Transcription
In 2018, I met a guy called Jur and his partner was called Jinny and they joined the academy 7 years ago. At the time, they were school teachers and they managed to become financially free. They came and shared their story on Winners on a Wednesday. But sometimes people want to know where are they now? Where are your old students from like almost a decade ago? So, I asked Jer and Jenny if they'd agree to do a mini documentary showing what they've done over a 7-year period. And I thought this would be really valuable to you guys, my YouTube audience. If you like this kind of content, then do me a favor and just hit the like button, drop a comment and let me know what you like best, and I'll do more of what you like to see. So, enjoy.
>> Hi, I'm Jay Greg.
>> I'm Gene.
>> We've built a portfolio around £5.5 million worth of property. It's got a rent run of £25,000 to £30,000 a month.
>> I've got to admit, when we first started up here, certainly that first 12 months, that first 18 months,
>> hard.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, you were still teaching.
>> Yeah.
>> And I got to admit, I couldn't have done that without you cuz you're quite patient. But you remember all the compliance that you were doing?
>> Yeah. All the compliance, all the analysis, all the doubt as well about what what actually made a good deal. I mean, do you remember selling that very first deal and that moment of complete excitement and disbelief almost that this process does actually work, but it there's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that goes into it.
Here we are at the first property we found, sourced, packaged, and sold. So, a lot of people say, "Oh, yeah, but I can't find my first deal." And we kind of get that, right? Because we struggled to start with. We had tried lots of different patches and then we found this HMO. So, we live in Cornwall and we traveled through about 10 different patches and settled in Grimby and Clethorp 7 and a half hours away. Well, you ran the numbers, you analyzed the deal, we put it through, and the guys that we were co-sourced and said, "Yeah, we know we can find an investor for this."
I had a phone call from Jinny. I believe it was early December. The deal has sold. And this is the very streak that I was skipping up and down, skipping up and down, but it fell through the very next day. And that was our learning. That was our learning. It's just mad watching this now to think that he almost quit because one deal fell through, but he'd have missed out on all of the money, all of the success. He if he'd imagine if he' quit, he'd still be a school teacher. He'd be working long hours. It's just mad. So, if you're in the early stages and you've had a bit of trouble or a deal's fallen through, remember, don't give up. It does get better.
This property saw a five bed HMO. I think it was worth £4 or £5,000 this one. And then all of a sudden to be hit, have your legs taken away and to feel that almost heartbroken. And that was that was probably the closest time that I've ever come to giving up.
>> We sold it again and it you know bizarrely the investor then moved to Thailand and
>> never seen again
>> never seen again. So a lot of learning has gone come from this.
>> But then we went back to the vendor six or seven months later and just said look what's your position and we really understood his position and we realized that this this vendor could benefit from a lease option agreement. Uh we secured it at 94,000. 7 years later on we've we're exercising this now. It's at a valuation of just shy of 143,000. So it means that we can actually purchase this property with no more of our money in.
I think one of the reasons that they've done so well is because they're so personable and they gen I know I know Jenny and Joe really well. They genuinely want to help people. So they've got this they've got this deal here that's some failed deal and they've gone, "Okay, this is a failed deal, but how can we negotiate somewhere? How can we come up with a win-win solution?" And that's what you've got to be. It's the property business is a people business and this is about finding solutions and then you'll get the deals and then the money will come.
I started in property before I met Samuel Leeds. Made a ton of errors and one of the biggest errors that and experiences was being caught in the crunch of 2008 cuz I'd left teaching. I was living my dream and then I had to go back to teaching cuz I wasn't strong enough.
>> I used to teach with Jeremy many years ago. We taught in the same school together. Um so we we knew each other we've known each other for a very very long time and we've been together about 10 years. So out of the two of us, um, teaching wise, I was obviously the best.
Imagining life back as a teacher. I do sometimes actually think about it and and maybe on some days where you where things cuz property is a roller coaster, isn't it? And some days you have and you think life has got to be easier and and I think my my barometer is wet afternoon, bottom set, year 9. Where would I rather be? And I know for sure I'd rather be here. the teaching all those hours of marking and all those hours.
>> I've never once looked back.
>> No, I've never I've never I don't I haven't missed teaching but I have I do feel very grateful and proud that I did it because I think it's been a massive massive part of my life.
>> I've got bigger picture with that and now we've got friends now that are coming up to retirement age and retiring at 55 but they're all looking for other jobs.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, I can't imagine having a job.
>> What you learn about property with the academy, not just financial literacy, but it's so much more than that. And you know, it's personal development and that's that's the biggest part of my journey, you know, for me to see life in a different way.
>> Yeah.
>> Completely.
>> If I'd had the knowledge of the academy, if I'd had the support of the academy, it may have been a very different story.
So we joined the academy I think in September time 2018.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean the academy back then was very very different wasn't it? And I think the community that we could already feel part of at that time was great. And it was the same price then as it is now I believe.
>> That's what I can't believe.
>> So this is one of our six bed six on suite HMOs which we purchased 140,000.
>> Let's come and have a look inside. So this property doesn't actually need a communal area because all the rooms are in excess of 100 square ft. However, we felt it's important.
>> Jeremy is the strategist. He's the blue sky thinker of our business. We need him to enable us to move forward. I'm probably the one who's got my feet maybe on the ground a little bit more. I'm a bit more realistic in terms of time and expectations. And for us that works really really well because we need both sides of those things in our business.
>> We obviously live seven hours away from from here but without a good team you're you're absolutely stuffed. And Jill is one of the team members which is is the eyes and ears of what we do. So she'll pick up on maintenance stuff. There's a communication system through WhatsApp. She can report stuff absolutely critical to what we do.
>> Jill, do they stay on top of the communal spaces generally?
>> Um they do. Um it does help to frighten the tenants that the cleaners come in, but um other than that, yeah, they do actually.
So this is the attic room, and this has been made into a really nice self-contained space. We've got a nice large bathroom, bedroom, and living area. So this took us about 8 months to do the full conversion on this one from purchase to getting it talented. There was always unexpected things. I think for us the big thing was because we were obviously remote investors, we relied a lot on a project manager and it worked really well initially. Then when it came down to the finer details, that's where things got a little bit lost and we found that we had to actually take it back over to to get it over the line.
>> It's so easy and tempting in business to do everything yourself. But notice they're talking about the project managers and this is really important especially with HMOs that you've got people specialists. Again, it's not just what you know, it's who you know. If you've got people project managing your deals, doing a good job, and you're just overseeing them, this is the smart way to run your business. Otherwise, it would just be a job.
So, coming forwards into other projects, we learned we didn't actually need a project manager. We were better off doing it ourselves. And by this point, we got a brilliant build team and relied far less on um telepathy, if you like, and being able to read minds. It was far more based on, you know, the fact that we'd worked together. So, this is the bedroom. For us, something like this, we could charge probably an extra £2530 a week for taking it up into the £160 a week bracket.
So, with bricks and mortar valuation, you find comparables within a quarter of a mile that have sold within 6 to 12 months and you work it out per square meterage. The difference between a bricks and mortar valuation and a commercial valuation, the commercial valuation is based on the income. They look at the gross annual rent and then they divide it by a yield. Now a yield in property terms is looking at the value of a property compared to its income. Then you times it by 100. It's a great way of super boosting and pushing up the value of the property. This is golden advice. A bricks and mortar valuation is based on the property and the comparables, the size, the location and the spec. Whereas a commercial valuation is based on the rental income, the revenue of the property. And understanding the difference is how investors can take £114,000 property and then refinance it at £275,000. And that's how you recycle your money and scale fast. We bought this one at 140. It came into valuation at 275. Now we're mentoring a lot of people come and speak to us about commercial valuations. My advice is find a good broker. you've got them on the academy. It's
>> not a given, is it? I think that's the key thing with commercial valuations.
>> It's not a given. And I think the advice is always to ensure that whatever you do will still work on a bricks and mortar valuation.
You know, when you've got that broken mindset, when you feel that, well, we were 30 grand in debt, right? And you know, we were living in a house that was a doll's house really. But once you realize that there is an absolute abundance of money and as a deal sourcer Yeah. Okay. So a lot of these people are based in the southeast. We used to meet them at networking events in London and they had money that was burning a hole in their pocket because they didn't have the time to go out and find it themselves. I think the selling thing for both of us was a challenge to start with. £30,000 I know is a big figure and I was basing it on our experience of earning a fixed wage as a teacher coming in every single month and the fact that we were going backwards at that point the pressure was massive but also working with somebody as closely as I've worked with Jenny who's life partner and business partner it has been an absolutely awesome journey when we met Samuel he said look you took over £30,000 in debt. You can go on to buy refurbish finance, but right now you need to be selling deals to pay off debtors.
>> Coming from a place where you had no idea what being a deal sourcer actually was, once you decided that we were deal sources, then it was, well, what what does a deal sourcer actually need to do?
>> The pressure was eased because one of us was going to come out into property full-time. Jenny um grassed the nettle and she decided to stay in teaching and she stayed in teaching for a couple of years that allowed us to cover our overheads which for us was massive and becoming a deal sourcer you've got to become a king or queen deal finder and without that skill do you know you can't sell a deal you can't take it on yourself you can't JV with it so I think a lot of people think I'm going to become a deal sourcer and that's my strategy no find a strategy that you know that you can find and let's go back to this dominating your patch. You know, this happens to be the 11th patch or 10th patch that we've tried and we know what works for it because we've spent time looking and doing the due diligence. We've spent time networking and actually living in this community. I think this is such a powerful point to remember. just started 30 grand in debt. But instead of waiting years to save up and pay off his debt, he began sourcing deals for other investors. That's a strategy many people overlook. You can make money in property without owning property, without having money, even if you're in debt. Instead of trying to pay off that debt and save up, you need to think, how can I make a lot more money? What you focus on expands. If you focus on thinking about the debt, then the debt's going to grow. If you think about actually how can I just make money fast cash, the debt will take care of itself.
God,
>> do you remember this J when we first joined the academy seven years ago
>> in 2018?
>> I know. Look at it.
>> Do you remember first meeting him as well in our crash course?
>> Oh man,
>> we can say that we were at a crash course.
>> Yes, exactly.
>> Do you remember walking through the door?
>> Yeah.
>> Loads of
>> Did you say it or I say it?
>> Say what?
>> He must have been a nightmare at school.
>> I I I've got to admit I was absolutely
>> blown away. But look at this. I mean this is just this was what we had, wasn't it? I mean you look at everything that academy members have now. All the online stuff, the portal, the mentors.
>> There was no online, was there?
>> There.
>> No.
>> No. Exactly. Being part of the family and that that's what it said in 2018. And I think for sure we are now part of this amazing family. The academy family, the mentoring family, the whole Samuel Leeds team is like one big family and I love it. I think it's just such a a wonderful wonderful thing to be part of. Really proud of it and yeah, very very grateful for it.
This was the first property that we ended up selling to our own investor list. So this is a six bed all oned HMO. Now, we pulled this deal together because we knew that we could uplift the rents that the landlords were getting. So, we always sold deals the way that Samuel taught us, which was to make sure that the investor paid the finders fee in full and upfront, which is something that a lot of new deal sources struggle with. But it's a mindset thing. For this property, this was the one where we were creating urgency within our investors. And it was really tough because not only were we taking the money up front, but we were only giving them three hours from the time it was advertised to the time we took it down and sent it over to our co-sources. Now, that 3-hour window sounds really tight, but bizarrely, again, it was one of the things that we
>> Yeah, it was it was the process, wasn't it? And we we learned to trust the process, to follow what we had been taught, and it and it did actually work.
>> Yeah.
Would you travel 7 and a half hours away from home if you were starting in the academy all over again? What what would you advise?
>> Right. I want to be clear. This is not regret. This is not regret. I wouldn't change a thing of what we've done because it's got us to where we are. But no, I wouldn't 7 hours. I have always lived in Cornwall. Yes. For for all of my life. I was born here, went away for a short time to go to university, but have lived in Cornwall for all of my life. And I absolutely love living here. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure. I mean, the scenery is just stunning. The people are great. People sometimes say to me, "Would you ever leave Cornwall?" And I don't know, it probably sounds a little bit um bit close to say I I haven't got any need to leave Cornwall. I actually really enjoy living here. I really love the fact that we are near our family. We are near friends. It's a beautiful beautiful part of the world.
>> I think what I've learned is there is good and bad everywhere. And people think when we speak to them at academy dinners for example and inner circles, oh you're so lucky to live in Cornwall and they see properties like this. But there's also the tough sides. I think for me now coming back here. I think I've probably learned from you about gratitude and being truly grateful for every day. And
>> don't know make it easier when you got a beautiful place like this.
>> Right.
>> Exactly. And we've come here in times of doubt, times of abundance, times of scarcity,
>> rain, shine, deserted, busy.
>> And it's pretty damn consistent, isn't it?
>> Yeah.
>> And I reckon it'll be pretty damn consistent after we've gone as well.
>> 100%.
>> I'm glad we can share this with thousands of people around the world. What about it?
>> I absolutely love it. Having a patch 7 hours away from home has certainly been challenging. In the early days, I was very much based in Cornwall and Jeremy was the one doing the majority of the traveling. And knowing what I know now, there's deals on your doorstep. You do not need to travel 7 hours away from home. For us, it was an adventure. It was a time of life that was brilliant for us to go and do something like this. But you don't have to go seven hours away from home to find really really good deals.
This journey is so much more than about property and financial freedom. And it is so awesome to be part of the element of pride of being a mentor now for Samuel Leeds. This journey is just awesome and starting people off with lifechanging decisions that they're making cuz it has changed absolutely changed our life. Straight away you've got you've got scope on here to do something. I can see where you're going. get planning permission to convert that. What are you doing as far as um you're in a circles? Where's your nearest inner circle? Crazy. Is that your first time? Right. You've got to start getting there. You've got to start that's what that's going to be your power team. How can you build that community around you? It's about surrounding yourself with like-minded people that are overcoming the challenges that you're facing. And then as you overcome those challenges, it's looking at people behind you that have just joined the academy and pulling them up alongside.
For me, I love the fact that I've come from this very traditional, very much being a a school teacher, had been for for 25, 30 years by the time I finished, been going from payday to payday, working to my pension, 7 years down the line, and and my life is completely unrecognizable. I loved teaching. So, I wouldn't want anyone to be watching this thinking that I'm dissing teaching. And for me, it was all about proving to myself that there was more that I could do. Proving to my children and my family that there was more and there's a different way of doing things. My life has changed massively. I used to look forward to school holidays year after year. I don't even know when the school holidays are now, which has been a massive transformation. And in terms of our lifestyle, it's given us so much more flexibility. We're financially secure. It's just been an awesome transformation and I love being able to tell people the story that, you know, if I can do it from that kind of start, then anybody can. And it's so true.
This property, you know, was a family residential home. This one was around 105,000. It works really nicely for contractor accommodation. So we're letting properties to people not as their primary residence on a short to medium-term basis. We really like adding value to those people and you know I think it's been a learning curve about marketing and finding places because you know wherever you get good opportunities you get a lot of competition. Yeah, absolutely. And I think in this area, I mean, we we talked to lots of mentees about service accommodation and short-term stays and contractors and working professionals and and is about knowing who is going to stay in this property. So, we knew it wasn't going to be for tourists or holiday makers or families, but it was very much designed for contractors and then it's about finding out where they are coming from. So we have lots of links with refineries, the pharmaceuticals, the wind farms that are in this area.
>> And it's been a learning curve.
>> It really has.
>> Yeah.
>> Because even though we went through the training with Samuel Le, we were probably a little bit arrogant when we bought it. We just thought it was all going to come and it for the first 3 months it did and we were full and then all of a sudden everybody moved out of the area. We had to start from scratch basically, didn't we? And I think the marketing now we've we've got it. But I can remember that time of, "Oh my word, it's now gone from full, 3 months full to an empty. What are we doing wrong?" When you take on a property, it's how you market it. And this is a model that has really worked for us.
So this was a guest house. The first evening I was here, the TV wasn't working. So I called him up and he turned up looking really scruffy in a boiler suit. And as I remember it, he said, "What do you do?" And I said, "I'm a property investor." and he said, "Oh, I might have a property to sell."
>> Yes. You were very excited, weren't you?
>> I met him for breakfast over at Bacon Butty. He said, "Well, actually, I've got two or three properties that I might want to sell." And over the next 3 weeks, it turned out he had 17. And he wanted about 3 12 million for them. I've got you to thank on this one because I was just wanting to go full bore full into this. And what should you say?
>> Don't put all your eggs in one basket. I believe something like that.
>> And I didn't like it very much, did I?
>> But it was the wisest thing I think you possibly ever said
>> because we spent maximum 20% of our time. The 8020 rule,
>> 20% on this time, 80% on
>> harvesting low
>> Yeah.
>> lowanging fruits. And do you know that kept us solvent, that kept us buoyant, and whether this deal went through or not, it wouldn't have bankrupt us. And I remember I can remember when you phoned me and said the deal's gone through and it was worth £65,000.
>> It was.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Which is a lot of money.
>> And it all started here. And that was because you did exactly what Samuel said to do, which was to tell everyone what you're doing.
This is incredible. Really, if you think about it, Joe meets the vendor who owns 17 properties worth 3.5 million. But notice the lesson. Don't put all your eggs in one basket and just think about that one person cuz it's about balancing big opportunities with smaller consistent wins that keep the momentum that keep some wins. Don't wait for this. A lot of people say, "Oh, I'm just working on this big thing and I'm working and I'm working on this big big and it never comes off." So, you want to be waiting on that. Yes. While continuing working on the small wins. I'm glad we found this place. But the big bug bear and I know we've talked about challenges is that Senena letings is actually really getting our portfolio managed optimum level. It's never going to be perfect, but I know we've got a refined systems. We're going to come to terms with the renters's rights bill. See what comes out the other side, but without a shadow of a doubt, I'll be investing here.
There's so much more out there than I could I had ever dreamed of. And like I said earlier, property for me was wasn't something that I ever thought that I would be able to. I hadn't even thought about it as an option. And then starting the training and looking at the different strategies and looking at how accessible it actually is was absolutely mind-blowing. And the fact that being in a career which I thought I was going to be in forever was one way of doing it. And then just to have that blown apart. And the really
>> no no
>> and the really exciting part for me is that whatever my kids decide that they are going to do in their their journeys that they would always have seen me do something completely different. And for me that's that's really really important that they've seen
>> that really there is
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> That's my why.
>> Whether we're sat on Clethorp prominard eating fish
>> on a hot sunny August day
>> it's enjoying that part of the journey. Cheers to that.
>> Cheers to that. Do you know? Cheers to Samuel Le.
>> 100%.
>> Where would we be now without Samuel?
>> I don't know. I can't even begin to imagine.
I want to say a massive shout out to Jur. Jur Grigg, you're a legend. Jenny, you're amazing. And this is a really interesting point about them as well. So when they left their jobs as teachers because they were they were a little bit disillusioned with the education system but when they became financially free there was a point when they were like I don't even know we've kind of we kind of miss teaching a bit. We loved seeing the growth in people and I asked them if they could come back to some of the programs and help and share their tips and educate others and now they do. They give up so much of their time helping people and I really think that's an important lesson. This is not just about making money. This is also about helping people and the property community is such a wonderful community with people like Jerem Jenny. So, thank you so much guys. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and we'll see more winners on a Wednesdays coming up next.