Paul Million, yes his real name, has been in the property business for almost 3 decades. He started investing whilst in the Royal Navy and grafted his way to becoming full time in property. As he puts it, with ‘head down and arse up’.
He has a fascinating story of how he persuaded a bank manager to grant him a financing facility and other creative ways to grow his business along the way. He also managed through a couple of recessions and property cycles too, so that’s something we can all learn from.
These days, he has his head firmly up as he now surveys the scene and tries to resist going on the tools; just about. Instead, he is now networking, partnering and as a result, he is now involved in larger opportunities, including conversions, developments and co-living spaces.
Well worth listening in to one of our industry characters...and success stories too!
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Transcription of the show
Paul Million, yes his real name, has been in the property business for almost 3 decades. He started investing whilst in the Royal Navy and grafted his way to becoming full time in property. As he puts it, with ‘head down and areas up’.
He has a fascinating story of how he persuaded a bank manager to grant him a financing facility and other creative ways to grow his business along the way. He also managed through a couple of recessions and property cycles too, so that’s something we can all learn from.
These days, he has his head firmly up as he now surveys the scene and tries to resist going on the tools; just about. Instead, he is now networking, partnering and as a result, he is now involved in larger opportunities, including conversions, developments and co-living spaces.
Well worth listening in to one of our industry characters...and success stories too!
Property Chatter
- Is it more Bashar lands than HMOs? Hi, Paul, how you doing?
- How you doing Richard? You Well?
- Yeah, now very well. Thank you. I'm looking forward to this conversation.
- Hopefully I'm in top form, Feel it.
- Excellent. Well, we've already had a conversation before the conversation and the conversation a few days ago in anticipation of this conversation. So I think I think there's some great content that you've got and some fantastic stories, I think it's going to be great to share with our audience. So thanks very much for joining me.
- You are welcome.
- Thank you. Now, elephant in the room, Paul your name is Paul million. So it's almost like, you know, is it a like a stage name or something? Is that Is that for real? Come on, tell me.
- I did a presentation on mindset for a women's group and they're all looking across at me like looking at my name badge and, looking and talk and a bit giggling, one of them came across me and said, your name's not actually Million, because you don't actually Paul Million on Facebook and I was like, I was last time login. And she was like you've changed your name. And I was like, What? Do I strike you as that kind of a ven fellow, and what it was there was to two Scottish vagabonds did some terrible stuff north of the border there and fled Scotland and thought, Well, what should we do? How do we disguise it? How do we do? How do we disguise ourselves? Well, we'll call ourselves Million, and it's a pretty unheard of name, but there's actually quite a few of them around. Not so much Darlington, where I'm from, but a Bishop Auckland and West Auckland is there's quite a few of us there, tucked away here in our hidey hole.
- Yes.
- So it is actually on my birth certificate, Unreal. I was getting my driving license out, credit card yet, they won't know of it. The person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still. No, no.
- Good.
- Who would you know that's called after a number. It's crazy, isn't it?
- But it's very interesting that, we're obviously talking about going full time in property. And probably the inferred implication is about wealth creation. And your name is Million, so it's almost almost destiny.
- I've been asked, why haven't you capitalized more on that? And I don't know, maybe I'm a bit sort of conscious of it in a way I think it It boosts me along, but it also Yeah, I'm a little bit conscious of not being there, to win you face with that.
- Yeah.
- for a bit of a cheesy company name to be like a Million Property or Million Property training, I if I ever went down that route? No, probably not.
- Yeah--
- I think of something way more. I've actually just set up a company called Property Addiction and a toilet roll out that one, I've got a really good logo for that as well, but it involves a syringe.
- I can imagine having fun with that name. Anyway, but I just want to get that out of the way. So you are real and genuine, authentic Paul Million, Thanks for joining. And what we're doing on this series, if you like is walking through the journey of people who've gone full time in property, who've made it and are our full time in property initially will come on later on, there's a couple of people we're going to bring on are even a little bit down the track or just the beginning of the track. But obviously, in your case very much. I wouldn't say you've crossed the finish line, because you're probably doing the lap of honor several times over. But what be useful is if you could take us back, what I normally say is can you just take us back to before property, just describe a little bit of what your life looked like, what you were doing, and then maybe what was that spark or that trigger? That kind of this side, just lit something inside of you to get involved in property? Would that be okay to start with?
- Yeah, I mean, going back a while before property, I had the honor of going to a school called Barnard Castle School and I'm don't want people to think he's been privately educated, that's why he's done so well because is that a step up the ladder isn't it wasn't like that it was because I think in junior school I probably acted as I'd like to say this because I will admit I wasn't reaching my full potential should be said, my two sisters were bright they went to a comprehensive school when it came when my dad came across me going to secondary school he actually been left a bit of not a lot of money probably enough to buy a little Basher Lands at the time by his dad and he decided to spend that very unselfishly on my education and I still didn't do really a right luck with that. And but I was always conscious inside me that I wanted to get on, that even though I wasn't I was probably below average as a student, probably a bit well below average as a student. I used to mix with a lot of sort of farming types and traveling types and all sorts of types, people from Bishop and West Oakland and what have you, and I used to think Well, hold on, you're just a normal lad. And if you're my mother driving school driving a Bentley or a big Merc or a Porsche or whatever, then you know that you don't have to be super duper clever to be, you know, super duper rich. And as we go through our lives, we read these books about people that have come from nothing from council estates from this from that the other and doing well. And I always had this sort of burning desire inside me to to do well and just as I was leaving school, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I went to college. And then I ended up joining the Navy but at the time I read a book called I used to like dealing in stuffs I was always dealing in car dealing in pens and ink and cartridges and stuff like that at school sweet, you know the old story and one says earlier used to deal with loads of sweets in some school. Yeah, I used to do all that sort of stuff. But I was the kind of kid that would be off down to the river fishing on spots instead of actually doing what I was told. I was a little bit beyond the conventional. And now, as I left school to join the Navy, I came across a book called "Four wheels to a Fortune" which is about buying and selling cars from auction. That led on to a book called "The Midas Method." Now I talk a lot about this book now In fact, you used to be able to get it for three quid on eBay. Now you've got to pay like over 20 quid there's a bit of scarcity going on there. And this book called "The Midas Method" was about writing our goal, believing in yourself and believing that you could do it as well as believing that you're worth it. Write down your goals now, visualizing and you know what, that absolutely changed my life so I joined her majesty's Royal Navy, having not been that in love with school, loved school, but wasn't in love with the academic side of it. And then signed up for three and a half years at Royal Naval Marine Engineering School. What did I do that for? Because I got quick promotion. I know what do you do frying pan fire? There you go. And throughout the Navy, again, not the sharpest tool in the bag, but a hard worker. And I think that's what it's about, about the graphs. And you know, these goal setting I was visualizing every day and I was willing to best apprentice on SSI training award, hatching assault and sleeping artificer award, best varying dressing kit. I was just I was honest, that was it. I've found my niche if you like. And I was promised myself when I joined the Navy, I was never going to fail one more exam ever. That was it. That was me. I was going to put the graph in, certainly not the most academic book. There was. But I always felt like I wanted to be in business. And by about the age of 22, because I was a marine engineering technician, I got quite quick promotion. So, every time I got promoted, well my first house. My mom was an estate agent. Now that sounds brilliant. Like she could get me all sorts of deals. But that's not the way it was. She was a bit by the book. In fact, by the time I got to my fourth property, she was like begging me not to buy any more property. What's the point? You get into all this debt, you're saddling yourself with debt, you're going to end up in the whatever. Anyway, so by the age of about 22, is a lady in Hungary, she is like corporal level in the army equivalent, I bought her house. And I was going home on a weekend from London base. My parents were helping me out not a particularly great job of the refurbish.... But we got it finished and got it done and dusted. And I got promoted again. Went to sea, they helped me with my my second property as well. And then by the time I got to about four properties, actually, I got to the rank of petty officer which is the equivalent of sergeant in the army. And then I decided that I was going to leave the Navy because the broad outfits and redundancies and then we're going to pay me 1700 whole thousand pound. Now, I'd set up my stories being the best kind of marine engineering technician I could probably be, but I had this thing inside me that just wanted to do something different. And I just knew that I didn't want to do 22 years of that even if I wasn't building property on the side but having those four properties at the time and having the security of 17,000 quid to leave. This is going back to 1996 back 1992--
- 1996--
- Say that again.
- 1996.
- Yeah 1996 and 17 grand back then was probably equivalent to about 35-40 grand or so it was enough to buy another the Basher Land and that's what I did. I bought a house for 17,000 quid, as I left to do resettlement courses up in Catterick, plumbing, joinery, decorating every course you can imagine, with already been a marine engineering technician. I was fairly handy dude anyway, and I was all about getting home on a weekend. few hours for the girlfriend, few hours for the mates. My nickname is a kid Well, that age 19-20, rat boy, because while everyone was out getting tiddle down the pub, I was scratching away in some basement or scraping some wallpaper off somewhere. I'm mixing up some backing off plaster ready for the plaster the next day, so I used to drive 400 miles home from Plymouth and spend a weekend doing house program for whatever I getting in amongst it. I've just got this kind of addiction to Probably in cracking on and so that was I left the Navy, went to work for my dad giving embroidered spots and leisure ware and was always doing the property on site so I'm building my house at. By the time I got to about five or six properties I was literally borrowing properties off people to take the fruits off them to put them all back up again to agreater a price and I was literally getting right into some of the structural stuff if you like. At first property I was stripping wallpaper and bits and about second property doing a bit of decorating, third property doing a bit of joinery. I used to watch this fellow called Norm Abraham you can still get him on YouTube but he used to be on my cobra ledger channel and I used to watch that guy all the time. It used to be a fantastic joinery carpenter. He could make anything out of wood, he was absolutely great. And I learned a lot just from that. That was our, that day equivalent of having YouTube. It was kind of sitting in front of the telly all the night and putting on minglo among men and watching people mix boards on spindle builders. I was just interested in that kind of thing. I bought a cottage as well which took me three years of weekends and nights doing it up. And that I just learned all about reclaiming timber and just so I underpinned the back of it myself and took a massive koi pond and built the out houses of the cardboard's that I grew at I build another cartdoard at the riverbank as well. And I just I was just like a resourceful type of person. And I just loved to challenge, I went to these college and did a year bricklaying one day, we can do release, and then thought, yeah, that extension is pulling away from the back of that house. I'll buy that place for 38 grand and spend seven grand on it in three or four months me on time actually moved into that property. And then, yes, spent seven grand and it sold it for 98. So what's that, like it's a 45 grand profit for the sake of cobbling an extension back to the back of the house, making sure it wasn't going to move any further down, that proven out, reasonably out and sort of build a little bit of a mastermind of decent tradesmen around me, so I was on my way then really and as I kind of worked for my dad I built my dad's company up from being, quite small to having 16 people working for us and I was running around the country and lots of business and private sports and leisure were athletic unions all around the place, but nights and weekends, that was probably time. Yeah. I went around all the banks asking for, I wanted to buy 50 houses, I used to sit next to the Darlington landlords, the old stuffy bunch, me young whippersnappers, sort of four or five properties and then with sort of 60-70 properties, and all the guys and I used to find it quite difficult to get information out of them like I was some kind of, young upstart trying to make nip the business. I mean, there's enough property out there for everyone. And that's why our room displays now we're down to the device, the property things because I like to impart that knowledge to people that deserve it, people have got that about, I like to impart that knowledge. Part of the reason is because I used to find it difficult to find the right information. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places, but the landlord's association was certainly the place where I kind of got my right, I want to get 60 houses together that that was my goal. So I started going around the banks after having had these properties 5-6-7 properties for quite some years, the little cottage that ended up paying 55 for it turned into I think it got valued at three years later about 200,000 and was able to pull money out that basically I'll borrow money off, I've done a post on Facebook called remortgaging your granny, I borrow money off anyone, I'd borrow a house off anyone to, do it pay them later, buy now pay later. I think they call that normally download this though. And, yeah, so I've just basically cracked on. And I built. So I went around all banks asking for enough money to, saying "I want to buy 50 houses. Can you help me do that, please." And-- I got a lot of knock backs, as you can imagine, but "Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel." And I kept on keeping on. And I came across the HSBC. And I actually think this manager at the time is a bit like, right. Okay, we'll test this young guy. So I'd rocked up with about five or six houses, probably 150 grands worth of equity in them, going back then that was probably quite a bit of brass. I think we'd met Richard couple of time, I didn't even think to think one interest rate was so, it was like if the mortgage was 200 quid, and you were getting 350 pound rent, then that was all right, didn't think about interest rates going up or down? I mean, there was my Iris at the time mortgage interest relief source. I mean, that's how old I am. 20 odd years ago, my lease mortgages whereby the mortgages are so high, you actually got an interest rate when It was actually your own mortgage. And who'd known to me, of course, my financial advisor ended up getting me about three or four of those at one point, which I shouldn't really have had. But there you go, you move on. I ended up going to the HSBC, this manager from the HSBC actually sort of, in a way took me under his wing. But when I told him about my ambitions and these other landlords in the association, I'd like 60-70 properties. And there's only one way to buy to get 60 or 70 properties, and that's the bargain. And However, by hook or by crook, I just made it my business that that was my goal. And the HSBC guy said, "Okay, yeah, but if you mess this up, Paul. I'm going to take your houses off here, and sell them to those guys set, the 60 or 70 houses in the landlord's Association," and I thought, right I mean, that gave me massive fire in my belly, to be honest, but the thing is, I've got... I talk about left brain and right brain people. I've been in this morning with my solicitor he's a lovely guy. He's a young fella. He's ambitious. And one of you, please, if you wouldn't mind me telling these he's got a bit of money saved up, enough to go out and buy Basher Land, so I'm not rival. Well, why aren't you doing it then? What's the cracking? It's like, Well, I'm just wet. I've got such a lot of work on at the moment. I was like, right, Okay, what about Sundays? What about Saturdays? And he knows what I'm saying is right, I'm saying there's 24 hours in a day, you sleep for eight, you might work for 10, what you're doing with the rest of the six hours, there is more time in the day than we think. And I just anyway, so going back to my HSBC story, the guy signed me off half a million pounds, which was very, nice of him. And I spent that in about three or four months and went back for another 250. And I built up a portfolio of about 21 houses over the next three, four years, and they were charging me about 3% over base, and I went back to the bank and that guy actually left him replaced by Mr. stuffy dude I didn't get on with massively to be fair I don't think he bought into my dream in my journey. And I said right okay, look at all these basher. This is one basher mortgages are starting to filter in you see probably about 2001-2-3. And I was saying to the bank look, you charge me two and a half 3% of the base, like I'd like to be borrowing money, 1% of the base, like all these other mortgages, and he said to me, "to get that kind of interest rate. You'd have to be borrowing about 3 million pounds." All right, okay. No problem. Yeah, put that in my bank. On and, of course, he laughed, and didn't seem to get much sense out of him. So I actually remortgaged about 20 yeah, 21 houses away from the HSBC at the time and pulled a lot of money out. I've never been scared of borrowing money. Like my traveling friend says to me, he said I was getting kids into better debt. He said, better a good debt never debt anyone anyhow. And I agree with that and at the time, we did get covered in appreciation, of course now this comes with a massive word of caution. We'll get into this in a bit, but I remortgage those 21 houses and I basically bought about another 10 or 12 houses a year for the next three years really. Now, if anyone came to me with that, I would give them a slap and say Stop being silly, unless you have a seriously big investor behind you that could afford to buy you know, I was basically poor in everything, my nose to the grindstone, my pedal to the metal, my foot to the floor, and I was going through it and as you can imagine, this was all at the same time as having a full time job. So as well as working the nights and the weekends. I was just, I was having to take, time throughout the day to speak to, can you imagine the amount of servers I had going on the amount of service it was, so I rode the bike to let wave if you like when, companies were chucking money at you, but 85% loan to value and decent ish rates of interest. And I mean, some big companies are offering like hundred percent mortgages, it was crazy, secondary mortgages, all that kind of stuff and it was just like, I used to have a friend of mine, Sean who he was buying houses kind of on a similar level to me. And we used to ring each other up, five, sometimes 10, 2000 was it three, four and five when we had that real good old property boom, hearing each other upset. Property prices gone up by one and a half percent in a month 2% in a month I made 80 grand. Like what are you going to have, gone up 1% I made 50 grand. and of course when the prices kept having to get up to 2000 will be like chatting to each other. That was you brought me brought to you Yeah, yeah, we didn't talk about the--
- The paper, last summer.
- So the thing is, as Winston Churchill said, "If you're going through hell keep going." Now I was kind of going to hell with the amount of properties that had sat around ready to do what. And I was a lot of these houses I was buying, you wouldn't know chicken, that's when I've made my uplift if you like and that's where when 2008 came around and mortgage Express wanted to speak to me about that only about 12 and they said, Well, what, you know, we're gonna need you to sort of remortgage your properties away from us and you can have to find another lender and very soon how's that, look, when the tide goes out, you can see it was not wearing any trunks. I said, My trunks might be a bit Pink and Fred, but at least I've got them on. you'll not be forcing me away or replacing my dad.
- which to be honest with you, Paul, but that's okay. [Laughs]
- Picture this. I then went full time in property when I had 35 basher lands. Okay, now that's a lot. I thought when I got 12 properties, I'd be able to go full time in property originally. And I thought maybe 15. All right, it's looking like 18. All right, it'll be 21. All right, it will be and I just kept going like that. Now, the reason that it took me so long to be able to make the jump is, a I had flexible employment, whereby I was putting the hours in at work as well. I worked with my dad and had some good stuff that needed managing. And I was refurbing and because I was spending so much money on this property, and I might have had three or four lads working for me at any one time like on these houses, turning them around, but I'm also a massive perfectionist and I don't skimp on materials or anything like that. I once had an inspection off the council because they wanted me to get accredited and I thought I don't need to be accredited. Thank you very much. And people walk into my house generally go, it's nice. I'll take it. Thank you very much. Why do I need to be accredited? And the council said, well, we'll give you 10% off your 20% I think it was off your HMO license phase. All right, we'll do that. So what they do is they take 10% of your full portfolio and inspect them. And when the guy from the Council have finished the inspection, he actually didn't actually pick six of my best properties. It was a fair, it was a decent little spread. And the guy rang me from the council, especially to say sir, can I kind of just commend you as a landlord on the extended properties that you rent out? Absolutely great, all fantastic level properties. I was thank you very much. It wasn't the best one by any stretch of the imagination. Thank you. I appreciate that. So became accredited and stuff that off a couple of years later, but yes so that was my part to let journey. And then when I went full time--
- Pause for a breath, pause for a moment. So, 35 properties, When was that? Or how long into, starting out? Was it? Can you give us some sort of time reference.
- That would be by about 2005.
- Then you're about approximately what 10 years, eight, nine, 10 years in.
- Would have been? Yeah, that would have been about all right.
- No, sorry, a bit longer than that. By 2008, I started to build some industrial units when the world collapsed financially. And I think I'd been in 18 Yeah, I think I started in about 91-92.
- Yeah, cuz I forgot you started whilst you're in the Navy.
- That's right. Yes.
- 96 wasn't it when you said that you had 17,000 from the Navy.
- Having acquired five properties.
- Okay?
- And those properties by the way, gave me that choice even though I only had sort of four, about four properties, I think my fifth properties were the one that I bought with my redundancy money. And those properties now, I was probably only net maybe 18 grand a year as a petty officer, which is equivalent, maybe 30 grand a year now, something like that. Now, that's not really enough to think, right, I'm going to leave even if you get paid for six months after, but having those extra little properties there is a bit of a backup and having a you know, my family will behind me as well. I wasn't going to stop, I went to live back at home with my mom and dad, even though I had these houses I wasn't going to kick a tenant out to go live there. I'd rather live in a tent in the park than, loop, lose rent? No. I actually let this little office 200 pounds a month. It's the only thing I do rent and it brings me out in a rush being that, prefer to collect it rather than pay it but there you go. It just gives me that flexibility. So someday I'll develop something that actually when I built my Industrial units I'll built myself a little unit there, hold on 600 pound a month I could get for that just rented out. And Gary do all
- The other follow up, I just wanted to ask is, why did you keep resetting the bar of the number of properties that you would need to go, full time you said you went, It was 12 originally and then you just kept lifting the bar and eventually, at 35 you said, Okay, that's enough. Now What made you keep changing and lifting the bar?
- Well, that's a great question. And it was all about money, to be fair. It was about having enough money to survive and do what I was doing because my tendency was so intense. And I needed such a lot of money for refurbs, so every property that I was doing up I was basically needing about 10 grand if I was on the tills myself maybe 10 grand to turn the refurb round and when you come off the chills, are you focusing on the builders and what have you to do that rerfurbs for you might be talking 12,000 quid to do a refurbs I just had such a lot going on if I'd have done it inch by inch line since instead of your line is up, I would have probably been able to leave sooner or at least yet well make the step sooner. It just seemed a natural thing and there was a there was a time I bought this actual piece of industrial land for 80,000 quit and I went to the yes I've got planning permission on it and it got valued at 220 this was about 2006-2007 after the big flurry of activity with buying sort of 10-12 houses a year for three years and I thought was quite easy. I though, do you know, that's quite easy I bought a piece of land for 80 Grand I actually borrowed the money off the fella that sold me the land to buy off him. And I call it personal loan so that's a proper known money deal down there. Then got the capital uplift of the planning game, then went to the bank and borrowed half a million pound to build some industrial units, so everything at this point was going swimmingly I had a buy to let portfolio of about 40 properties by then. So 2006-7-8 I bought four, 2005-6-7 I bought another four or five properties, something like that, I was just dealing with the tail end of buying all of those properties to refurb and yeah then decided to start doing some industrial units now a wiser man might have just sold that land pocketed the brass but you know you get this ambitious thing you think I want to build my I bought a piece of land with a nice bump. Well, I bought a nice bungalow in a decent piece of land as well to knock it down and build myself a house which never actually got done. I was going to build my industrial units and then build that bigger house for me to live it because the little cottage that I was now living in, started as a bachelor, all of a sudden I've got five kids in it because met mum's Suzi I've got two kids already to a previous marriage and then we had another three kids and we have pulling jars out there was a kid in it, we outgrew this little cottage. And so I bought this piece of land in Lancaster, kind of split bungalows and knocked down and built myself a house, after I'd finished my industrial units and that was my property life complete then also I thought, and so 2008 felts great. Yeah, so I'm only building industrial boxes, what could possibly go wrong. And because I already own three my business expanding, and I three older industrial units on this piece of land and I bought the land around them to build new units on. And that's when you start feeling like a property developer, barsher land that says one thing that makes I was putting extensions on the back of houses and repurpose stuff trash. I mean, we would trash the file right back to the brick, take the full sides from some buildings down, we're not on it. But when you actually start building something from scratch on a bad piece of land, when I saw those part of rooms going up to those industrial units, that's when I felt like a proper property developer. Just as I was feeling like a proper property developer and the whole world collapsed.
- 2008, yeah. What time did you get back to be a property developer so that--
- That turns flipping Northern Rock all those buyers now had agreed to construction finance from the bank and but what happened agreed with the bank and agreed it but not signed for it the bank hadn't signed which certainly was the turning up finance the term loan. So, but the bank were actually quite kind to me. I have an expression about bankers and it's about being something that rhymes with bankers but this particular bank all right, and that we got out we turned out all right, I guess they had no choice really because they were stuck with me. And through a very good agent in Darlington, I end up getting these units rented as I finished them. And we've got some quite good blue chip people in there. we got some Rollins Pharmacy in there and we had this it was like a the time a bird flu injection type, what do you call it? Whatever company that antidotes or whatever it is that they injecting you to make immunity type stuff. Anyway, they're stalled, us. Yeahs, we had some good. And then we had some good local companies that were really good covenants and I was able to, get out of that little mess. My business partner actually, as of now, Adam, who and I own quarter of my portfolio with, he approached me at the time said, I've got some master spend, is it a good time to start buying properties? How's that? Going on in. And so we ended up, we looked at some other industrial sites, but that was a no go. And so we just stuck with the residential and we put another little portfolio together between ourselves and about 22 properties. I was doing most of the work. And on site in and that was it really, so and we ended up getting some support tendencies together. But since 2008-2009, I mean, what I loved about that is of course, interest rates can absolutely trembling down, and not really since the last recession. And that's why I wasn't so scared when COVID came up. Cautious but not scared. I was able to build a more varied and sort of wider reaching and more spread portfolio since 2008. 2005-2007 I bought two big houses, six bed houses to rent to a charity. As they had the licenses, which I hate most, and I fed up with that Charity, because I'm doing a nice job of these houses. And of course, the people that were put in there weren't as nice as the people that said that we're going to put in there and ended up kicking lumps out the places now I've got a problem with that. that would replace a beautiful spindle on the staircase with something from haudis for a pound and 50 and I'd be like that that's actually not acceptable. And anyway, so I ended up getting these two houses back, right. Great. And I rented one of them, flourish to different sectors of this huge family. And the other one was just empty for a while I was trying to get care providers involved, I was trying to think about other ways of doing it. And the charity actually came back to me and said, we're losing our contract now. So would you like to take out 40 people that we've got to effectively make homeless or reprovision to other providers? Would you take the six of the best? I think I'm gonna have to, I was getting 35 pound per room per week off the care provider when they have the properties. But if I run these people myself, I'd be able to get their housing benefit plus maybe 15-20 pound a week top ups, I was actually maybe getting 75 pounds a week per one, but I covered the bills. And I wrote them with an iron fist in a velvet glove, didn't let them, there was none of this mollycoddling care company that couldn't, come around the house at three o'clock in the morning and drag you out and say, Sorry, you're homeless for damaging. So personally, I laid it out to them and said right, this is my house now you damage it is going to be a problem. And I basically just rolled them like that. And they were fine. And that's how I ended up getting into HMOs. So a few years later after, so what would be now? Yeah, so about five years ago I went back into my portfolio and started pulling stuff out to do HMOs with and just did one after the other side of it and these two big ones when the kind of the big family moved out the other HMO then so that follows professional working people and I thought I really prefer these professional working people because there's no bother. I haven't really thought about HMOs for professional working people. It wasn't a thing not in Darlington anyway. And it really worked out well for me, I thought this is really quite alright. I'm not totally divided problems and more hustle in the buy to let portfolio but I thought well, this is great. So I just did them when I came to my portfolio as housing we're coming up to a national natural sort of tenant wastage, people moving out. I'm I've repurposed them as we also. So a lot of the houses are already really nice just went in there, handwired smoke alarms, fire doors, maybe a bit of checkout, bit of fire on ball here and there. Maybe some, durable flooring. And yes, I ended up with kind of 19 I think 20 HMOs now. three or four between Adam and myself and about 16 of my own. So that's good for cash flow. And yeah, I like it. And I've got three S's as well. I don't really do a lot of flats or anything like that. I wish I'd done more actually over my time. But the ones that I do have, have the opposite I said. So, that's that.
- Great. And then--
- Yeah, so size wise, it's so 20 HMOs but the other--
- Yes. So. Think I'm 40 basher land of my own, 16 HMOs of my own then I've got three HMOs Adam. And we've got some other stuff, the industry and it's I've got about my own, I've got about 75 properties and my business partner Adam has half off 22 properties.
- Yeah, quite varied. So I've got 135 tenancies in total that I look after, between myself and Adam. So that's quite a lot of stuff going on.
- 135 tenancies.
- Yeah.
- How are you managing lives?
- Well, I've got my new colleague Louis Blakelock, who actually met at the property thing. He's, like my business manager now if you like, and I've got an office manager. I'm actually looking for an account person at the moment and accounts person who's incredibly talented on social media and organization basically being a PA to me and various other stuff. So man or woman presenting ourselves to me, I'm asking the universe for that person because I have been to I've been to more, I've had more, kind of not very good people from recruitment agencies. Well just think out, I think there's one thing that's going to find this person, it's going to be, my brain sending out messages to the universe. I need that person.
- You should talk about lovesion the yellow stuff. That's quite recent thing. Is it? So--
- Yeah, yeah. Basically, me.
- Were you self managing? Therefore?
- Yes. All the time. Yeah. "I have just been like a guy playing a one man band riding a skateboard. Herding cats and just doing the whole thing myself. Night and day. 100% Yeah.
- I now know that you're looking at different things going forward as well aren't you, you're looking at different types of project.
- Yeah.
- Going forward. So just a quick glimpse into that what your current and future pipeline might look like. Is it more barshar let and HMOs?
- No, I'm HMO and cool living. So at the moment, I always like to have six or seven empty set there, it wouldn't feel right without, some empty property set about so I've got at the moment to do that. I've got going into planning commission, a 12 bed HMO, I'm looking over at my wall, my project sheets up on the wall here. I've got four micro service departments I've identified there's a blurring, or a need, I think between HMO and SA. Alright, we'll get into that in a minute. I've got four micro service departments to do. I've got an eight bed HMO, I've gotten a student HMO, which I'm probably going to repurpose now as professional HMO that is in Hartlepool. I only have do stuff in Darlington really, Hartlepool we got a spire care provided by big HMO for them and they rented it office for a really good price for six years and that six years sharp came around and went so now I've got to repurpose that. And what else have I got 12 bed HMO to do which is kind of co-living. I've got a big building to buy down trans station which now the council are going to compile a purchase order which is a pain because I wanted to do 21 bed flats in there are some service departments and flats with a little bit of quality as well. And and I've got Yeah, a couple in the offing at the moment that are nice sort of 20 bed. Co-living developments are a mix of micro essay and co-living. So I'm definitely moving away from the barshire that stuff up. I've tied Lewis to me by buying a barshire land out with him and we're doing it, a JV and then the next thing we do will be a small commercial conversion. probably get some flats into that just a bit. I believe in small units of accommodation I mean, stemming from being a bloke that's got lockups all around the town property all around the town a million things going on. Like some of the best times in my life have been, outer tranquility when I'd be bought a motor home. I used to take it up to the mountains. It had my snowboard in a big garbage on the back snowboards in there, generator fuel, extra water. The thing full of all the right food all the right provisions, all the right clothing and needs to just go up like a hermit and live in the mountains next to a ski resort so I could get on the ski lift. And just live that for two weeks just reading, catching up on box sets, killing myself I could run my businesses from up in the mountains and I think that's three years running. I've got about eight or nine weeks per season snowboarding. Just leave it somewhere like Geneva, I fly back and forward Easy Jet, GPS chips and just pay my ski pass and that would be me in the mountains for a couple of weeks and the the feeling I used to have up there was just complete. Everything I needed was in that small space to do all my best ideas, all my best cooking. My son used to come with me, my brother in law every now and again. But a lot of time I'd just be by myself and it was amazing. And I really loved that kind of micro living if you like everything you need, like no wastage of this. There's a program on Netflix called minimalist minimalism. Have you seen that it's brilliant, the nice guys just live off--
- Well,
- A few items of clothing you don't need all the stuff we've got in our lives. sometimes when these HMOs again finished and the rooms of beautiful light, lovely handmade desktop scaffold buttons. My mom would baulk. Yeah, and they've got this like, mode of living and I really like that and I really want to take that into co-living as it were, and with also a little bit of co-working.
- So that's the future. The reason I was smiling a little bit is one of my eldest daughters. Her vision is to basically convert a van. And then she calls it van life. So she wants to convert a van and then and then travel in it and live in it. So yeah, I know exactly about that. And, in fact, I've got now--
- I've got someone else I'm going to be mentioning shortly who's doing exactly the same thing. So I think it's trending, micro-living, minimalist, lifestyle, it goes hand in hand with some other things like sustainability. For example, my oldest daughter is a vegan as it happens, so there's sort of the millennials are starting to think in this way. So I can see why you're heading in that direction. There's an appeal for it.
- Paul in the interest of time, I just think what I want to do is to get a few life lessons out of it, because we've got your story. And I'm sure the story is continuing, It by the sounds of it. But I guess just as you look back, where the key things that, you've maybe messed up a bit or other key things that made the world a difference. I remember you talked about reading that book, The Midas Method is a massive catalyst for change, but we just pause for a minute and think about those key moments where they, you got a fork in the road, and you just decided to go this way or that way and it didn't work well, what didn't work so well that kind of thing.
- DO You know, I live my life by the sixth question. People that know me will be cringing because I always say in "every adversity, lays a seed of great benefit" and that comes from Napoleon Hill's book "Think and Grow Rich." Now, I've got a book. I've got a shelf full of books, but I'm not that well-read because I've just literally tell myself I'm too busy. I've got a few books inside me, but I've consumed them and I own them inside me. And yes, one being "The Madness Method," the main one, but I always say never adversity you great of benefit, every time I've been kicked in the backside, every time I've ended up flat on my face, every time I've been, you know thinking, this is it when I did those industrial units and I thought I was as an 18 you know, I beat myself up then for being too ambitious. Like has 18 years of hard work been, put to the side because of my goddamn ambition. Did I have to build these industrial units? Why didn't I sell a piece of land and then the next thing interest rates come down to like less than 1%. Investors start coming out of the woodwork, with money to spend that they used to have at the bank at 6%. Now it's at 1%. So in every adversity loves to see the great benefit and forks in the road. I wish about 15 years ago, maybe earlier I'd gone out to invest in finance. I really feel as if two people can do more than the work of three times the work of one person if you like. Having that right mastermind that people around you, I mean, I've just been what we send our head down our sock for this last three decades, cracking on and just over the last year or so. Probably Yeah, about a year and a half now I've been sort of property networking. I wish I've networked, the property thing is an absolutely brilliant group of people. We're not, your average pain or whatever, where they've got courses to sell and stuff like that. You've been into the presentation to the meeting.
- Yeah.
- And in which was very well received, by the way, we really enjoyed that you welcome back at any time. In fact, we want you to come back as soon as, and everyone in chats there says what a fantastic meet up this is, absolutely brilliant. No one hasn't Grace's viewpoints. We do it on a Friday night. So we can have a Ruby Marie Curie afterwards. And we all just chat property and the group chat is just full of friends, property friends, it's just people getting on and helping each other out. And that's what I'm all about. And I wish I'm sort of stuck my head above the parapet now. Had a bit more of a look around rather than just getting completely ensconced in, in the actual journey. I mean, I was on the tools myself for 20 odd years of my 30-year property journey. And I love that. But I see that as being a downside, but then I've got up and say rents coming in. And I do spend an absolute fortune still on refurbs and will do for the next few years. My accountants like Paul, what are you doing? This is it's like self-flagellation, save some of your money, but I'd rather spend it on refurbs growing the portfolio than giving 50% of it to the taxman. I pay a good whack of tax every year, but when I look at what I would be paying if I wasn't spending money on refurbs, and what have you, and just not worth it to me. So I'm restructuring at the moment. I've got a really good tax advisor and of course, I've got most of my portfolio, a lot of my portfolio rather in my own and when I wish I'd had it in a limited company From the beginning of time, really, but of course, you borrow this money, the easiest way possible. And the easiest way was in my own name at the time. So, lots of my properties are on my name, I've got to effectively start buying those now start to lose these companies, and there's all these, property is, it's not easy. And what I would say to people, though, is, alluded to the fact before that, I've never been the sharpest tool in the Bible, what I have got is driving motivation. And I'm also I've got a really good bullshit filter. And I hear so many stories I help so many people out on a one to one basis know what you'll come out and touch me on my ear. Because if I can see potential in someone, I've looked to spend an hour of my time completely free, always ends up being three or four hours as you can imagine, and getting a blank piece of paper and pen. What is the problem? What's stopping you? There are so many super-intelligent people out there. That've developed all the courses, read all the books done, whatever and their shelf Books, The books are off the shelf on the shelf, the next book next book, next book. And it's like right, now is the time for action. And now's the time for accountability and self-accountability. Some very clever people out there know a hell of a lot about property and study this part of the journey but just jump in like a lemming off the cliff into the relative unknown you make it as known as possible by obviously reading up on the right stuff, but people are looking for the answer. People are looking for that, wall, what is it? How do I take the next step? The thing is, can be a bit of a contradiction, because, to be organized, you've got to start with the demand. And people say like, what's your why Where do you want to be? Don't start the journey unless you know what's at the end. But then on the other side of things, you have to like, people like me are saying, Well, take the steps and learn on your way. I've learned learn on the way I've learned on the journey and they say, life is a success is a journey, not a destination, isn't it? And some people are thinking, well, do I have to start with the exact end in mind? Or do I just start and then sort of figure it out as I go along? And I think that the answer to that is actually having your goals written down on a piece of paper that you sit and visualize. Every morning, just visualize yourself doing, I won't get into all the mindset crocodile, because I'll be for hours. Like, literally, it's a case of believing in yourself believing that, you know, you can do it, and setting the goals and set off in that direction. And even if you end up going, a bit left and right, and that's part of your learning. Every time you get tripped up, every time you end up in the wrong direction. You end up bringing yourself around and heading in that direction. And that's, what you do. And then you just collect property and it's about, the compound effect, 1234 bytes lesson, people start getting into HMOs. There's a natural progression, isn't it? I've had this morning with another guy, where he said, Well, I've just wanted to get one, two, three or four buys the land and then I might start thinking about the, maybe doing a couple of flats and then when people go on that curve doesn't there, but it's when you get out of the barshar land into the HMOs and stays and co-living and commercial conversions, that's when you really start to compound and really start to build your cash flow. But feel the fear and do it anyway. That would be my tip for most people. And where do I get the money from to do it? Ask the universe ask everyone. Ask your parents, ask your brother sisters, aunties, uncles, because to JV with these people now, anyone that you know who's got a little bit of money, it takes a long time to save money, to get a sense for slim fear for your deposit. I'm talking actually pre Convid times now or two years in the future. Obviously, we have to be very careful with Convid. And, I'm not trying to set the level, I'm just shooting from the head and go and buy something straight away. And obviously, that's been a blip on the red on that one, hasn't it?
- Just a bit. Yeah. But I mean, I think in every, What did you say? You have the right quotation, but basically every cloud has a silver lining, doesn't it? So--
- You put yourself out there.
- Yeah. Well, It's interesting some of the things that you've done. For example, there are some key moments, I've picked up, first of all, the conversation with the HSBC Bank manager. I mean, there's actually conversations before that. So you started investing when you were working in the Navy, so you bought your barshar land by doing stuff. But then when you thought about the landlord's meeting that you went to, and you set this goal, didn't you? I think, actually, I wasn't sure if it's 50, 60 or 70. Because every time you said it seemed to go up.
- Yes.
- So it was it seemed in that area.
- 60.
- 60
- I wanted 60 properties. That was my goal. Yeah.
- Now, the conversation the HSBC thing, and the fact that you got the half-million facility But what really impressed me is that you went and spoke to a bunch of other bank managers before HSBC, but you kept going.
- Yeah.
- So that a lot of people go well, I want 60 properties. I go and speak to my bank manager. My bank manager said, No, that's not possible. I give up. You didn't, did you?
- It is just the hurdle, the thing is if you've got goals, you know that you're going to get there. Nothing is going to stop. And if you know why I said that, my voice changes a bit when I start talking about that, because it actually wells me up inside. To think about people not taking the opportunity that they need to take and not taking no for an answer. Not taking no for an answer is one of the biggest qualities.
- Yeah.
- All right. Fair enough. We can't agree. We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm going to go around you. I'll go Boogie yeah on, and I'll go underneath Yeah, I'll go over the top here. But nothing's going to stop me getting to where I need to be. Now sometimes I've regretted that, and thought, I've done too much and when I've not spent as much time at home as your average Dad, I justify that by saying, Well, I'm doing it for my kids. But actually, the other side of that is, I won't be giving it to my kids, until such times as they could actually run it. Because it's like, if you're like lottery winners getting whatever, a million pounds in the bank, and a year later, it's gone. It's like, no, you've got to be able to run that. I mean, that's actually a good little segue, if you like, I'm currently with Paul Smith from the blue walk group who, and there are a few people that I have really helped over the last few last couple of years, they've really taken it not just what I've told them, but they've had that fire in the belly in them already. And I've just been able to, fix the rudder a little bit and put them in a different direction and then see them go ahead and Paul is one of these guys would remain, brilliant friends since he came to the second property thing, well So the first property thing that we did it was because basically pin mains and ppn mains starting going to tangibly pin mains and ppn mains shut down. And we're like when we get a network, I don't even networking for a few months, I was this kind of Jinx that I go to a networking event. So we decided to do our own one, and, brilliant people turned up and I was expecting like 5-10 people at the first one. And of course, a lot of people who's kind of like property thing. It's like, people want to know how you've got there, Its actually no golden elixir of information here. It's just about grafted, about mindset. But like 25 to 30 people turned up and I was like, What we going to say to this lot, so it was more, networking, saying what we did and just chatting on and I was so enthused by the amount of people that turned up they were like, 18-19 20-21 year old maybe 25 years old. Didn't know how they were going to get there but they were going to get there. They were the guys thought, brilliant, this is absolutely fantastic. And yeah, it's just that kind of thing to see people going on the way and being able to help them out and just know that that networking thing good. It's just a case of not stopping. I started to get my kids involved a little bit, trying to get them along to probably think so. Me and Paul Smith from the blue walk group, we do now a mastermind which is happening at one o'clock, which we now do every month with my kids, one of my kids as subjects 19 coming up. He's got a business partner, Max. I've got my daughter, Rosie, who wants to be an interior designer, she's 17. We've got Lewis who sits in and so between the four of them, we kind of closely mentoring them. And so right well, what can we do, and it's not about just getting kids to be multimillionaires, by the time they're 30 or whatever. It's about you know, my kids are my kids and they haven't set the world Like academically either, but I want to give them the spark. And the number of people after I posted on Facebook, who've said, Excuse me, I'd like to be on the mastermind. Thank you very much. No, It's an experiment. We don't want to dilute it down too much or anything like that. But I think there's such a lot to be said about, mentoring and just giving people the tools. I mean, I paid 12 grand a year to be mentored in commercial conversions. I wouldn't have it any other way. Then that following year, I'll be mentored by another commercial conversion. Dude, I can't imagine me not going now for the rest of my property career, being mentored by someone who has spent 20 years doing what I need to get into. It's like, so I'm going to take the fractionally distilled essence of your knowledge for 12,000 quid and put that into something where I might be spending 200 to 300 grand a year on refurbs. And it's like, how could that not be the biggest the best spot to catch the biggest macro in the whole wide world? Impressive
- And I can literally see your passion while throughout the conversation, but certainly in the last few minutes, but unfortunately, I've got to have an eye on the time, Paul. So I think probably, I know it's probably appropriate to talk about this because you and I, when we get going, we can get going to talking. but I think what we said before we came on air was maybe that you might like to write a few words in follow up with. But Is that still the case that you're thinking?
- 100%?
- Or did you get--
- I'm actually at my best when I'm writing because then I can go back over and do some editing.
- Yeah, exactly. Well, I think it'd be great. If you wouldn't mind doing maybe a follow-up blog post, which we can share.
- Anytime.
- That'd be fantastic. But I guess really, just to draw some conclusions and acquires some maybe Is there any last-minute thoughts or comments? quite quick ones, obviously. And then and then how do people get hold of you if they would like to be inspired? A bit more and learn about the property thing and just talk to you, etc.
- Well, I have my Facebook profile is just Paul Million. Okay, I'm on most of the sort of biggest groups out there, probably thing we have a Facebook page called The Properties Thing Group. And I'm going to be starting, my Mrs says, just say you're a good new. Yeah, am good new. because I'm going to start an Instagram profile. I've actually started at 4,000,099. And they'll be some good stuff going on there soon. I'm actually I'm rebranding at the moment and all these co-living developments while you're going to be fantastically interior design by some other fantastic people who are on Instagram. So there's gonna be a lot of great stuff to say on that. Yes, I guess that's me really in there. Yeah, I look forward to doing a blog post or whatever you would call it or anything like that. Happy with that anytime and I'm happy to answer anyone's questions, by the way. And what I would ask people to do is to just keep on keeping on, and just believe in yourself and just action takes action, every single day I have a post-it note on my computer says, "Three frogs and three pieces of elephant, you swallow a frog hole and you eat an elephant one piece at a time." And I empower you to do that every day, not just your 'shelf help' books, and 'procrastinaction', as I call it, actually take action. And you know what that action is? Like, look inside yourself for the answers, because it's right there.
- What a great way to end the conversation. Thank you so much, Paul. It's been a pleasure. And I know we could talk again, we could talk forever. There's so much you've got and I do encourage people to reach out to you and connect with you. And the property thing, by the way, it was worth the journey of what four hours or whatever it was, I drove up to join you. I'd love to come back again. Obviously once we've got total freedom of movement and meet you know, large group meetings. Love to come back again and share with your group it was quite special. So if anyone can just make a trip out there, there's probably a couple of service apartments that people could look into, I believe to help with. So yeah, it's worth doing that. So thanks so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it. It's been very welcome. Thanks very much for having me. You're welcome. Enjoy it.
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That's all from me this week, remember if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, or just talk property investing more generally, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you! The show notes can be found at our website www.thepropertyvoice.net
Thanks very much for listening again this week, so all that left to say is ciao ciao!