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This deal is a money pit. I bought it for $810,000 and I worked out that if I restored it, the end value would be 7 million plus. It didn't work like that. When we'd spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on Bisford House, but it didn't look any different. And I realized, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to spend six figures a year just to keep this place. It was quite demoralizing because all the other deals I was doing, these little houses and the profit was just being dumped into this big green machine that was just taking all my money.
So, we saw Ribsford for sale on Right Move. 8 acres of land, 20,000 square ft building, looks like a castle. We were quite excited about the prospect of it, but looking back, it was so naive. It was unbelievable. I bought it for 810,000 and it had planning when I bought it for 13 apartments and four houses. And I worked out that if I restored it, the end value would be 7 million plus. If I got planning permission for a few extra apartments, a few extra houses could be more like 78 million. And the builder that I brought out with me who' done loads of projects, really good. I mean, he just finished a three bed HMO in Birmingham. And he was like, he literally he literally went round it about 20 minutes and then went somewhere around 750 grand to a million. And I thought, wow, buy it for 800 grand, spend a million on it, 2 million all in end value. I'm going to make at least a million. This is fantastic.
But then what happened was my builder said to me, "Oh, well, my 750 grand quote, you know, I don't do development." So, that was just me just talking as a mate and I'm like, "Oh, geez." I then got a real proper builder that specializes in this kind of thing and he went round and he said it would be um absolute minimum assuming that there was no unforeseen problems of £3 million plus. And I'm like, jeez, this changes everything. So, very quickly I realized that what I needed to do was to get extra planning. So, it had 13 apartments and four houses. The apartments were in the main building and then the houses these are old rundown houses. So to restore it, that's what would happen. The problem is to to turn turn it back into 13 apartments and four houses. The profit would be minus. So I put forward a planning application for more apartments, more houses. Kept getting pushed back, kept getting pushed back.
The reason everyone was scared to buy it when it was on auction. It was like, whoa, Japanese notweed. It's riddled with Japanese notweed. Oh, there's structural problems. There's cracks. It's got structural cracks. Oh, everyone's worried. I bought it real fast like a G. Got the Japanese notweed sorted in 3 months. Got my expert guys in. We got crack stitching done. Structural engineer signed it off. Sorted. So very quickly I'm like, man, I'm banging this out. This is But then we we we ran into uh into further problems. After we bought it, we found out that there was bats living upstairs. What I didn't realize is you can't disturb the bats. The Batman told us that we needed to rehome the bats. So, we had to build a hot box upstairs at the top of the at the top of the castle for the bats to be able to hang out, mate, do their thing, have fun, have a party, rentree forever. Literally that delayed us over a year because it's like, "Oh, we the Batman said we have to do a survey to see how many bats there are and what type of bats they are." And I'm like, "Okay, cool. How can how soon can you come and do the survey?" He said, "No, no, no. It's March. Next month, the bats are going to want to go up to the top of the roof and that and I don't want to disturb the bats. So we have to wait 9 months when they're back in the cellar when I can go and to check as a young 27y old at the time entrepreneur that was just like yeah bang it do it different story.
So, even though it's it's frustrating, I do think it's helped me as an entrepreneur, as a businessman be probably more patient and more realistic. Cuz when you've dealt with a building like this, it's a grade two star listed, which is one step down from a palace. Everything is easy. I've been doing developments, groundup developments, land, all flipp and it's just like, oh, oh, there's no plats. Brilliant. You know, it was it was a little bit embarrassing as well because it was in the papers and stuff like, "Oh, wow. Young entrepreneur buys a castle. He's going to renovate it." And people were asking me every week, "Have you finished your castle yet? Have you have you made your millions on on the how's the castle can?" And it's like, "Yeah." Mhm. We bought that one first. The amount of deals that we've bought since and completed and built since completed and that's still there ticking along in the background is uh is unbelievable. But we've learned so much from it because everything that possibly could go wrong or any obstacle or problem that could come up that you might face has hit us with Rivers House. So from a learning perspective, unbelievable. And also the annoying thing about this building is I've got the money and have had the money for years to refurb it but I'm just not allowed which is really frustrating because it's a listed building. What that means is that means the building is of the public interest. I mean this building's got it own Wikipedia page. During the war we had 200 free French soldiers that lived here and trained here for the war. In fact, when I bought this building in 2018, one of the last standing free French soldiers reached out to me. He sent me a a handwritten letter and he said, "I saw the building going to fracking ruin and wearing down and I'm so glad that you bought it and I'm so glad that you're repairing it." I mean, for me, we're we're restoring a legacy. We're restoring a piece of history. It's it it's it's a slight sentimental thing as well.
I'm just going to show you the magnitude of the size of the building. Bear in mind this is just one wing. Bear in mind we have 8 acres of land. This is a 20,000 square ft. Also, when you look out the window, as far as your eyes can see, it's all part of the estate. If this went on rate my deal, I think it would come back with can't be rated. Even now the levels of due diligence are impossible to do because how can you quote do you take this off plaster paint what what's what's behind the investors that put money into this by the way after about 18 months when I realized oh my goodness this is not quite what I thought we paid the investors all their money back gave 10% on top because that's what you do right reputation is more important than revenue it's not like a case of lack of vision. It's not a case of lack of finance. It's a case of lack of permission. And for someone that is your own boss, I want to do what I want. If you've got a listed building and it's protected, it's not my building. Everybody else has a say, which is which is fine. That's what I signed up for when I bought it. I could sell it tomorrow. Any offers?
As I mentioned, when we bought it, it already had planning for 13 apartments and four houses. The final house at the end is actually already a house. There's tenants in there. So, you look shocked. >> Yeah, your tenants. >> Yeah, my tenants. No, when we when we bought it, um there was there was people living in it. >> What? >> There was people living in that main room down there. There's people living in it. >> How can they live there? Bear in mind when we bought it, it's been stripped out since. And sometimes when you strip everything out, it looks worse. >> When they had sofas and stuff and you know, when we realized that the refurb was going to cost a lot more than we thought and we saw that this was much bigger than just a normal development, we realized we needed to get more planning. So we worked out that we should be able to get planning for at least minimum 24 properties, eight houses, and 16 apartments. We got the structure sorted. We got the Japanese notw weed gone. We got the Batman off our back happy and everything was fine until in 2023 there was a terrible thing that happened. You've got 24 people all living here. What do they all need? >> Parking. >> Parking. Car park that was there when we bought the property was not a car park. It was a forest. The seller, he got permission from the Forestry Commission to knock down the trees with the clause that he would replant the trees within two years. He knocked down the trees. He turned into a car park to sell the building. He sold the building to some dum dum, namely me. So when my planning consultant looked at the drawings and everything, my planning consultant was like, "Yes, we think you'll be okay. It should work. Everything was fine. But then what happened was I got an email from Forestry Commission in 2023, but it basically says in summary there's a clause that was somewhere in your legal pack. If you didn't see it, not my problem, but you have to change the car park, turn it back into a forest, and you have to by law plant 300 trees. >> Oh wow. >> Where the car park was. So, we had to plant 300 trees, which then meant that the council said, "Well, we can't give you planning permission to for these apartments and houses because you got in a car park." So, you've got Forestry Commission saying one thing, English Heritage saying another, the council all with their own agendas, and then me in the middle trying to keep everybody happy, but also trying to make a small profit, but really at this point given up on everything apart from just wanting to finish the project, but can't.
Let me show you the old car park. That's now forest. We agreed to put the trees down Sunday the 15th of June and then guess who was here 8:30 on the Monday forestry commission to check that we' done it. And they actually was shocked that we did. >> He said to Simon, he said most developers wouldn't do it. But what can you do? Can't you just put the car here? Why does the trees have to be here? We said, look, we've got 8 acres of land. We'll plant 300 trees. Gez, we'll plant 600, but can we do it at the back, please? No, has to be here. Why? Because that's what's in the agreement. That's what we agreed >> reasonable. >> I didn't agree it. I inherited that agreement from the 90-year-old tree surgeon man who and it was a tiny oneliner within a 100page document on a legal pack. But this is the reality of property development. Here's the thing where things are actually reasonable. We're often as property developers a bit selfish and look at it from our perspective. We want to do this. We want to make money. What's the problem? Why don't you just be reasonable? I'm helping the economy. The bottom line is like let's look at this house for example. That person bought that house and when they bought the house there was trees, beautiful big trees, not quite as big as these trees but probably 50 m high. Then they buy the house and then the owner of the castle woof turns into a car park. They're obviously upset but they know he'll look there's a clause two years got to build the back. He then sells it. I inherit the problem. I don't know. I then think I can get planning permission for all these apartments and houses based on the fact that the parking is going to be here then I can't can't plant the trees elsewhere. Can't put the car park elsewhere. I'm thinking is the building worthless then if if we can't park to get to it. Have I just inherited a beautiful building that's completely commercially worthless? Anyway, welcome to our new forest.
So, I officially planted 300 trees. I think sometimes it's easy to say, "Oh, I know that." Lots of people say, "Oh, I'd know not to have bought it." But you don't know something properly until you've lived it. But that was tough. You know, I was just in my 20s. And what it did do is it forced me. It forced me to get better. Jim ran who I've spent thousands of hours listening to even as a kid. He said, "Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills and never wish that it was easier. Instead, wish that you were better." And I think through the struggle of that, not only did I learn loads on the site, but the fact that my cash flow was being taken, it forced me to have to get some more lucrative and bigger deals. Um, and all these years later, it's still a money pit, but we are where we are.