated. That is true. But the dynamics are in play and and the attitude that we have to housing changes in the 1980s, right? Because banks themselves, what they used to do was they used to loan money to businesses, bricks and mortar businesses, businesses that were providing services, businesses that were creating stuff, real stuff in the economy. Then what banks are allowed to do is they're allowed to expand their mortgages, right? So instead of very strict three times your income that a bank is allowed to lend you, suddenly they're more liberal and more able to to give more more credit to people who want to buy homes. So the banks themselves start competing amongst themselves about who can expand their mortgages. Right? So all of this cheap credit comes into the market at the same time as we cut off house building, at the same time that the rental market gets deregulated in 1988. All of these things create a provision which says that the private, the market will be in charge of driving house building. The market, as you said earlier, working on the proviso that you have a profit margin. So prices themselves start to decouple from incomes. This is this is intentional. You know, Margaret Thatcher said, you know, the problem, she said, "Economics are the means. The object is to change the soul." This was entirely intentional, is to create a, a species of people in this country who own assets, and for that, bet, for if you bought into it, your asset would rise. Your asset will rise above inflation, which it has done. And it means that these young men are now priced out of a home. So I really think, I really push on you that you need to think a bit about structurally why we're in this mess.
So, so who's, cuz I think it's many factors. I think it's the Bank of England printing loads of money. I think that it's, um, basic supply and demand. I think that it's the, the councils not giving planning permission to build more houses. I think that's government taxes. I think there's loads of reasons.
Um, but who's, if you had to summarize then, who whose fault do you think that it is?
I, I think it's bigger than just one person. I'm, what I'm saying to you, what I'm saying to you, I think there is a deeper structural problem here.
And what do you think that is?
Which is the idea that house prices consistently have to rise for people to be incentivized to buy them. We're already living in the aftermath of a credit bubble of asset overinflation.
Whose fault is it then that this?
It's the system's fault.
Well, let's say we agree. Let's say yes, it's,
But then, but presumably we then need to think about how do we change this, right?
Right. Which is more interesting of a of a topic.
Well, I think we're going to get there eventually. Do, so do you think, do you think it's the landlords that have too much control and power over the housing markets, or do you think it's?
I think it's deep. I think it's, I think it's much deeper and more structural than merely the landlords or people like Samuel who want to get a profit margin. So they, they, they take the amount of money that they have and they think, "What should I invest in? I have a pension, but I want to have some more capital that's earning income over the course of my lifetime." So I put it into a house, maybe two, maybe three, maybe four. I don't think the, the landlords are responding to the incentives there. It's the same principle as Dubai having zero tax. Right. You're, you're a tax resident in Dubai, aren't you? Yeah. Right. So why is Dubai, why does Dubai have 0% tax? It's because in a global taxation system, it makes sense to be an attractive place for investment to have 0% taxation. Why can they do that? Because they own a bit of critical infrastructure in the global economy. They have unlimited oil. So Dubai is able to undercut the tax system in a way that other people aren't. It's the same principle. If the incentives are there within the system that we have, people will go on with them.
So, in an ideal world, do landlords have as much power as they do now? Would Samuel have this many properties in an ideal Britain?
I think in an ideal Britain, you have an obvious pathway to financial independence, which if you are somebody who already has capital, that is open to you in a quite obvious way when it comes to stuff like housing for reasons that we've just outlined. But if you are somebody who, let's say, comes from a working-class background today, who works hard through the education system, gets lumbered with with Plan 2 student loan debt, is getting taxed at a marginal rate of 9% just on that, on that rent, or just on that fact of their student loan, what pathway is there for them to be able to own a home? How much money do they have to be making in income to then be in a position to put down a deposit on a house? Especially, let's say if they're single, they're not in a relationship. Like, if I was on my own, I wouldn't be owning the flat right now. So for me, the system is the problem, right? It's not just the fact that landlords. And look, there are some good landlords and there are some bad landlords, right? You, I'm sure you will have come across them. I mean, and it's very important that good landlords follow the rules and regulations to make sure that if you've got damp or black mold in your flat, it gets attended to. The fact is, lots of landlords don't do that. And presumably, look, I can't say, I don't know all of them, but presumably it's because it's too much work to figure out how to fix the property for it to be a safe place to live in. Samuel might argue that it's because if, if they did it, it might eat into their profit margin. I don't know.
Do you think this criticism of landlords is rooted in jealousy, or do you think it's something deeper, like more like a genuine concern?
I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it was rooted in jealousy. No, because that would be me judging somebody's motive. I, I don't know people's motives. However, I think attacking landlords economically and and and blaming landlords is just not correct. I don't think that. I mean, the average landlord only owns one house.
So, I think it's, it's 43% that own one house. So,
Fair enough. Fair enough. But they, but if 43% own just one house or less, well, if it was less, they wouldn't be a landlord. Probably the vast majority only own two houses. So I don't think that when we think of landlords, we think of these people with a with a monopoly on on properties. I don't think that is the case at all. Also, I think that landlords, I don't, I'd be very interested if you could name one landlord who buys properties and rents them out on mass. If that's their strategy, if if their strategy is just to, they've got all this money, or even they've got a very successful business and they just buy houses on mass and rent them out. I don't think I've met anybody that that's their strategy.
So what are their strategies? What they do is they buy rundown houses that are no one's house. There's over a million of them in the,
And then mark them up?
At a higher price. Which does that not exclude people like us if if landlords are doing that?
No, it helps you.
What? By raising prices.
It helps you. No, by bringing down prices.
Well, if you, if a landlord buys a house,
Yeah.
And then marks it up and you, does it up and looks better and then sells it at a higher price, or is able to charge higher rent because it's obviously a higher value property.
It brings down, it brings down prices.
How?
I don't know if I'm being dumb economically.
Freddy, help me out and explain.
Well, I mean, it depends really. If you would say that if you flipped a house and to put 100k on the on the valuation and then someone else bought that house and you've increased supply, then you could argue that it brings that further down. But it's a very slow and long transition.
No, it's a very fast transition. I, I mean, I don't understand. This is basic supply and demand. The reason that house prices are so expensive, I think we can all agree, is because there's not enough houses and there's too many people that want. Would you, would you agree with that?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, I mean, look, it's not just a supply side problem.
But that's, that's, that's the crux of it, isn't it?
That's 100% a big part of it. But again, it takes you back to the some of the structural problems, right? Because since this government's come in, they've issued loads of grey belt, um, planning permission, right, to like the big five, six housing developers in this country. So, this is not the green belt. This is areas like, like brownfield sites of land which haven't been, uh, used, which they, which there's basically like, you should just develop on this land, create some, build some houses. Those companies aren't building houses on them because they're saying that their profit margin has been impinged. Like, they can't, they're not going to be able to generate profit off of it. Part of that is because the cost of building has gone up, right? So like, they're saying, like, we're just not going to, we're not going to do anything. So they, they're sitting on, I think Dale Vince's Babel Fish News found like 800,000 bits of planning permission that's just not being used. That's basically land that's essentially just being banked.
And and that's a tragedy. I, I agree. And there's also, I believe it's over a million houses in the UK that are either empty or just run down and no one lives in them.
Like, that's, that's a tragedy.
Yeah.
But I think, I think going back to my point though, I don't know anybody. I don't know any landlord that just buys houses in nice condition competing with first-time buyers and then rents them out. If there were landlords doing that and buying hundreds and hundreds of properties and competing with first-time buyers and just renting them out, I can see the argument to say that that person's not actually adding to. I can see that. But no one does that because it doesn't make sense to do that.
It's not a mass appeal thing, but it is like, so that's 2.8 million, like, uh, landlords who who rent out properties, right, in the UK. Okay.
So that makes it singly the biggest employed individual piece of work in this country, right? Like, a lot of these people are, and this is a quirk of our system compared to like Spain or Germany or France, where, but where a lot of these are just like retail investors, more or less, right? It's the same concept. You know, they bought it as an asset, it appreciates. But if you look at stuff like housing benefit, like last year we spent £30 billion pounds on housing benefit. So this is money that's going to people to subsidize the costs of being able to live in the place that they live. Like 40% of those homes that are getting subsidized used to be council flats. They used to be houses owned by the council that then got sold off during Right to Buy. And those people have then become landlords and they're selling it back to the government. I mean, this is just obviously a stupid system.
And at the moment, housing support actually isn't enough to cover the average two-bedroom.
It's about £23 a week that people are missing out on to cover for.
Can I just share to the, to, to you guys, how I accumulate my portfolio and tell me if you think it's a net positive or net negative. I would love to hear from, from the beginning, that how you started.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. So, how I started was I used something, you know, when you, when you, okay, this is something you guys can do because it still works perfectly today.
Can most people afford to buy a brand new iPhone cash upfront? Young people?
No.
They can't because it's going to cost one or £2,000. But they all have iPhones. How is that?
Used? No. That's because they don't buy them cash. They take them on on a contract. So, they'll agree to pay £30, £40, £50 a month. They'll get the phone and then they'll pay monthly over a few years and at the end, they get to keep the phone. That's how. Am I correct?
Pretty much.
That's what I did with properties and that's what that's what I still do now. That's that's one way. There's, there's, there's a few. So, I'll find a property. I'll agree to buy it. I did, I did a bunch of these just last year. I'll agree to buy it down the line. This is buy select mortgages. Basically, I'm not getting a mortgage. I'm taking an existing house that's usually empty and I, I'm agreeing to buy it but on a contract where I'll buy it down the line in, say, seven years' time. In the meantime, I spend a few thousand on it, make it liveable and rent it out.
Freddy, can you see anything wrong with that?
Conceptually, not at all. Like my brother, that's what my my brother did that for for his first property, not specifically the contract, but buying. He bought a, he bought a house with his partner.
Um, they saved up over about 12 years between them. Um, so 24 years in total,
bought a place and then spent a year and a bit doing it up. So they put value onto the property, right?
And like they could do that because of co,
Right, that, like literally that, which is, and in co, as you'll know as well, what happened to house prices?
Why not?
They went up massively. Why? Because people were land grabbing. They're like, "We got, we got about a year, or I don't know how long this lasts, but let's get some land. Let's flip these houses. Let's put some value onto these properties." House prices peaked 2022, 2023. Also low interest rate environment as well, right? Lot of cheap, lot of cheap money, lot of cheap.
Yeah. More than 400k. But like the problem then is like, you know, what you then get when the fiscal environment becomes tougher, which is where we're currently living in, high interest rate environment.
You have a downturn. Housing developers are protected by a 15 to 20% profit margin, right? Like, it's, it's written into law that they're allowed that, that's what they're, that they're entitled to.
Yeah. So, as soon as you have any housing development coming online in London or whatever, and there are affordable housing percentages built into that contract, they're going, "Well, it's a high interest rate environment. This is, it's a bad fiscal environment. I'm, I'm not sure about our profit margin. Let's cut the affordable housing." Right? So, the problem that we're getting as well is that more supply is not coming online at a place where it's affordable for people who need it. What Samuel was talking about, what he was able to do then, different environment. I don't know when you saw, what year did you start?
Uh, I started around about 2009, 2010, and then started.
I mean, that's the start of QE.
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a great opportunity, but there's a similar opportunity now because prices, especially in in London, there's a lot of properties in negative equity. There's a lot of dips. Um, but that, that's one of the strategies. If you can tell me that any, any strategies or anything that I'm doing, if you can point out how that is fundamentally a net negative for the country.
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Um, I've got, I've got to be sure. What advice would you give to someone who's, let's say, working at McDonald's, who's wanting to get their first property? What advice would you give to them?
Yeah. Well, for a start, you could do what I just talked about. If you're, if you're buying cars on a purchase-hire contract and phones on a purchase-hire contract, basically, and everything, but properties, which is an asset that's going to go up in value as the bank of continues to print more money. I don't understand. But I'm curious though, because if, if anyone can do this, and you said at the beginning, your £200 is going straight away to somebody else, so there is no profit there. Yeah. Then how, I mean, I don't understand how the incentives are working here. That doesn't,
Well, in that case, you don't understand the incentives of buying a house at all.
Because if you buy a house to rent it out, if you're saying that sucks.
So, okay. So buying a house to rent it.
Yeah.
There's no money in it right now.
Generally speaking, if you buy an average house and you rent it out, yes, there's no money in it.
Okay. So that, that would be your explanation for why supply is dwindling on, as one part of the puzzle.
So you're saying, but how would it, how would it suddenly,
So, but like, so it's a fair, it's a fair question. The first part of the question is the way to do it on a purchase-hire contract, you don't need like a £100,000 deposit. So when I say it doesn't work if you're putting £100,000 down cash and you're only making two or three pound a month, the yield, you'd be better off to put your money into an index fund. Whereas if you're not putting down £100,000 and you're structuring it where you can pay in seven years, and now you're making a few hundred pound a month, suddenly that's a good deal now. So it's relative to how much you're putting in to start. And secondly, depends on how you rent it out. So when I say buy-to-let is dead, obviously not all buy-to-let. If you rent, if you can find an area or you can buy at the right price and find a way of renting it high, um, you know, it can be profitable. But generally, it's, it's a tough business. Mmm. So back to your qu, what you posed to to Freddy about, do you see any issue with with what Samuel is doing?
Is there any part of it of it is a net negative?
I think structurally we have a problem if Samuel, if it's incumbent on Samuel to be creating the housing supply for our country. I mean, like,
Why, why is that? Surely it's great because then people can become millionaires or multi-millionaires. You said you'd be embarrassed to be just a millionaire. Um, surely that's that's beneficial if, if the people like Samuel can do that and become rich.
Can everyone be Samuel?
Well, that's, is that not what you're saying that?
No, not, not every,
Why can't they be? Everyone be like,
Because it's, it's a tough gig, mate. You know, it's, um, if you ask my family, you know,
What I've sacrificed and what I've done. I've been pretty obsessed with business and, um,
I'm not saying I'm special, but I don't think, uh, most people would necessarily want to go through that. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about getting on the property ladder. Yeah. Like you said, what would you do for the average person working at McDonald's if they worked all their life at McDonald's? And I know you guys would agree with me on this and rented a normal house and saved up any spare money. They're probably saving £100 a month for best. By the time they've got the £100,000, house prices have doubled.
Well, they'd be dead.
Well, yeah, they'd be dead. So, it's impossible. So what I'm saying is, this one of the strategies that I use, which is PHC, purchase-hire contract on properties, is is is is a method. And I actually rent some of my properties out this way to my tenants. So some of my properties I'll rent them out and I'll say, "Hey, you can rent it, but with an option to buy. Pay a little bit more in rent, and that will go towards buying the house."
But do you ever build houses?
Yeah, you do a lot.
And the cost of building has gone up massively, right?
It has gone up massively. Yeah.
So why do you do it? So,
Well, it's, it's got harder, um, to, to build. I mean, I have built houses from scratch, like bought land, built them from scratch. I've done that. That's quite a tough, um, business right now. Um, but what I've done many, many, many times, which I think is personally really good for the economy, which is what we talked about earlier about supply and demand.
And I don't do it for this reason. I'm not doing it to try and make the, you know, to try and help the, um, the economy. And that's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I'm trying to make money. But I think at the same time, I actually think it helps the economy is buy rundown houses. So if there's, if there's a street where houses are worth £200, £300 grand, but I find one that's completely dilapidated and I can buy it for £125 grand, but then spend £50 grand doing it up, that that's a good investment because now I've increased my net worth. I've increased the value of the property. I can now, I could sell it or more, more more inclined to refinance it. And now I've actually, this is why I think it's good for the economy because I've actually bought a property that first time I wouldn't be able to buy, cuz you can't get a mortgage on these houses. So I've not interfered with first-time buyers. Number two, I've turned a house that wasn't available on the market, wasn't available for rent. Now it's there's more supply. And if there's more supply of something, then the house price and the rents come down. So, I think that I'm, I think I am actually decreasing rents.
Well, if you're building houses and you're selling them, you would be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but the problem is they're just not being built quickly enough to keep pace with the,
But, but I'm not building so much right now, but I'm refurbing. It's the same, effectively. It's a similar thing because if a house has been empty for 10 years and it's run down, that's not helping anybody. It's almost as good as building a house, restoring a house. So either you object to immigrants living in empty houses, or do you think that's driving up the house prices in itself?
Giving them the house for free.
Yeah. With,
Yes, I would object to that.
Okay.
Absolutely.
Because I would, I would rather see someone like me, buy it, renovate it for profit, and then you've got another house on the market for people like you guys that are looking for to get cheaper rents. I think it depends on the situation, right? Like I live in a, a bit of London where my neighbors are migrants to the country who came on a visa and work and contribute and own their own property. So that's that. I mean, like, they bought that flat. Um, I've got people who live in council accommodation. Some of whom have come recently, some of whom haven't. Uh, I think if you come to this country, if you're granted asylum, you should be encouraged to work. And as a result of that, you need a place to live, right? Like you can't just be on the streets. Obviously, one of the problems that we have is that we have a housing crisis. There is no doubt that if you have, was it, they think net 3 million people came in in the last six years, that's going to have a downward effect, a downward pressure on access to housing.
Question, if you don't mind me asking. Do you think that they should be stricter on, uh, people coming on boats, um, into?
I, I think there shouldn't be anyone coming to this country to vote.
Mate, you're not even a lefty.
No, that is entirely left-wing. That's entirely left. That's a left-wing idea.
It's entirely left. There should be safe and legal routes for for people to be able to have their asylum system processed.
Sorry. Okay, I'll rephrase the question. I'll re, I was going to say this guy's hard right.
Do you think, well, I believe that there is such a thing as seeking asylum. Yeah. And I think, and I think asylum is seekers.
Please let me rephrase the question. Let me rephrase the question. I was, I've got over my shock.
Do you think that they should take less asylum seekers into this country or more?
I think there is a problem in the conception of asylum law, the way it's configured, which, as someone of the left, and this is Raps to point this out as a wedge issue between me and other lefty compatriots, but the concept as it currently exists is that if anybody has a legitimate right to be in this country under asylum law, they should have access. Right? And the problem is, if the world becomes more unstable, and you live in a world where there is now very ease of transport, right? This is entirely different to the world of 1945 when refugee law starts to become developed and ends up being ratified in 1951. It wasn't easy if you lived in a third world country to be able to to get out, um, with ease. That there is a question then about how many asylum seekers plausibly this country could take. I think the left needs to get honest about that. And like, part of the reason that people want to come to this country is because we're a richer country. There are definitely pull factors in place.
But I don't want us to ever be a country that says we don't take any asylum seekers at all. I would like us to be a country that works in concert with countries around Europe to decide about what is an amenable level. And and this is why I think it's silly that we left the EU because if you leave the European Union because of too much migration, and then migration goes up, and then suddenly people start coming in on boats, it's like you've you've made all of the problems 10 times, maybe 100 times worse. So, you know, I think,
I voted out.
Right. Well, the consequence of voting out has now been that we have more immigration from outside of the EU.
Arguably correct.
Right? Yeah. So definitely. So, based on this, on the consensus here, do we think that immigration is the reason house prices are so high? Because I think if anybody over the last couple of years has opened the news, they immigrants are the reason for everything, apparently. Um, is there some merit to that argument to that statement when it comes to housing? Either of you?
Um, I, I can go first. Obviously, immigrants coming into the country, especially if they're coming to seek welfare, it's making the economy worse and it's pushing house prices up. It's pushing rents up, of course. Does that mean that that's the reason? And they're the boogie monster?
No. I think there's, as I said at the beginning of this conversation, I think there's many factors, but I do think we need to get a grip on on immigration. I'm, I'm all for open borders, but I think that if you're coming into a country, you have to work and and bring value. Uh, I mean, the government's own estimates on this, and they've done some quite comprehensive research, is that it's been maybe 4% as the increase in housing, just for context, since the 1990s. Middle of the 1990s to 2008, house prices rose 400%. So it's not even comparable, right? So 1% if you make it relative. So I mean, no, I mean, that's not the answer to why the problem is. This problem pre-existed.
1% now, you say?
Yeah, but this pre-problem pre-existed.
1% of this huge problem.
This is negligible, right? Like this problem pre-existed, uh, immigration to this country that happened through the 2000s, intensified after Brexit. Um, there's obviously going to be a downward pressure, but like the, if you actually look at the dynamics, you get counterintuitive results. So if an HMO turns up, so House of Multiple Occupancy turns up in a specific area, the wealthy people who live in that area are more likely to leave. So it can actually drive house prices down within that area, down 1%, 2% in some cases. Um, but the original problem still exists, which is that if you have, if we're not building houses in this country, if more supply is not coming online, and the population is growing, maybe as a result of immigration, certainly not a result of fertility, then you're going to have a downward pressure on, on access to it, and the scarcity becomes higher. And but people become more stressed as a result.
Well, we spoke a lot about supply. So, I'm, I'm curious how, how we actually make that happen because we're interested in looking at solutions here. Surely that would require much more taxation, right, from somewhere to get that money from somewhere to to build more houses.
I don't, I don't think so at all. I think,
Need to be more like a private sector focused rather than the government intervening.
No, I think, I think that the government need to leave, get the more the government, get out of the way. I think that the more the economy,
But Freddy was saying that that's part of the reason, you know, Margaret Thatcher getting out of the way and letting,
Um, house prices rise so much is, is,
But were times better in Margaret Thatcher's day or today?
Well, for housing, it was way better.
Community, it was way better.
But you're saying that that was a worse time. Well, look, there's things that have been lost in that generation that I, I wonder how you get back. I don't think the atomization of society that's happened as a result has been healthy for people. People feel disconnected than ever before despite having a supercomputer in their pockets. Like, like, we're not saying that we need to go back to the 1970s, but there might be some redeemable features in it that we should try to get back.
Yeah. I mean, from speaking as a, as a business owner and as a landlord and as somebody that buys a lot of properties and I think helps the economy massively overall. Well, not, not massively to me, you know.
Yeah.
Um,
Are you responsible for anemic growth? Is that what you're trying to say?
No, definitely.
Good to know. Good to know. I make a footnote.
Definitely not. But I think that when the, when, when the government increase taxes and make it more difficult for landlords, like we saw this in Scotland in 2017, I believe it was, when they brought in the equivalent of renters, uh, the renters' reform in Scotland, rents went up. And they've just done the same in England. So I, I think that the
More they try and punish landlords and tax landlords and regulate, I think it hurts tenants. Do you agree with that, Freddy?
We need to have less regulation. Or, we had rent controls at a time when we built houses. So, it is not the case that you can only have one or the other. Um, the problem is the system as it currently exists. I, it only works on the proviso that house prices continue to rise. You know, banks are only going to issue mortgages on the proviso that that asset is going to continue inflating. And at some point, we're going to have to put a break on this because what you will get is two tiers of citizen. You will get people who are the haves and you'll get people who are the have-nots. And if the concentration of wealth is recycling itself in this way, such that if you own, I imagine you own stocks as well. Yeah. You probably had a good couple years, I imagine. Like the way the stock markets were going, very small, trading at record highs, right? Like if you own those assets, you could sell that asset to realize another one to purchase a property, for instance. You know, I don't have to sell them. Well, you might not. Yeah, you could just use the dividend maybe, right? No, I could just borrow against them. Yeah. Or, yeah. Or, or use it as collateral. There's there's plenty of options that you have. If you are an asset owner, the system is working exactly as planned. If you're not, good luck.
I totally agree with what with what Freddy just said. But, you know, what's interesting? The people that are very wealthy. I mean, and you were a journalist at The Guardian. I wrote an article for The Guardian. Oh, okay. Fair enough. I'm not I'm not tying you to The Guardian, right? I mean, I mean, that's just not true. I for them. Yeah. But but a lot of the very left-leaning people and the media, like The Guardian, are are backed and heavily invested in from billionaires that own loads of property. So, I think that, call me a conspiracy theorist, but when you've got really rich property investors pushing for more regulation for landlords and pushing for things that I think are going to push prices up and are going to push rents up, I think I'm a little bit skeptical.
Well, recently we saw in the news that there are a group of millionaires that are calling for higher taxes. They think, "Please take more of my money. I don't need it." And and there are people that Why not? It's not true. Why not? Because for people, because you can donate to the government. You can just go on gov.uk and you can give money. Do you know how much was donated last year? How much? I believe £7 the whole year. So then you got people like Gary Lineker saying, "Tax me." He could pay more if he wanted to. I I don't think it's genuine. Surely require a collective thing with people bigger than themselves and it would be a national positive getting more money if they actually implemented, you know, higher tax than donations. Yeah. I don't think it's genuine. I also think a lot of the people that say this, like Gary Lineker of the world, that they might have, you know, I don't know how rich he is. You might have 5 or 10 million. It's probably quite liquid. Same in bank accounts. But the real business people that are building things, the property investors, the the developers, they've got portfolios that have got, you know, pretty highly leveraged. The farmers, they they haven't got loads of cash sat in a bank. So to to bring in like a wealth tax and things like that, I think it's
What do you think, Freddy?
I think there's a word for people who are cash-poor but asset-rich. Rich, you have the money um to your name. Um I look on The Guardian point. The Guardian is backed by the Scott Trust, which is, I think, a fund worth up to about a billion over. Uh, the Scott Trust says has a manifesto that you can read online. It tells you exactly what that money is for. It's for uh public interest journalism. Um, so I'm not convinced about the kind of billionaires backing The Guardian argument on the idea that there is a conspiracy at play. Let's entertain it for a moment. So conceptually, right, if you brought more housing supply online, what would happen to the house prices? They'd go down. They would go down, right? As I've laid it out to you, the way I understand the system is working is that house prices need to keep rising. Why are these big developers sitting on this land and not creating houses? They're not going to make any profit off of it. So, they're not going to build the houses. So, we're we're stuck in this loop where if you just individualize it, you end up where Samuel is and you think, well, how do I profit off of this? How do I how do I create some rents? You know, how do I make some money out of it? We need systemic change. The system doesn't work anymore, right? You will get, and this has happened so many times through history. It's really sad that we can't learn from our mistakes. But when you get a disenfranchised class who are unable to get to the means and the ladder to be able to figure out a future of independence, financial independence, those people get pissed off. And what they end up doing often is revolting. I believe the reason why there aren't more houses coming online is because it is not a bug but a feature of our system for house prices to continue to rise. If those houses were to come online, there would be a lot of pissed off people who would have thought, "Hey, hold on. I've just sat on this asset for 20 years and 10 years ago it was worth X amount of money and suddenly it's dropped off by 30%. Why? Because loads of other people now are able to own a home."
So, do you both think that renters's rights bill, like the one that Labour introduced last year, is a step in the right direction for what should be going on with renters's rights, essentially? I'm not opposed to most of the stuff in the renters um reform in terms of banning Section 21 and and I think, no-fault evictions. Yeah. No-fault evictions. Correct. Yeah. I don't think it's a bad thing, really. Uh, but what I do think is the amount of legislation that there now is, the average landlord who owns one house or two houses, it's it's going to put them off becoming a landlord. And and I think that the rich people and the people that have lots of houses, like I am. I'm, you know, I'm not super rich, but I'm I'm doing okay and I own quite a lot of properties. The selfish part of me would say it's quite a good thing because I've got staff that manage my portfolio and can keep tabs and everything. But if I was just getting in and I just had one or two properties, I'd now be so scared to put a foot wrong or to accidentally do something and then get fined seven grand. I think it's going to put people off owning one or two houses, which I think is is is sad. Um, because there's I think there is too much. I think we over-regulated landlords. Like if you if you forget to give the gas safety certificate, you get fined crazy amounts of money. Um, but I I can see why tenants do need to be protected as well. So, um, I don't I don't think about whether this is really good or really bad. I just look at what it is and say, how am I going to respond to that in my business?
I I absolutely back the government's renters's rights reforms. Um, I think that they are essentially reversing what I spoke about to begin with, the 1988 um housing act under Thatcher, which which created no-fault evictions because she thought it would create more competitive pricing. I think it's a good idea that landlords can't hike up the cost of renting multiple times during a year and that was limited to one. That seems entirely reasonable to me. You know, when people talk about rent controls, these are forms of rent control, right? Like that's that's what they are. Of course, they're going to have this effect now where some people, the kind of more what I would describe as the retail investor renter, are being thinking that it's probably not worth their time and that can in some ways create housing supply because people are selling homes, but it decreases rental supply as as a consequence. It's a broken system. I think you need to think about why does the policy happen? The policy happens because people aren't able to own a home and people who are stuck in renting are getting price gouged.
Okay. So, how how do we fix this problem, Freddy? What what is the solution here or what policies do we need to enact to move towards more regulation for you know, for me, I think it's actually a complete change of how the taxation system works in this country. So, I would agree that there probably are too many taxes. Right. Stamp duty, we agreed upon earlier. Bad tax. I would love to see a land value tax. And it's, you know, as somebody who is not super partisan in their politics, who isn't super ideological, you search as a political journalist for the places where there are agreement across the political aisle on what things should be done. So, one thing that is often agreed upon from, you know, economists who work on the right to economists who work on the left is that a tax on land would be a pro-growth tax reform. The idea being that if you tax the unimproved value of the land, you don't get less land. The land stays the same. So, what you do create is an incentive for the development of that land. I think that makes sense. I also think that we should think about some pretty radical changes as well to, you know, those land bankers sitting on all that that that those planning permissions in green belt land. What can we do to incentivize these people to to build? You know, we're going to have to back not just uh, you know, changes there, but also cooperative movements, social um, you know, social market movements where they are trying to build homes in specific areas of the country. We need to back builders. I think there's a case for immigration reform as well. Should we be allowing visas for builders to come into this country to bring down the cost of building? I mean, wouldn't that be a pro-growth tax reform of a progress immigration reform, right? Like we have to be thinking about this stuff far more holistically, I think, than just saying, you know, uh, more regulation. Maybe you agree with Freddy. If so, absolutely fine. But if you agree with me and if you actually want to as a young person get on the property ladder, I would encourage you to join my completely free online training. At least check it out. At least try and if it doesn't work, you can then troll me forever. Link in the description.
So, what about young people specifically here? Because this is I think this is quite a general conversation about how to ease house prices in general, but to incentivize young people to either own their own home or get get on the renting ladder to even do so. Yeah. How how do you go about doing that? What's the for both of you? What is the means of doing that?
Well, on one level, we've got like a crisis around young people in work. There's about 1.4 million people not in education, employment, or training. Young men are over-represented in those statistics. I bang on about it the whole time because I'm really worried about that. Um, how do we get young people into work? The economy has got to be less about rent-seeking and more about making and creating and doing actual things. That's going to require a wholesale political and ideological transformation in the current system that we live in where people's pensions, index funds, all of these things, the housing market, they're all interrelated. You know, they're all being held tightly held within each other, which makes it very difficult to take on the system itself. But I'm not an economist by trade. I'm not an economist by training. Like, I'm just trying to learn, try and figure it out. The system's clearly not working for people, young people. We need to get them working again. It's not going to work if they're all languishing at home in their bedrooms doom-scrolling.
Samuel, what what would you say? So, what do you think the the solutions are specifically for young people that are clearly not doing very well?
I think there there's two things going on. There's what's the solution in terms of what can the government do to to help? And I actually agree with what Freddy said on those points. I think I I'm I'm pro land tax. I think that as long as it meant that we were then abolishing stamp duty tax, yeah, you could roll in and council tax as well. You could if you abolish stamp duty. Oh my goodness. Not I'm not just talking about me. I'm talking about the economy and property buyers, the movement that would that would be I think a big win. I think we can definitely agree on that. Um, and something to be said about builders letting people making it easier for immigration but for people that are coming in to do a job, you know. So that that's the that's the the government. But my focus is more on what can an individual do. And I think on on that front, I mean, I am living proof of somebody that started with nothing and has built up a portfolio and has a good I employ a lot of people. I've got multiple I've got 21 companies in the UK and I increase the GDP. I create employment. I take I built many houses. I developed properties and and started from nothing. And I think that a lot of left-leaning people like Gary Stevenson, for example, who I'm not a fan of their message is so doom and gloom and it's unless you have got a rich dad, realistically, you're not going to make it. And whilst there might be some truth to that, I don't think it's helpful. I think actually if I was wanting to encourage you guys and I want to see you win, I'm not going to say, "Wow, it's really hard now. Oh, you you can't. Let me show you how horrible the economy is." I don't think that would be practical, even if it had truth in it. I think what would be more practical would be actually saying, "Here's how you can do it." Hey, you've got a phone and you bought it this way. Do that with a property. Get on the
Analytically, you agree with Gary Stevenson. I mean, we've had this whole conversation about why have we got into this mess.
I don't though because he believes in wealth taxes and he that's not what you spoke about.
No, but his but his prescription is based on the same analysis about what's happened to us economically. Right. In a macro sense.
I don't disagree with a lot of Gary's economic Gary Stevenson's the problem.
Yeah. His diagnosis of the problem. Cheap credit, asset over inflation, all the rest.
I think a lot of what he says is correct. Where where I disagree with him is there's no solution apart from, and I think saying rather than tax the rich, vote Green Party, tax the rich.
But but you're going to have to I mean, he hasn't I mean, endorsed the Green Party elections, but like.
And you says you hate the Green Party. So you Gary are poles apart, my friend, just so you know.
I think I think I think Gary actually would agree with some stuff I said and would disagree about where where I where I go off on it.
But on the wealth tax, if you have an economic system where owning an asset is what creates wealth and it's a reinforcing loop and people who don't own assets are basically being priced out of it, then you're obviously going to need to tax assets at some point. Like you like it's not going to this system is clearly not going to sustain itself. The one gripe I have with Gary Stevenson's annual wealth tax policy. Number one is I don't think it's going to raise as much money as as as he says it will. Secondly, there is a problem about capital flight. I think that's a real problem. But there is an answer to that problem. You could say if everybody internationally globally instituted a wealth tax, there would be no place for the capital to fly to. Now, people will tell you that that's impossible. It can't happen. But why? Structurally, I was in Brazil recently and I had a guy tell me, I said, "What's the biggest problem politically here?" Do you know what he said? Can't [ __ ] own a house. The problems that we're having are happening all over the world. They're structural problems based on a neoliberal economic consensus that has been adopted all over the world. The answers to it will be international and will be global. It makes perfect sense. But the problem that people got is that, oh well, China and uh, the US, you know, Russia, their billionaires, they're never going to agree to it. If the US, which has the most amount of billionaires in the world, is suffering from the from the malaise that happens with widening wealth inequality, trust me, that is not a happy society right now. They are going to have to institute some form of difference to be able to tax assets. A global wealth tax is not a mirage. It's not a pipe dream. It's something that could genuinely happen in the course of our lifetime. It's I I don't think though, as you said, that it would make that much difference to the average working person's pocket if they did bring in a wealth tax.
Structurally, it will make a massive difference because what you're doing then is you're saying that assets themselves can be taxed. In the current system that we've got, once you become an asset holder, you get taxed less. You you you it gets easier for you to own more assets. Like like the problem is not between uh, you know, this person who makes 100k and this person who makes a billion. It's the fact that those people own assets and these this other class of people basically have no route to it. But there already is a wealth tax. What do you mean? I mean, people that own all this land and all this property when they die, it doesn't get passed down to their kids, they get taxed. So inheritance tax is a tax on wealth. Capital gains tax is a tax on wealth. But as you know, the marginal rates capital gains tax is not equalized with income tax though people derive an income off it every year.
Yeah. But there still there is a wealth tax already.
Yeah. And the point is that the percentage of that is less than people who get taxed on their income.
But the thing is is these wealth builders and this is where I'm not sure I do agree with you. The wealth builders, they're the people that are employing people. They're the people that are building the houses that are restoring houses. They're the people that are providing accommodation. They're adding to the the country and the economy. When you start saying they're the bad guys, let's tax them more, I think I think then we go into a downward spiral. You can't help poor people become rich by making rich people poor. So I I that's where I do disagree.
Well, I think it's it's an open argument actually about whether that's the case. I mean, do societies which have lower levels of wealth inequality have higher productivity? That's a question and we don't have enough strong enough evidential basis, I think, to derive a conclusion. I personally haven't done the investigation, but if you really dig deep into the core of Gary's argument, that's his fundamental thesis. Inequality itself is the structural driver of failing economies. That's what he's saying. Now, that could be true whether or not interest rates are high or low. And that might seem unfalsifiable to a certain extent, but if you looked at societies themselves, looked at economic communities where there were lower levels of wealth inequality within them, do are people more incentivized to work? When I looked to people like like not you two because you're entrepreneurs and you guys are doing your own thing and [ __ ] more power to you. But I looked to if I looked to you to if we went on on a on a night out at Spoons and we looked we chatted to the gang.
I think there's a few lads in that group who just [ __ ] spending their money and they're like, dude, like why are you not saving anything? It's like, well, I'm not going to [ __ ] own a house. So, I'm going to [ __ ] spend. I know so many people my age who are just spending and not saving because they don't see an actual route to being able to own a house. Is that not because they've been listening to people like Gary Economics has told you you've got no chance?
No. Because Gary economics, I think, is recognizing the fact that meritocracy itself, as I said from the beginning, is a is a myth, you know, like the reason that I'm here on a podcast with all of this stuff that I'm telling you about is because I went to a private school.
Is it a myth? Is it a myth if if Samuel sat here and and he's clearly done well for himself within a meritocracy? Is it really a myth? Well, look, I mean, I wanted to ask you, Samuel, because, you know, there's a lot of controversy around you, and I wanted to have a fair fair conversation and debate first and to treat you with respect, but, you know, I know that you've made a lot of money selling courses to people to do what you do. And a lot of people haven't made money off of them. So, not everyone can do it, can they?
Yeah, that's a bit that's a weak a weak argument there, bit, but it's true. That that is true, though, right?
Well, I I I didn't start You asked about how I became wealthy. I didn't start educating anybody programs.
But like a significant way that you make wealth that you make your money.
But wait, that wasn't his question. His question was for someone like me being able to become successful in the.
This isn't his question. This is my question. I'm asking you.
Come can we answer my question first and then you can follow that. So your question my question is is meritocracy really a myth? If you know Samuel sat here, he's he's come from the bottom and and made it, you know, to relatively to the top. Surely it's not a myth. Well, look, I I I have some question marks, Samuel, about how you made your money cuz I think you make a significant amount of it selling courses and I don't think that there is a lot of merit that comes out of doing that. I don't think it takes a lot of skill to be able to sell. I mean, maybe it does actually. Maybe, you know, you have to be very convincing. You have to be very persuasive. You got to be good on camera. You know, you got to be good at marketing and all the rest. I mean, maybe there is a way to to do it through that. But I think most people who end up going to achieve something on their life, it is a result of the circumstances that they are born into. You know, there's a reason why we have an over-representation of people who are in private education in the top jobs in this country.
Why why can't they just go get a job or why can't they just go and and and get out of the situation they're born into? Because Sam Samuel's saying that yeah, you can do that cuz he's done that. So why why can't the vast majority do that as you're saying?
Because I think some of it is is is randomness. Some of it I think is chance. Like I'm not saying that is un it is itself undeniable that people work their way up from nothing. But if I look to people that I know who came from the poorest backgrounds and have gone to be be most successful, they have this absolutely indomitable bootstrap themselves spirit. And I say to people who are young and working that you need to believe in yourself that if you're going to make something to be able to go and do it. Now, is that a self-fulfilling prophecy? Is it true just by virtue of saying it? I don't think so. I think there's so many other things that play from genetics to the environment they grow up to experiences of trauma as a child. All of those have a massive effect on what you end up going to achieve on with your life. And I think that's pretty clear from from the evidence. Yeah.
I I think that if you look at the Sunday Times Rich List, the vast majority of of of multi-millions on there, multi-millionaires on there are self-made. We're clearly living in a time, I mean, we've literally got AI that's just come out. We've chat GPT and Claude and there's so much opportunity. It's not like you you might be skeptical about me. That's fine. I mean, I'm not going to try and prove to you, you know what I mean? I'm not trying to prove to you anything. I've got done whole videos showing my portfolio, my beginnings. I've been running a YouTube channel since before I even had an education company. But, but forget me. Let's look at actually, you know, rather than getting super personal on me.
It's not a person. It's your business.
Yeah. Yeah, I know. But I'm saying if I sold a course, I'd be expect to have questions asked about it in the public domain.
Yeah. But we're here to talk about housing policy.
Yeah. You sell courses about how to get on the housing ladder. That's like it's entirely related.
But I've gone through what what I teach and how it works and the different strategies.
Yeah. But you've also gone like I've seen your social media and you say to people this is a way to earn money and it's bogus advice. Like.
Why why is it bogus advice?
Okay. So, one of the things that one of the things that that Samuel um put on his Instagram was that you can avoid capital gains tax via a live-in-it strategy. Do you want to explain what this is?
Would you I can explain.
Well, it's if you buy a house and live in it and then sell it.
And you So, if you live in the property, if you say that you live in the property, you won't have to pay capital gains on it.
Well, that that that could be true if you.
That's what that's what you I mean, you specified it. I mean, that if you want the receipts, you can find it. It's on Dan Needle's website. There's a there's a whole talking about. Yeah, which is true. What I said was true, though.
No, the law literally states that if you purchase property with no real intention of living in it, then it doesn't count. That that exemption doesn't count. So, what you said in your it to as a way of being able to make money if you come and join one of my courses was wasn't true.
No, that's not true at all. It's what I said was was actually correct. I I understand what you're saying. And Dan Needle pulled me up on this and he does. Dan Needle goes through my content and he's a genius and I rate him and I respect him and if you go through every single video that I've ever said and every single post and you might go actually that's slightly taken out of context or and I and I responded to that needle in full and I have done multiple times but actually what I said was if you pretend that you live.
I never I never said I never said that.
The implication is there it is clear in the text.
You might say the implication is there, maybe you could say that, but that's not what I said. I said if you buy a property, okay. And you live in it and then you sell it later, you you're you're exempt from capital gains tax, which is which is true. But but Dan Needle pulled me up on it. And I done a full response video actually saying, "Thank you for watching my stuff, Dan." And and I like that people p you know, pull me up on stuff.
Yeah. But like, dude, you're selling.
You can't say it's wrong.
Dude, you're selling a course. You say you've said out there publicly many times that you know way more than experts, than tax lawyers, etc. That's not hard though, cuz tax lawyers don't know much about tax.
But D Needle was a tax lawyer. So.
He knows a lot about tax.
Cuz he's a tax lawyer. Um.
Look, I mean look I just I I mean have you I I just there's a couple things I just want to ask you about before before we wrap up. But like.
Is that okay?
Is I just it's just I mean it's fine. I'm I'm happy. But you you've turned this from a conver from a debate going through my social media and saying let me.
Yeah. Because dude, at the end of the day, is it relevant to to the housing crisis? And.
I think it's I think it's entirely relevant.
Are you happy?
Can I explain why I think it's entirely relevant?
Cuz Sam, you said earlier that people can make money like you. You sell a course where people.
No, I said people can't make money like me.
People can't make money like you. So only you can do this.
Most people can't probably make the money I've made because they've got the inclination. If the average person, don't know about you guys because you seem super ambitious. But if the average person is making five grand a month, 10 grand a month, they'll take their foot off the gas, they haven't got the drive, the inclination to necessarily want to be a multi-millionaire. But do I think the average person like these young guys here could go and make a success of themsel and make 5, 10, 15, 20,000 a month within a few years? Absolutely. Yes. And to tell them that they couldn't, I think would be doing a disservice to the younger generation.
And they should they should buy your course.
If they want to do property, yeah, but maybe they don't. If they want to do if they want, they should find out what they want to do.
Maybe it's podcasting.
And then they should say, "Okay, well, who's done that? I I just invested today into 27,000 program to spend a week with Richard Branson at Necker Island because he's done more than I've done. He's more successful than I am. I want to be around him. I want to learn from him. If they want to be podcasters, if a young person wants to be a podcaster, find someone that's successful, get in their community, invest in yourself. Yeah, absolutely. If someone wants to get into property and they want to do what I'm talking about, purchase high contracts and I want to do that. Then, yeah, maybe not even me. Maybe they'll say, "Actually, I don't really warm to Samuel. I don't want to spend time." And that's fine. But should they learn? Should they upskill?
Yes. I think you'd be doing people a disservice to tell them no. I I look I think people should work hard and try.
Upskill themselves. Yeah. Absolutely.
And go on training programs.
Not yours, but I think people should do that. Yeah. Okay. But.
Why I wouldn't go on yours? Cuz it that would be bad advice. Like.
Why? Okay. Why Why is it bad advice? Cuz we're making a lot of claims.
Yeah. Sure. I mean.
Why is why is there a Facebook page with 6,000 members called the truth about Samuel Leeds?
I don't believe that there is.
Come on, bro.
So, closing remarks. What the [ __ ] do we do? We can't get on the housing ladder. Final solutions, Samuel.
I think that we upskill. I think that we use the fantastic country that we're in in the United Kingdom and we say, you know what? Yes, there's struggles. Yes, we we have economic problems, but actually there's more millionaires being created today than there ever have been before in history. And there's so much opportunity. And we find out how we can actually upskill ourselves, how we can make money, how we can start a business. We find people that have done it, that have gone for us, whether that be me, whether that be somebody else and and and and we learn and we take personal responsibility and um and build something.
Right.
Land value tax 100% 100% upskill. We need a huge education skills reform to make sure that people can become builders and not blockers. And we need to start building affordable housing again. Um, and we need to make sure that the government has skin in the game in that process and it's going to be very difficult in a high interest rate environment.
Well, thank you both.
I would say one final thing as well because we came to discuss housing policy and at the end you threw in a list of things that you've seen on on on Reddit and and whatnot. Yeah. And BBC.
Okay, fine. But just to be clear.
If you wanted to have a whole separate conversation, I'm sharing a platform with you. It would be remiss of me if you want to have a whole remiss. Yeah, but we can go through every single thing you've ever seen on Reddit on the internet and you can bring it to me and I'll happily answer it in a separate conversation and I hopefully I answer it a little bit now. But.
Well, we're pressed for time. Maybe we can do a round two where we go through the.
I think I think we've said everything that needs to be said.
I don't think I don't I don't think that's constructive and I think for 90% of the interview we've had a really constructive conversation, lots of agreement. And I think as well I want to give credit to Freddy um because I think that a lot of people that are on the left they don't like to debate and and and discuss from what certainly from what I've seen and I think it's important that to sit down with people that you disagree with. You might not necessarily even like and and thrash out. I think it's a really healthy thing.
Dude, I'm just I'm just at the end of the day trying to be it as a journalist. It would be silly of me to not say things that are obviously around your name. It's literally on your Wikipedia page. I hope you're not personally offended by it, but I think it's entirely legitimate to bring up in the context of housing.
But look, we've we've had a good discussion. We've.
And also, sorry, Samuel, I don't have a personal vendetta against you. Like I don't like I don't feel any type of way. We on different sides of the political.
Just to be clear as well, though, if you I mean, I've I've made quite a lot of money and I've been in the game a long time and I've achieved quite a lot of good things and you can't there's negative articles and negative stuff on pretty much every on Branson. there's a whole bunch of things on anybody and I didn't expect it to to come up like that, but I'm very I've done full videos on pretty much all of the stuff he talked about. But anyway, I understand and pleasure so much both of you and um thank you all for listening.