Transcription
Welcome to Property Auction hunters. And if you're joining us for the first time, by way of a quick introduction, my name is Jay Howard. I have been in property since 2002. At that time, I was working for a Family Trust managing £3.3 billion worth of property. And my business partner over here is P Renck. He was a buying agent in London for many years and, since that time, fell straight into auctions and hasn't managed to pull himself out yet; he absolutely loves it. Um, we love doing deals, and because we love doing deals, we have Mr. Dealmaker himself, Mr. Northwest, uh, Oliver Adams.
By way of introduction, I've known Oliver for a couple of years when I worked for Auction House London. Oliver also worked within the Auction House group of franchises, Auction House Northwest, um, and outside of Auction House London and maybe East Anglia—probably being a little bit kind there, perhaps—Northwest was probably one biggest auction house in the area.
So what we're going to go through today is going to be really, really very special. We're going to ask Oliver what made Auction House Northwest so popular, so big, so epic in the way that it was run. Um, spoiler alert: it was all Oliver. Um, and we're going to talk about why Oliver is now one of the primo auction traders in the country. And there's going to be a whole discourse between why he moved from this to the other and the difficulties, challenges, and the opportunities he sees in the market. So Oliver, welcome.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the invite today. It's good to uh catch up with some old, uh, old chums, shall we say, Jay? So, um, Auction House, uh, Northwest, originally, uh, when I first started working there, was a very small, um, regional auction, um, probably ran 20–25 lots typically a month. Uh, we did four auctions a year, so we were a very small regional auctioneer when I started working there. Um, cut a long story short, within 10 years, I'd grown that to 12 auctions a year, so we did an auction every month, and we were typically selling between 90 and 100 lots per month, um, 1,200 lots a year, having grown from doing four auctions a year. There was no real secret, no magic formula to it, other than bloody hard work, um, nose to the ground, uh, door always open for business, whether that was before 9:00, after 7, 8 o'clock at night, weekends. Um, it was a seven-days-a-week job. Uh, if you had an inquiry that came in, uh, you dealt with it there and then, typically within an hour to two hours. Whole purpose, whole, so function was to get that client signed up for auction, get them booked into auction, and get that property sold. And, and you know, people talk about lifestyle, um, quality of employment; there was none of that. Um, I was commission-based; I was hungry, focused, um, and fortunately for me, that was noticed after a period of time by some of the big, um, clients in the marketplace that were selling volumes of property. So you know, you might, you might do four or five valuations to get one instruction from private sellers, someone who's inherited a house or landlord selling, selling an odd, an odd property, um, and, and you know, it's good business, and the fees were always good with those types of properties, but you want repeat business, and you want volume of business running an auction, uh, and the, the, um, cash cow, if you like, is to get into the corporate markets, uh, dealing with asset managers, receivers, banks, charities, um, some of the big PLC property firms that might offload a portfolio that's no longer performing for them. But the big one, and the one that really, really, really got me into where I am now, uh, was uh selling properties for traders. Uh, there, there were a small number of people out there, um, very cloak-and-dagger, kept themselves out of, out of social media, out of the limelight, um, and they, they, they were, um, by-house, fast cash operators or below-market-value buying companies, uh, and they were, they were exciting to me. Um, it was exciting business; they, you know, it was impressive to see someone buying a property, um, and then selling it at auction, and they would make the profit they would make in that one deal was the equivalent of six months of my wages, um, and I wanted a slice of that pie; I wanted a slice of that action. But to fully understand that business model and how it worked, uh, I had to work with these guys as, as their auctioneer. Um, eventually, trust grows, uh, they start coming to you then to ask for your opinion on properties before they buy them, before they've offered on them. So my mindset then started thinking as a trader, even though I wasn't buying them myself, I was only selling for them, but it gets, your mindset alters, and you, you look at the psychology of the, um, take, take, take a different hat off, take your auction hat off. Um, I would look at the property: what can I get for it at auction? Uh, give them that figure with confidence that we would deliver that price; they would then offer accordingly, buy that property. So that was effectively the introduction into the trading environment, trading world. Having run, um, an auction, selling a huge number of properties for over 10 years for trader clients, um, and it was an eye-opener, really. And the reason I left, and the only reason I left, was co—COVID became the, the determining factor for me. Um, I love dealing with people; I was a face-to-face guy; I would always go out and do the valuations face-to-face; I would meet the sellers. Um, a lot of people in the auction industry, uh, want to get up on the rostrum, uh, they want that, um, vanity, if you like, and kudos of being the auctioneer. Um, I didn't; I wanted to be on the shop floor; I wanted to do deals; I wanted to trade; I wanted to get new instructions; I wanted to sell stock that hadn't sold at auction on the day. Um, COVID came, shut down the, uh, auction market in the, uh, football stadiums where we held the auctions; we could no longer have, uh, public face-to-face auctions; everything went online. And yes, it's more efficient; yes, it's better as a buyer and better as a seller, but my God, it was boring, too boring. But that, that, that was the only excuse I needed to get out, um, and I got out; I left, uh, and I only had one, one dream: to be a trader.
Eventually, what was it like to, uh, you know, make that shift? Because it's a massive shift to be on the, in the position, even if you see things, even if you know how things work, work to, like, them, put yourself in the position of a trader; it's a massive, uh, shift in everything, like the risk you're taking, the responsibility you're taking. Like if things go wrong, it's not only that you don't make a commission that you would on a sale, but it's actually you probably made losses. Like what was it like? How did you manage that shift in the, in the mindset?
The, there was no planning, P, and I think that's the only way, um, it's the only way I managed to do it because there wasn't a plan that could go wrong. I'd made the decision to, to exit being an employee. Uh, I've been an employee all my life, um, getting a monthly salary, uh, and a certain amount of commission every month was very comfortable; it gets you in a very comfortable position. Um, so I finished in December, uh, 2020, after having worked in the auction industry for 23 years in total, uh, and for the first time in my life, January 2021, I was unemployed; I had no job, um, didn't have a business plan; I really hadn't thought it through in that way; I just knew I had to get out, had to do something different. Um, sold some, uh, couple of ices, uh, that we had, uh, took a little bit of money out of the house; that gave me my initial trading pot, um, bought my first property, one-bed mid-terrace bungalow with subsidence, Japanese knotweed in January—beautiful—and I thought, if I can't add any value to that and traded at auction to make a profit, then I've made a big mistake. Um, so I just, I just dived in feet first, balls deep, pardon me, pun, but there was the only way of doing it, and thought, if I can't, if I can't make that work, if I can't practice what I've been preaching to other people for all those years, then I'll stack shelves in Tesco's. Um, so you, you just do it; you just got to do it. I did it; bought that first one, um, fortunately for me, it, it made a, it made be, it made a five-grand profit that property, um, I earned £5,000 net after costs, before tax on that first trade, uh, and that, that was a month's wages for me, um, and I thought, if I can do 12 of those a year to replace my salary, it supports the mortgage, the wife, the two kids, the two cars, happy days; I'll have a far better quality of life; I'll have spare time; I'll be able to go on holiday; I'll have lifestyle. No, none of that work, none of it; the lifestyle went out the window; the free time went out the window; I, I didn't think I could work any more hours. Um, coming out of the auction industry, it was seven days a week for me, uh, and people always said, self-employed, you work harder, you push yourself harder, you drive yourself harder; I just thought, no, you're talking rubbish, but they weren't; they were true; they were very right. I, I bought 47 properties, bought and completed 47 properties that first year, and so, and sold those 47 in the same year; never worked harder in my life, but it worked; I made a few quid, and I thought, I can do this again. So here we are, carry on. So there wasn't, wasn't really a plan. I'd love to say there was this detailed super analysis, spreadsheets, and, and Excel spreadsheets and numbers, and crunch, crunch this and crunch that, and I'd spoken to a bank manager; I haven't even got a bank manager; never even seen one; it was just do it, just get out, moment, moment of truth.
Did you have hair before you started trading? The last time I had hair, I was at university; I was 21 years old, and I'm not 21, so it's not stressful at all. Right, no, definitely not; it's, it's a different kind of stress; yeah, is a very, very different kind of stress; it's the kind of stress that when you come out of it on the other end, you actually realize that you enjoy it; you like the pain, um, the pain is good, and the stress is good; it's actually a good stress when you realize you're doing it for yourself; you're not doing it for someone else. Yeah, yeah. I've got some questions; I've got big questions, and it's a good point to kind of like jump in; we've been on this for about 10, just over 10 minutes, but it's also good for, I think we have, uh, about 50 people watching live, um, which is excellent. So for you 50 people, thank you very much for joining us, whether you're on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever it is; if you have a question for Oliver, make sure you put it into the chat because, um, before we let Oliver escape and have his tea this evening, uh, we're going to try and bash brains in for some, some real nuggets of, of information. But just wanted to kind of see if we could pull out a little bit more information, um, on some of the things that you said, Oliver. And one of the things I think that you have said that I really liked, um, so one is a question and one's an observation. So the question first is, um, how much do you think, how, sorry, how long do you think you can do this for? Because what most people don't know is you as a property trader, you're quite unique, right? There's no big team; there's, it's, it's Oliver Adams doing 10, 15, 20 properties a month, right? That's the kind of general volume we're talking about. So like, you're going pound for pound here; how long is this, or have you got like plans of, of kind of scaling out and getting a runner or two and doing things like that?
So it's a really good question that they, they, and, um, when running the auction, there was a team of nine of us, uh, in that auction, and it was, it was a very tight-knit team, uh, some of the staff that, uh, worked in that team have been with me for over 10 years, um, they, you know, two, two of them have been there for nearly 15 years, so we were really tight-knit team; everybody knew what to do; uh, there was no panic; it was, it was a solid position to be in, um, but that doesn't mean to say that you still had those people booking appointments in at 1, 2, 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, uh, and they were very difficult to get hold of for the rest of that day, and then, uh, you know, the dog passed away over the weekend, or their auntie had died for the fourth time on Monday morning, and they wouldn't be in for a few days, and that I never really got my head around that, and I know the world that we live in now, people are supposed to be more compassionate about their colleagues, uh, and, and they're supposed to have a personal life and, and time for life events, marriage, kids, pol, whatever; I'm not into any of that; I never was, and I never am, and I'm not now. So the thought of having staff, employees, assistants, runners, as you call them, uh, any responsibility other than from myself puts the fear of dread into me because I'm pretty sure that the first time they did something wrong or didn't perform to my expectation or let me down or didn't show up, I'd end up in prison for some punishing event that would probably follow. Um, it's just not my, it's just not me. So yeah, it's by far the best way of doing things, uh, I know a lot of people use VAs now; I don't have a VA; I've got no admin; I've got, I've got no assistance whatsoever; I do every single element of every trade and all the administration, including sorting out the council tax, gas, water, electric; I do all my own accounts, all my own books, um, I go to each property on its, this is could be a story on its own; I go to each property that I've bought; very rarely see them before I bought them; so get completion, get keys; I'll go there; I'll clean them; I'll clear them; I'll do the gardens; uh, I'll scrub the toilets; I'll bleach; I'll air freshen; uh, I do all my own videos, do all my own photographs; um, I trained this; I can do EPCs, although I don't do that because the time it takes to do an EPC isn't that, is pointless; you get an EPC done for £45. Um, so I do do everything myself; I can't work and couldn't work and don't want to work with anyone else, and I know it sounds maybe selfish, maybe arrogant, certainly stupid, um, it's probably, I think for most people, Ollie, it's, um, there's probably an element of madness in it, right? And I think the, the observation I was going to make after you answered this question was, I think you've taken the same, um, like dedication, like motivation, hunger, drive, whatever noun you want to throw in there, and you basically said to yourself, these are my strengths, right? This is, no one can outwork Oliver Adams, is what you said to yourself; you're like, if I'm gonna do this, it's balls to the wall; I'm gonna make it work. And I think, absolutely, I, I said to somebody years ago, and since I've said, I keep repeating it; I've definitely not invented this, but I basically said, if this is what you want to do, you need to find out what makes you different; what is the one strength that you have that no one else can outdo you on, and then it's that one driver, that one key thing that you build it all around because it distinguishes you, right? One of the things that we talk about is no two traders do the same job, the same way, in the same way that no two auctioneers do it the same way; you register to bid on a lot in OnTheMarket, in Stratton, in Savills, in Auction House London, you'll be doing it in three different ways with three different experiences and three different journeys, right? Um, but this is it, like, I don't know, again, I don't know how much people know, but this is one of the things I've always thought, Jesus H, bloody whatever, how does he do it, right? Because you know, I, I don't think I was exaggerating, you know, you had a couple of months where you've done 15, 20 deals a month, right? Yeah, and that's, that's 15, 20 purchases, 15, 20, uh, utilities that you've called, uh, count, U, everything.
Yeah, I've, I've got, um, August is a quiet month; the quiet, it's not as quiet as it used to be before, um, obviously before COVID, auction was all auctioneers were on holiday; that was the typically the month there with no auctions; it shut down; since everything went online, business is carried on, so there's no real discernable difference in August now, but, um, I sell less in August and use August to buy more stock because the, there are buyers that go on holiday and stop buying, so I bought a lot in August, um, and didn't sell that same volume in August, so I've got a lot of stock going through auctions this month in September, um, I've got 21 going to auction in September, uh, in different auctions, and I'm just starting to put lots together now for the October, October auctions. But if I, so la, last year, um, as an example, I bought a house every 3.1 days last year, uh, throughout the year; I think that's what it works out at; someone who's good at maths working out; I bought, I bought, purchased, completed on 152 properties last year in 2023; I think it's one every three days, something like that; I think it's one like 2.7 days, something; let's, let's get, let's get the calculator out; let's not, let's not, I'm not, I'm not driven by, um, by how many days in a year are the P, 2.4 days, one house every 2.4 days last year. And when, when you look back at that, when you, when you think about that number now, um, it, I think that's impossible; how, how, how can you do that? It doesn't, it is impossible, um, but when I look at the completion statements, you think, well, bought three this week, you know, that's all you've got to do; all you've got to do is buy three a week; it's not, it's not that difficult, Ian; it's not that difficult; I, I, I don't know where is, where'd you stop? If I get offered an opportunity and I can see a profit, I'll buy it; it doesn't matter whether I've bought one this week or five this week or 10 this week; I might not buy three every week; I might buy one, one this week; I might buy five next week or six next week; I'm, I'm like really curious about the practicalities of, of this situation because let's say, like, let's focus on that week, right? So you buy a week, so you bought one already; you have to call the council tax people; you have to call electric people, everyone, and then how do you take calls from the new people who going to sell you the second property, and then also when you clear up your property, do you also have a phone next to your ear, like taped, uh, so that you can answer the calls? Because that, that's the kind of part that, what's happening between the buying is because you think yourself, and like, that's the part that just makes me wow.
So most, most people that, that know me, and there'll be a lot of people, if there'll be a lot of people out there today, uh, that will be thinking, um, I'm an arrogant s because I haven't got back to them. Um, so in, in the evening time, so typically from sort of like 7:00 till 10:00 in the evening is the time when I get back to those people, PE. So during the daytime, uh, when businesses are open, auctioneers are open, estate agents are open, the solicitors are open, the councils are open, whatever, between 9 and 5, you, you, I am flat out; I will price as much, I'll price as much stock as I can and get as much, as many offers out as I can, but, but actually dealing with people that comes later; that is got to be the 6 till 10:00 at night. Yeah, I, I will spend one to two hours every day, most days, uh, when I'm certainly when I'm at home, in the hot tub at home, on my phone, and I'm, and I'm WhatsApping people, texting people, uh, Facebook, Insta, whatever; that's when I do a lot of the catching up; when most normal people will be feet up in front of the telly, or taking the kids to football, or might go down the pub, or whatever, um, that is when I do my catching up; it is in the, in the evening time. That said, that, that what happened today because of, of stuff like this, and a lot of people have tried calling me today; I know that I've had 40, maybe 40, 50 missed calls today, and I've maybe spoken to three people; one, one, one of those was my missus because I do not answer that phone when she calls. So it's difficult, and I know for a fact that I've, I miss deals; I miss deals; I'll give you an example; there's, there's, there's a guy, uh, I was up north last week; I was all over Scotland last week, um, a guy messaged me last week with two properties, uh, two flats; I hope he's, he's watching because this is a kind of apology to him, and I won't apologize to him, so if he is watching, this is the non-apology; he messaged me three times last week, uh, come back to me with a bid, come back to me with a bid, come back to me a bid; 10 minutes before we started on this call today, uh, a, a Facebook post came up, and, and it was this chat, and he's posted these two deals on Facebook to, to everyone; I had a week to go back to him, and I, I didn't; something else came up; I forgot; he reminded me; something else came up. Um, it is not perfect what I do; it's far from perfect; it's not ideal; um, stuff gets missed; I make mistakes; mistakes cost money; they cost time and money; um, I've got no one to fall back on; it's a real tough life that I live; it's, uh, it's not recommended; I love it; I wouldn't have it any other way. You know, for, for one person to, to do, to do what I do on my own, all I have to look at, and, and this is a sad reflection of my mental state and my priorities, but all I look at is the bank balance at the end of every month, and I go, yeah, that was worth it, and that, that is my biggest motivator, um, I just making money. Yeah, I think comes from trading because trading, and a lot of people, you've got to come across the opportunities to trade, same as anything, whether you're doing flips, BRR, renovations, HMOs, whatever you're doing, you have to have the opportunities; those deals have to be there, um, I have a problem with relationships with properties; I don't want to hold anything for months and months and months; I'm not into, I know people, capital appreciation, uh, refinance, buy it, buy something for £50,000, sell it for £70,000, and you've got £20,000 in the bank; you've got no risk now; you've got no management; you've got no risk; you pay, you get cleared for tax; you run your 25% corporation tax; nothing, nothing you can do about that; pay the tax; that money is yours; I can then concentrate on the next deal. But going, going back to that, the question, Jay, you asked before about, um, what is my exit or when do I stop, when, when it is enough, enough; all I wanted to do was, was replace a £60–75,000 a year annual salary; that was all I wanted to do initially, um, and, and I did that, then I thought, right, okay, what do I want now? Wouldn't it be good to earn £100,000 in a year? Any, you know, that; so I think I'd hit that within a couple of months in the first, the first year, and then I thought, wonder what it's like to actually have a million pounds in…
The bank? I've never had more than 20 grand ever in the bank in my entire life. What would it be like to have a million pounds in the bank? I'm going to stop when a million, and a million was there. No, I want two now. And then two was there, well, I want three now. I never went to four; I got bored with four, so I went from three to five. I want five, and then five was there, and I thought, I am going to stop when I hit five. Now I want 10. So I don't, I don't know where the end is. I can't see an end.
Well, those, those are the natures of goals, right? You know, you get to and and it because what you're saying, know I think some people, if they don't have a Trader mindset or they're not in kind of real estate investing, they'll look at this and go, sheer greed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what I think it is is you're looking for the experience; like you want to know what the feeling is.
Yeah, it's not a case of I want a million quid to spend it on a Lamborghini and shove it up my nose or whatever people do these days, right? It's a case of what does it feel like? What, what does, what does a million pounds look like in my bank account? Yeah, you CR that, and then you keep going.
Do you know what a kettle is? A kettle? Yeah, yeah. Not, not, not to make a cup of tea, kettle. No, I need an explanation. Someone said to me the other day, um, "What kettle have you got, mate?" to me, and I'm like, "The wife makes the tea; I don't know." No, no, "What watch have you got? What watch you..." So apparently a decent, called, "There's my watch," I don't know if it, it doesn't come up, does it? There's my watch. I don't even have a watch. What? I don't want to spend 20 grand on a watch, what for? I drive an eight-year-old car that's done 140,000 miles. I could go out and buy any car I want, but it's not, it doesn't motivate me, and it doesn't impress me, and there's no value in those assets to me.
Um, the, the, you hit the nail on the head, Jay. It's about, it's about I want to experience what it feels like, and then when I've got that, like, okay, what now? And what now? I don't, 10, 10 million in the bank is the what now.
Um, yeah, and I want to give, I'm 50 next year, um, so I want to, 51, 52, I want that 10 million in the bank, which will have taken me five years. Is it five years? 20, 21, yeah, they take five, five years. If I, if I can hit 10 million, five, five to six years. The plan is to get out while I've still got some form of mental health and while I've still got some, some, some form of physical health, and, and, and I'm not joking when I say this, or before my luck runs out, because there will, you know, I've been lucky. I, I genuinely believe I've been lucky. I've been lucky with the market. I've been lucky in the time, the timing that I came into the market.
Um, a lot of people say it's not luck; it's, it's the skill set that I've got, but there is a lot of luck involved. Um, there is some luck, and but you create your own luck, right? I mean, you know, it's in the doing, like the more you do, the more you do, you see, the more you're able to kind of like dip out of things that might be unlucky by following, you know, we talk about this all the time, it must frustrate everybody that listens to us, right? But it's, um, how do you know it's a deal? How you stack the deal? Well, we look at it with our eyeballs and we say, that deal stacks, that deal doesn't. Yeah, and you can only really grow that pair of eyes or, or get that sixth sense by looking and by doing, right?
Yeah, I mean, 20 years I've been looking at deals. I've been valuing deals when I was at auction house London, when I managed the trust, doing all those things, you there, you have no choice but to get a gut feeling about something. I can look at the numbers and just say, it doesn't work. And someone says, "Why?" It's like, well, you run your numbers, and you'll come back to me, and it doesn't work, and it doesn't. Um, and you can't put your finger on it all the time. I mean, sometimes it's glaringly obvious why it doesn't work, but there is an element of that, right? But that's only because you've been doing it, yeah, and you pick it up quickly, once, if especially if you're doing volume like you are, um, you, you pick it up quickly, or you, you don't, it doesn't take you long to fail. There are failures, the, you know, people, how, how do you recover from, from, from, um, from making a loss financially? You just do, you, you, you reverse your Capital pot, your Capital pot's taking a dent. The hardest part when you do get it wrong is, is your me, your mentality, because it knocks your confidence, and that is the, the biggest thing that I've had to, that I've had to learn and deal with.
Um, you buy something, and you pay a hundred for it, and you, you're confident it's going to do 125 at auction, and it sells for 80, and you're like, well, what went wrong? How? Now, that could have just been bad luck on the day, could have been a bad Auctioneer on the day, may not have been marketed correctly or properly. Um, a lot of the time it's, is down to something that I've missed on purchase. Um, M shaft in the front garden, because I'm, I'm buying without searches. You get the searches of the M shaft. The hardest part of, of failing and losing, um, is the mental anguish, um, and it knocks your confidence. It takes you back a step or two. Then you get off of the next deal, uh, and you bid too low for it, you, you bid too cautiously, you're over cautious, you're going into protection mode. Yeah, protection mode. They can't get it agreed because the sellers not that stupid or da to take an offer at that level, or they've got a better buyer that will pay more. Um, you miss a few deals, so losing that 20 grand on that deal then actually causes greater losses of potential profit from the next three Deals that you don't buy. Um, so that, that is the fastest changing mindset that I had to, had to learn and adapt. Um, once you've lost, forget the loss and buy, buy more, make those losses back on the next deals. Don't lose another deal because you've lost on the last one. It's the worst thing you can do. The loss of opportunity on the next deal is always bigger than the actual physical loss on the, on the, on the last deal.
It's so true. I mean, for those who are, are coming to the, the Portugal Mastermind, um, we have a couple of stories that we will be sharing, like, just, we're not volume Traders. We, we do smaller, but hopefully by and large bigger returns for, for Less work, if we're lucky, right? You told me, Jay, that you gave me a figure, I don't know when it would, early this year, you'd, if, if it's wrong, it's wrong, but you, you'd bought five properties, and in one period of time, and made the same amount of money as I'd made in, in buying 152 Properties or something like that. So I wish I was you. I would rather buy five and make the same amount of money as buying 152. It's a lot less admin, but your skill set is far more detailed, uh, and analytical. I've seen some of the stuff you do, and I, I look at it, I scratch my head and wake up in the morning, scratch it a bit more and go, nah, not for me, that's too complicated. But it's, um, it, it's, well, we, we've had some, not just misses, like, we, we've, we've taken a bath on a couple of things. It's always our own Capital, like, there, if, if the deal's looking South, we get, if we've got an investor, we get the investor out, we get, make sure everyone's clean. If we take the bath, it's us personally. Like, I think it's a big part of being a Trader where you have to be able to stump the losses. What you've said tonight is absolutely on the money, like you have to be able to take a punch and just get up, yeah, get your guard back up and keep punching, right.
Um, one of the, one of the people that are coming to the retreat specifically said to me, "I don't want to hear about your lovey-dovey amazing 400 Grand profit story, blah, blah," he goes, "I want to hear about when you shat the bed. I want to hear when it went really, really badly. I want to hear about how, how it almost ruined you, and you came back, you know, from, from near disaster and things like that," and I said, "Well, you're fortunate, um, we haven't had anything quite so bad, but we've had a couple where I think, I don't know, I mean, we would have missed out on a couple of opportunities because we just didn't look. There was, there was a month or two where we were just sitting there going, we have, we have, how, how are we going on to do this?" And it, it wasn't the first time we've lost out on a deal, or we've had to kind of just duck out and lose a deposit or something just goes wrong, but it was the first, it was the first heavy punch; it was a, it was a Mike Tyson in the 1990s, a real, a real lick, you know, we felt that one for a couple of months. Um, but I, I think that's a big part of this; a lot of people don't realize that, yeah, it's a fantastic way to be in property. You don't have the, the relationship that you have with, like most people have with property. You're not a buyer-to-let landlord. You don't have a responsibil, and it is, you know, it's a big responsibility to your tenants, to your bank, to the insurance company, to all of these people. Trading is, you know, if you've got commitment issues, trading is perfect, right? I don't want to be holding on to a property more than three months. I get itchy; I kind of, I want to go for a walk somewhere. So, but you know, whilst myself and P on the retreat aren't doing any talks like yourself, safe, we'll have, um, you, safe, uh, Scott, we'll have, um, gel. These are all really cool people. The talks are going to be amazing, but we're going to be kind of spearheading The Mastermind sessions in the afternoon to kind of like really pull the value out, make sure that people are engaged, make sure that they kind of getting those parts of their business unblocked so they can do either what we do, what safe does, what you do, or they kind of pull something out of thin a, like, "This is how I'm going to do it," and there's ways to make money, especially with trading, you know, so definitely because you don't, you don't, you don't, and I'm sure this will come out in, in the retreat, you know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a phenomenal, those names you've mentioned is the amount of knowledge and EXP experience in, in, in those four, five names is, is, is mind-blowing. I, I will learn, I know I will learn stuff on that Retreat from those other people.
Um, one of the, the, the biggest attitudes towards it that I, that I take is never ever lose a deal, okay? So people say, "I haven't got any money, or I've run out of money, or I can't raise the finance." It does not matter. You do not need any money, and I'm not talking about no money down deals and all these creative strategies that they're for other people. I'm talking Traders now. You want to be a Trader, you want to buy a property to trade, you're not talking about converting, adding Value Rental HMO buy to sell, and you haven't got any money. How can I trade without money? Easy. JV with a Trader who has got the money. That's simple. So a lot of the properties now that are brought to me are from people who I have shown how to trade, taught how to trade, shown them the way, if you like, where to find these deals, how to Source these deals, and they're coming up with these deals, they're offering them to, "What do you think of this, Oliver? Is this a deal?" Yes, this is a deal. This will make you money. This will make you 25 Grand at auction, for example, right? Okay, how do I buy it? I haven't got the money. The seller wants to complete in five working days. That's fine. I will put the money up. I will JV it. I will deal with the asset management in the middle, and I will deal with the sale, and I'll split the profit with that person, and all of a sudden they've got a chunk of capital. Now they've got a chunk of working capital. They do three, four, five, six of those, and they've now got enough Capital to buy a trade themselves, and they've also learned how to do it. So there's lots of ways to make money. Yeah, that, that's, that's crazy because it's such a simple thing, but being to do that is, is actually kind, it's the, it's, it's what the olden days, it used to be like an apprenticeship, right? You're basically taking someone under the wing. I think they call it earn as you learn nowadays. Le, earn and learn, yeah, but, um, that, that's, yeah, I, I hadn't, I hadn't thought that, that even you were going in that kind of Direction, but it makes sense, right? Because never lose a deal. You don't want to lose a deal, but also I don't want to give too much away because what we haven't spoken about is how you actually get your deals now. I'm certain, and there's going to be a question in the chat, so what I'll do is, is I'll ask you the questions, we'll go through them. Um, if there's a couple that kind of, um, repeat or sound too similar, I'll let you know, and we, we'll, we'll skip on to the next one, but we've got, um, Oscar. So Oscar looks like he was with us, um, from pretty much the beginning, uh, when you mentioned that first property you bought with the subsidence and the Japanese knotweed. His question is, "How did you add value to that house?"
Do you want me to be honest and, and genuinely tell you, um, the, the knotweed, uh, disappeared, um, in a garden makeover, uh, Lord mower, what can I say? And a little bit of a bonfire, uh, I'm not condoning it, I'm not recommending it, I'm just being honest and saying what happened. Um, I'm not saying I did it, just disappeared. The, um, the property was a probate, so someone had passed away, uh, the house was, um, fully furnished with old people's belongings, all the furniture stuff, so it cleared all that out, uh, and, and it, it sounds crazy, but I then went to, um, it a Dunelm Mill and an Argos, and I, I, I, I bought enough stuff to furnish the kitchen, uh, toaster, Kettle, tea TOS, uh, Etc, to furnish the kitchen, uh, and to dress the bathroom, so some fresh TOS in there, uh, put all new light bulbs in, got the electric back up and running, the electric was turned off, um, took photo, air fresheners, made the place look brighter, smell nicer, um, made it look as though it was ready to rent, basically, uh, and advertised it as already to rent property. So you, you, you're aiming for a different Market, um, there's not many one-bed properties on, on the rental market, especially Bungalow. I spoke to two agents locally, letting agents who gave me figures for, for rental valuation, um, and in the marketing brochures, you, one, one-bed mid-terrace Bungalow, ready to let condition, um, this is the expected rental value, yield, return, and it sold to, sold to in the investment Market at auction, um, the guy that actually bought it, uh, I'm still in contact with four years later, he, he's got a portfolio now, 40, 50 properties, B, all, all bought at auction, very happy guy, and it set him up, he set him on a path as a, as a, as a portfolio landlord now. So that's, that, that's how you add value to a one-bed. I know people out there, TR traders who, um, will split, uh, a one-bedroom property into two, they'll, you know, especially if it's got two windows in the bedroom, they'll put a stud wall up, they'll put a, a separate door in, uh, um, they'll, they'll get a floor plan done, those bedrooms might be small, they might be below minimum standards for, for HMO, for example, but they will split a bigger bedroom into two, um, it's not, it's not unusual, but one, one-beds typically are hard to sell, so you make your profit on your purchase, and that's something that anyone going into trading should always remember. It's not necessarily about add in value. I don't necessar, I don't generally add any value at all. I make them, I make, I clean and clear, I make them smell better and make them look better. I make them comfortable for someone to walk around on and viewing, uh, some of the places that, that are B are horrifically, uh, poor condition, um, dangerous to even walk around, cluttered, hoarded, passed away pets, you know, some horror stories, some of these will come out in the, in the retreat, but for me it's not about adding value. I don't add value. I buy at a price that I can make a profit by selling an auction. Um, I just make them as clean and, and clear and as tidy as possible.
Wow, excellent. Our next question is, uh, from Danny Tuckwood, who's joining us from LinkedIn, um, "What would you suggest for getting started if you haven't got a background in the auction business?" Good question. So I, I think the primary thing there really is to concentrate on the area that you live in. There, there is, it's pointless looking, in my opinion, and it's only my opinion, but why would you go any into any area outside of your comfort zone? Stick to the area that you, that you live in. You'll be much more familiar with, with the good streets, the bad streets, the better areas. Um, we all know that you can buy a house on a street, uh, and you've gone, you've used online comparables, and we put that property to auction, and it fails, it doesn't sell, or it sells for a loss, and it's only afterwards you realize you bought on the wrong side of that street, for whatever reason. People want houses on the other side of the street, maybe that's because they've got a south-facing Garden on that side of the street, you're all on the opposite side, or there's a school at the bottom of the road, so it's the bottom of the road that people want, not the end of the road. So stick, stick to your local market. Look for, um, properties that appear to be neglected, uh, overgrown front Gardens, uh, driveways with weeds going through them, um, look for stuff like that, that they're the opportunities that you want to be looking for. Do some research. What is that house, that house worth in good condition? That's very easy to do on Rightmove. Put a postcode in, Zoopla, Rightmove, you'll see what's up for sale locally on that street, uh, and then you just got to work back from there. How much work is needed? What's the cost of that work going to be? What sort of profit margin would a buyer want in there? And then you offer, depending on what profit you want as a Trader, below that level. Um, you don't need money to trade. There will always be people that will JV you. Can sell, I don't want to give away too much without going into the retreat, but you, you, you can deal Source, you can package deals up, you can get property agreed with the vendor and then find a buyer for it and charge a fee. You don't need to actually buy them. It's all about getting your hands dirty, getting your, your face into, into properties. Get around people's houses, get some viewings done, speak to agents, uh, do some leaflets, put some leaflets out there, make a nuisance of yourself. You've got to have conversations with people, and you've got to start viewing properties, and you don't need, need money to do that. You just need motivation and feet on the ground, and that's it. That's all you need to start, motivation and movement. Just got to get out there.
Brilliant. We've got, um, we got Yesaya and, and saying hello. He's, he's enjoying the chat, same with Ravi. Uh, the next question is, um, uh, yeah, I guess that's kind of roughly the same, same question, but this is Tom, um, Oliver's top three tips of getting into trading is kind of roughly what you've done there, um, uh, Tom has asked another question. Tom is popular this evening, um, "How many deals do you look at a month," um, would you say, "And what is your Buy rate? So what's your conversion?" Good question that I like it. Uh, if it depends on where the lead has come from. So if, if it is, uh, stock that I'm buying from auction to trade in another auction, uh, the conversion is really very low, uh, because there's lots of other people trying to buy that property in the same auction, uh, so we've got a three-day auction coming up this week with Allsops, um, there's what, 5, 600 Lots in that auction, for example. The reason I've totally ignored everyone today is because from 5 o'clock this morning until 6 o'clock this evening, and these are the, the hours that you got to put in, I've priced around 130 properties in Allsops auction today, um, and, and I drop everything and everyone, I have to focus on that. I've got to get that due diligence out. Out of those 13 properties, if I buy three, I'll be happy with that conversion. So auction, if you can buy 10, 10, 5% of auction, uh, that's better than expected, uh, conversion for me as a Trader. Auction is, is very low. If you're talking about, um, uh, Builders or trades, tradesmen, tradeswomen, uh, who are working, they've been asked to do a quote, so Joe Blogs has asked them to do a quote, um, we've inherited a house, and we're looking to renovate and refurbish this house, uh, Joe Blogs goes around there to, to quote for refurbishing the house, um, and the seller, uh, the owner, the property owner, they're horrified at the cost of refurbishment. They think they can put a kitchen in for 1500 quid and a bathroom for a thousand quid. They think they can renovate and refurbish this two-bed terrace five or six grand. Okay, this Homes Under the Hammer type of stuff from 10 years ago, before Covid, people still have these figures in their mind, and they're like, "No, it's going to cost you 30 grand," and that's without a contingency. All right, okay, "We're not interested. We'll sell." Joe Blogs, "I know a guy that might buy this," and that might be how I get introduced, those one-to-one introductions where you've got a motivated seller. I probably buy one in every two of those. I probably got a 50, 50% conversion because I'll go meet that seller. I'm, I'm, I'm a nice, is guy. I can communicate, I a little bit of a social chameleon. I can dress myself up or down to the, to the audience or crowd in front of me, um, you know, and I will give them a good price. I will give them a, a strong cash price, no chain, no survey, so it's very appealing for them. If you're talking about property sources whose main role is to go out, find a motivated seller or find a distressed property and agree a price, uh, they come to me with a packaged deal. They've done all the due diligence. This, rip it up and throw it in the bin because it's, it's all, pardon the friends, it's all bollocks. What they invariably come up with, it's to suit the figure, they'll dress that package up to suit the figure that the seller has said that they want for the house, yeah, they will make everything else fit around that. Um, I'll look and say, well, what can I get for that ad auction, uh, I'll offer x amount for it because I want to make a margin out of it, and I've got to pay the sorcer. I might buy one in five of those, for example, um, which is a good conversion. It's a very, yeah, absolutely, it's a good conversion. I'm very happy to put the time and effort into those. Um, another source, uh, is other Traders, so I'm a little bit unique in that
I buy quite a lot of other Traders’ properties. Um, I don’t advertise; I’ve got no website, I’ve got no business card. Um, I only went onto social media just over a year ago—didn’t even have Facebook or Instagram just over a year ago. Uh, people always came to me with deals, and I, I sort of had a, a slot in the middle, if you like. Um, that buy stuff that no one else would buy, or the margin was too tight. Um, because I’m buying with my own money, I’m not having a survey; I haven’t got any of those added costs. I’ve got no staff, I’ve got no advertising. So, Traders will come to me with stuff where the margin is too slim for them to justify buying it with their, with their cost of acquisition.
So, where Traders come to me with a deal, uh, I probably buy one in three. Okay, yeah, because they’ve got, they’ve already worked the seller down to, to their bottom line. They’ve normally already got this property under contract; a sale is normally already agreed. If they can’t get that sale offer price any lower, the seller won’t take any less. It’s at that point that they go through their underwriting team, who will look at it and say, “This is not financially viable for us to buy it.” They will get in touch with me and they will say, “Oliver, this is what we’ve got; this agreed at, uh, contract completion is, is Friday this week, four days away. Do you want it? Yes or no? Oh, and we want X amount on top.” Um, so I, I’ll buy one in three of those; they’re normally already at a good price.
And do you buy them in your area, just your patches that you’re familiar with, or you kind of have like a distance you work with? There’s, there’s a, there’s a saying, “Beggars can’t be choosers,” and I’m begging, and I ain’t choosing. I’ll buy it anywhere. I will take any—a lot of people won’t buy in Scotland, for example. Um, you’ve got to have a Scottish solicitor; Scottish law is very different; it’s a very tough environment if you’re not Scottish or you haven’t got contacts in Scotland; it’s a very tough, tough market. I was in Scotland last week sorting out a couple of properties that I bought. I will buy in Northern Ireland. I don’t know any English-based, mainland-based traders who buy in Northern Ireland; I’ve never met one yet. I will buy—I’m buying at a bigger discount. Um, I want 50%, typically 50% of open market value. I will pay 50p in the pound, um, and I will look to make a 10 to 15% margin on that auction. So, whoever buys it at auction is still buying with a big discount. I’ll buy non-standard construction; I’ll buy unregistered title; uh, I’ll buy unconfirmed occupancy, tenanted where there’s no paperwork, there’s no evidence of the tenancy. Um, family disputes, NE disputes, structural—doesn’t bother me. I’ll buy it all; it’s all down to price. It’s not even down to price; it’s down to what can I get for it at auction. Yeah, yeah, it’s just a unit; it’s not a property with a problem; it’s a unit. There is a value to that unit in the marketplace; what will someone pay for this at auction? And then I just offer a little bit less to make a buy on it and just keep myself fed.
I think that you answered quite a lot of questions that we have here. Um, and Guy Harrison, uh, who you may know, he was former president; he was, uh, yeah, he says, “Oliver, you’re very disciplined.” I agree. There is something about having your own destiny. Um, so it’s good to have Guy Harrison on the call. We did meet Guy, by the way. I, if I remember correctly, and I might be wrong, but I’m fairly sure you conducted the auctioneer training course I was on. He did. Yeah, he would have done, absolutely, yeah, with a Welsh guy, forget his name. Um, oh, the, um, not the Edward Miller guy; can’t remember his name. Yeah, I can’t remember the guy’s name either. Um, but we’ve, we’ve gone through just touching a couple of these. Um, uh, so Di, Danny, Dr. S, Adam, uh, we’ve kind of gone through all of those in the chat. So, if you’ve missed those sections of the talk, uh, this video is going to stay on the YouTube channel. So, whilst you’re live, you can watch this back tomorrow, and you’ll be able to, to see what we’ve said there.
So, Ravi, you’ve mentioned finance here. Um, Oliver’s already confirmed that he does this with his own pot. Um, so if you want to learn more about the financing side, the bridging, etc., etc., we have Scott Marshall, who, um, founded, um, Roma Finance, previously, uh, Together Money, uh, for 20-plus years. If you want to learn about the financing from the bridging, that side of things, you need to get yourself to The Retreat. Uh, and P, you put, you put, um, a comment up, a question from Andre: “Why are your thoughts on getting to that 10 million mark? Is it more deals per year or bigger deals?” Hi Andre, that’s a, a name and a person I know very well; hope you’re well. Um, both, simple as that. In an ideal world, it would be bigger deals. Um, my tired brain and body are now saying, “Be more selective, uh, on what I buy; go for the, for the lower hanging fruit or the, the bigger margins; do less volume but higher, higher profit, higher margin.” But I can’t do it. Uh, if someone offered up a 50, 60 grand deal tomorrow, and there was a three-to-five-grand margin in it, um, net margin, I’ll buy it, um, even though there’s the same amount of work involved in that as there is for one that might return 25 grand. The same amount of work is there; slightly different risk level, but the same amount of work for me, same amount of paperwork, same amount of attending, photographing, cleaning, clearing. Um, but I’m not there yet to be that selective. So, at the moment, I would buy both; I’ll buy more and I’ll buy bigger to, to, to get to that 10 million faster. Um, yeah, take more risk. Simple; it’s a bloody good answer, Ollie. I’ll have both, please. Side of something extra, yeah.
I think, question before we wrap up, um, would the last question, Arun? I, I think Arjun, you’re going to find the answer, uh, is, is in pretty much this whole talk. Um, Oliver’s mentioned it’s, uh, it’s price and motivation, uh, and, and the risk that you take with that. Uh, the only red flags are, what are your red flags like? Do you have red flags? Yeah, it’s a good question; that’s so, um, the, the green flags is, is all, is price. It’s sellers’ motivation; why, why are they selling, uh, and at what price point? What do they want for it compared to what I can get for it? So, they’re the only things really that are good indicators: sellers’ motivation, uh, and their price point. Red flags, um, red flags; there’s an interesting, uh, add, I think it’s called an add-on that you can get for Rightmove, a bolt-on, an add-on or something that gives you the, uh, price history, uh, of a property, the marketed price history of a property that’s been up for sale on Rightmove. Um, and you’d be amazed how many properties have been on Rightmove; everybody expects a price reduction, uh, and if that doesn’t work, another one; if that doesn’t work, another one. And every now and again, you come across a property that you’ve been asked to offer on where the property’s been reduced in price and reducing price, and then it’s gone up in price, and the, the last price move on Rightmove is a price above the initial marketing figure. So, the property has been on the market for 100 grand, dropped to 95, dropped to 90, and now it’s up for sale for 120 grand. And that is a red flag, and, and the reason that people have done that is that they’ve gone to trade before they’ve come to me. So, they’ve gone to another Trader, and that Trader said, “Look, your house has been on 100, 95, now it’s 90, so I’m going to offer you 25% below 90,” and they think, “Huh?” So, all you’re doing is working your figure off the price it’s currently on the market for. So, they take it off the market, change agents maybe, then put it on 120 and then go to another Trader, and that Trader might not do the correct due diligence, or they might be a bit naive, or they might be a sore loser, and they go, “Oh, it’s on at 120, well, offer you 25% less.” I don’t know what that is, but let’s say 100, 98 grand or whatever, and all of a sudden someone thinks they’ve got a deal because they’ve got 20 grand knocked, knocked off this property. So, that, that’s a red flag for me.
Um, another red flag is when somebody, uh, won’t give access to the property to anybody under any circumstances. Um, so I’ll buy without a survey; I will buy without viewing a property; I don’t have a problem with that. But there are certain properties in certain areas or certain price ranges or certain situations where I might say to the, to the seller, “Look, I don’t want to look at it; I have no interest in looking at it, but I want to employ a Viber,” and, and if you don’t know what a Viber is, Google it. I’m sure you guys know what a Viber is, but anybody that doesn’t know a Viber, just Google Viber. I want to get a Viber to go and inspect the property for me. I call them pre-completion inspections, and sometimes you just get a gut feeling that the photographs you’ve been sent by the seller aren’t necessarily showing its current condition. Um, you can look on Google Street View, and, and you, you’ll find some differences there, possibly. So, you get a view, but do a pre-completion inspection, uh, and the seller point blank refuses access, um, that is a major red flag. It is not normal for a seller to refuse access for somebody to look at a property; that’s a big red flag. Um, tenanted, uh, properties; I buy tenanted without any access, um, and, and, and I get great pleasure in getting vacant possession on those properties. It takes time; it takes skill; it takes money. I put a post on Instagram, uh, last week that got a hundred and something likes in, in, in a few days, was a property that I bought with a problem tenant, um, uh, and, and I posted the, the bailiff’s warrant, uh, and, and the, we got vacant possession on the property. That will be a good story for The Retreat talk: risk and asset management, risk versus reward; massive risk but massive upside, massive reward if I could get this property tenanted. Um, talk about that more another time. Um, but going, going back to the question, red, red flags: seller not giving access at all, uh, and tenanted properties where the landlord is overly keen on promoting how nice the tenant is; they’ve got a great relationship with the tenant; they’ve never missed the rent; they don’t really want to sell it, um, and I must buy it, and I must promise to keep the tenant in; that is a big red flag, um, because that tenant usually ends up being either their ex-wife or ex-husband or son or daughter or something like that, and the relationship is soured, uh, and the, the owner now wants to get rid of the problem, the problem property that they’ve got. So, tenant stuff, typically red flags, uh, seller that doesn’t give access, big red flag, um, and there’s certain areas of the world, although it’s very difficult now to, to, to narrow these down and pinpoint them, uh, where, um, you get what they call phantom tenancies. So, you’ve got someone who’s got a property in very poor condition, typically, uh, and they create, uh, a tenancy agreement, um, and pretend that it’s tenanted. Uh, you’ve got to watch out for those, as a Trader; there’s a lot of people, uh, will use dirty tricks. Um, so phantom tenancies is another one. An easiest way of working out whether someone actually does live there or not: speak to neighbors; go knock on the door; neighbors. You don’t need to even get in the house; speak to neighbors. “Hi, my name’s Oliver, looking at buying next door, um, what’s the tenant like? What, what’s the tenant like?” “What tenant? It’s been empty 10 years since the floors collapsed after it was in a fire.” Yeah, right, thank you. Yeah, just neighbors. One of the red flags that we’re seeing at the moment, especially for volume Traders at the moment, is assuming the vendor is still alive where the vendor doesn’t want to meet you, right? Um, that’s a big red flag because there’s a lot of, um, prop, assuming identity, identities and things like that. So, um, that’s one to look out for.
But excellent. Look, before we wrap up, I think Dana’s asked a question. Dana, a lot of this is going to be on The Retreat. So, whilst Oliver has talked about how he structures his day and how we can review 130 properties quickly, the actual real mechanics of that is, is something that’s going to be discussed, uh, in a live and private environment, uh, on The Retreat. Um, talking of The Retreat, P, do we have anything we want to say, especially about The Retreat? We have a lot of things to say about The Retreat. Um, it’s, uh, coming up quickly. So, we’re still running this 5th to 11th of October, and, uh, we’ve got a couple of spaces left at this Retreat, and, uh, uh, it is structured in a way that’s going to deliver a full life cycle of a deal, from finding properties direct to vendors to structuring the deals, uh, in all different ways, monetizing those leads, then funding them and also flipping them. So, basically, we have several guests coming to talk about each of those parts, and, the way we’ve got the Retreat structured, this each morning is each guest speaker and us delivering content, but then after lunch, in the afternoon, it’s, we working; it’s a mastermind element where every participant will share what their roadblocks are in the current, in the given subject, and we work it out between all of us how this is going to, this is going to work for them and how they can unlock things and, and do more deals, basically. We run these Retreats before; they are phenomenal places where people actually do deals. We don’t run it just so that we do nice things in a nice sunny environment, although that’s a nice bonus, but we do it just, we do more deals, and everyone else around us does more deals. Um, and, um, having people like Oliver, safe, Scott Marshall, Gill Black, us, we all bring different things to the table, and that Retreat is a place where basically, uh, you will end up doing more deals; that’s a promise, guarantee. So, I’ve, I’ve been telling people this is probably an unrepeatable event. I don’t know; I mean, I’m friendly with a lot of people; we know a lot of Traders; we, we know how to structure these things. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to kidnap Oliver out of the country, bearing in mind he’s buying X point something properties a day or whatever it is, right? If I can kidnap him for three or four days again, I don’t know if that’s possible; getting safe out is no easy task. Um, Scott Marshall has given us three different dates and times that he’s able to come, and, and maybe he’ll stay longer, maybe he won’t. We’ve got a couple of other people; Gill, he’s only going to be with us for about 48 hours. These are not easy people to get to come and do a dedicated couple of days’ sessions to really kind of deliver this value. So, um, there’s that. The other thing is, P, I highlighted the link below, um, retreat.hamedauction.co.uk. If you click through to that, basically what you’ll do is you’ll be booking a call with me to have a chat about what the Retreat includes, the outcomes that you can expect and all that kind of stuff, and can kind of answer some of your questions that we may have missed here this evening. So, um, if this is something that you want to do, you know, as long as you’re not getting married during that week or going to a funeral during that week, everything else is movable to make sure that you do not miss out on this opportunity. The last one we did was three years ago, and we’re only doing this one because we got bullied by four people who were the first four people to register for the Retreat. We’re only doing this because we’re pushed, but while we’re being pushed, we may as well do it really well, and that’s what we do; we apply ourselves in every way we can. This is going to be absolutely amazing. So, there is no putting off for tomorrow what can be done today. You’ve heard what Oliver’s daily schedule looks like; everything collapses if he doesn’t get it done today; deals get missed, which is a cardinal sin. Yeah. So, click on the link, check it out. If you have any questions, fill out the form, have a chat with me in the next couple of days, and if it’s definitely not for you, it’s definitely not for you, but at least you’ve had a look, and you’ve tried to make it work, and it’s worth just having a chat with Jay. So, yeah, there’s that. Amazing, uh, Oliver, thanks so much for joining us today. You’re welcome. This hour and 15 minutes of your time this evening is very valuable; probably cost you like 70,000 pounds. I do it for the love. Yes, amazing. Well, and yeah, we’re looking forward to the Retreat. I, I think, uh, we’re going to learn as much as everyone else that is going to be a participant on that Retreat, and between all of us, um, I think there will be some really great deals happening. So, looking forward to it. Thanks so much, and enjoy your hot tub. See you soon, guys. Cheers, everyone. Thank you.