Let me introduce you to Rupal Patel, who followed a ‘non-planned plan’ with property as a means to and end of discovering and then realising a ‘multi-passionate’ lifestyle.
In her own words, she has gone from working in foreign intelligence to becoming CEO, realising that she needed to become her own boss...eventually setting up training and mentoring for other female founders.
What does this all have to do with property you might ask? Well, pretty much everything as it provided the momentum, confidence, finances and the snowball effect to enable her to live out her purpose as a teacher and mentor, supporting a strong community in a way that impacts other people’s lives so positively.
Oh...and she also leaves us with two key learnings from the last decade too. I think you will enjoy listening to her, just as I did.
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Transcription of the show
Let me introduce you to Rupal Patel, who followed a ‘non-planned plan’ with property as a means to and end of discovering and then realising a ‘multi-passionate’ lifestyle.
In her own words, she has gone from working in foreign intelligence to becoming CEO, realising that she needed to become her own boss...eventually setting up training and mentoring for other female founders.
What does this all have to do with property you might ask? Well, pretty much everything as it provided the momentum, confidence, finances and the snowball effect to enable her to live out her purpose as a teacher and mentor, supporting a strong community in a way that impacts other people’s lives so positively.
Oh...and she also leaves us with two key learnings from the last decade too. I think you will enjoy listening to her, just as I did.
Property Chatter
Welcome to the Property Voice Podcast. Helping you to navigate safely through the world of property investing. Get the low down and updates, insights, and outcomes on all matters property with a splash of entertainment along the way. The Property Voice, a voice to trust among the crowd. Now, let's gets started with your host, Richard Brown
Speaker 1:
Welcome to The Property Voice podcast. Helping you to navigate safely through the world of property investing. Get the lowdown and updates, insights and outcomes on all matters property, with a splash of entertainment along the way. The Property Voice, a voice to trust among the crowd. Now, let's get started with your host Richard Brown.
Richard:
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Property Voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown and as always it's a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today. Well we've reached number three in the series of Going Full-Time in Property and we're going to sort of change direction slightly because the first couple of weeks, if you like, were centered around a couple of people, my guests, who effectively were investors who treated their investing activity as a business. And perhaps over the next couple of weeks we're going to look at some people who treated their overall experience as a business which including investing. So it's a subtle difference, if you like, in emphasis with the first two guests and the next two guests.
Richard:
Today, I'm joined by Rupal Patel who describes herself as a non-planner's planner or followed a non-planner's plan and she's a multi passionate person. And I think when you actually listen to her or even if you watch her, I'm going to share the discussion we had on YouTube, you'll see that she's very passionate and she's full of energy and infectious really to coin a phrase, perhaps not the right one at this time. But she's very listenable too, so I hope you get a lot out of this. I'm not going to set it up any longer. I'm just going to queue it in and maybe I'll just wrap up with a couple of key points once you've listened to the discussion we just had. So here we go with the discussion with Rupal right now.
Richard:
Hi, Rupal. How are you?
Rupal:
Hey, Richard. Good afternoon. Very, very, very well. How are you?
Richard:
I'm very good, thank you. Looking good. You're looking good there and all fresh and everything and looking forward to this conversation.
Rupal:
Me too.
Richard:
We describe ourselves as property buddies, don't we?
Rupal:
Indeed.
Richard:
So hopefully, we'll have a good buddy chat. This is part of our Going Full-Time in Property series with the podcast which will also be a video, hence why you can see us. But what I wanted to do is really just... It's kind of profiling people, I'll call every day people and I don't mean you are an every day person but you're a very special every day person because of what you've achieved. And I think it's the case as we maybe explain or go through your story and how your journey in property, perhaps before property is also relevant, just to share that with our audience and just give a bit of an insight so people can really say, "Well maybe that's a path I could follow. Maybe I could learn some things from that." So that's the objective. But it's less about me, more about you.
Richard:
So I guess, maybe if you could, could you just walk us through Rupal before property and just however that is. You don't have to go from birth. Just walk us through a little bit so we have a context and a background about who you are and people can visualize that. Would that be okay?
Rupal:
Sure. Yeah that's great. I think the general theme of my life seems to be that I have always been on a non-plan plan. So, by that I mean I've never really, until very recently in life, actually sat down and thought, "Okay five years from now, this is where I want to be. 10 years, this is where I want to be." And so I've always just been the type of person who's made the best decision with the options in front of me at that time, and then just been open to opportunities as they arose. And the reason I set the tone in that way is because I think it will help make sense of this slightly nontraditional, perhaps, path that brought me here and that I'm still on.
Rupal:
So immediately before property my previous career was in foreign intelligence, and I did that for about six years. It was phenomenal. I did some amazing work. Worked with fantastically brilliant people. There was a lot of sense of mission, comradery, doing something that's bigger than just the individual, and it was hugely fulfilling. But for personal reasons, AKA my now husband, I decided to leave that career behind and leave the States and move to the UK. So when I did that, I'm a consummate nerd. I love school, I love learning, I never stop learning, and my go-to move traditionally has been, "Well let me just go back to school and study."
Rupal:
So after leaving my intelligence career, I went to business school where I thought it'd make sense to help me gain some hard credentials that would make me employable in the private sector. And while I was in business school I very, very quickly realized I didn't ever want to work for anybody again. I knew that in my heart of hearts from a relatively young age. I don't do well with orders or being told by people what I can or can't or should or shouldn't do. And so it was this tug of war between, "Oh well, go work for a big consultancy or big bank or something, get another great name on your CV." And what I knew what was going to be true for the long term, which is to start on a path that's my own.
Rupal:
And so after consulting with my partner and doing a bunch of mini experiments about what next, we both decided property would be the best option for lots of different reasons. I think I spoke about this last time where it's just being able to have an impact, being able to positively transform people's lives, having something tangible that you can point to and touch at the end of a hard day's work. All of these big and small things. But to be completely honest, when we got started in property, I knew for me, it's not true for him but for me, it was going to be a means to an end. So for me, getting started in property was all about buying back my time, getting financial freedom, replacing my income, replacing my husband's income, so then I could decide what came next and not have this stress and the worry of, "Oh well I can't afford to make a bold decision or being beholden to a job or anything else like that."
Rupal:
So that was, when we got started in property, those were the goals was to buy back our time, to buy back our financial freedom, and then both of us could then explore what it was that we wanted to do from there.
Richard:
That's wonderful. I mean there's so many different things I could dive into, but I think for some people... So I've just finished reading Unscripted, for example, by M.J. Demarco. Don't know if you've read that particular book of his. His first book was The Millionaire Fastlane. But he's very much a contrarian, and spoiler alert, the book's basically talking about the way out of the script, or the matrix, or off the mousetrap, off the hamster wheel, is to be your own boss and to be an entrepreneur. And it sounds like that has just been in you, certainly since, I don't know what the transition point was because obviously you were working in foreign intelligence, went into business school and at some point I guess there was something saying, "Hey I don't know if I want to work for a boss anymore."
Richard:
It's an interesting path, because there are some people who, in fact a couple of people I've already interviewed on this series, they had a career and they had a fairly lengthy career, probably 25 years plus, thereabouts, before they stepped out into going full-time in property. But you were relatively young and decided from an early stage, relatively early stage, that you were going to step out into that, not necessarily property initially because you decided on property on being the initial route, but you very much saying, "I'm going to be an entrepreneur, or an Entreprenora." For those who don't know what that is, that's just one of your alter identities, alter egos, isn't it?
Rupal:
Yes. It is indeed.
Richard:
I think that's interesting. So, was there a transition between working, say... You had a career in foreign intelligence, and then saying, "Actually I don't want to necessarily go back and be an employee anymore. Or even a consultant. I want to be my own boss." What was the thought process there?
Rupal:
I think it was just the freedom, and really it was that. Actually it was two things. It was the freedom and the desire to make my own rules for myself, to be able to live on my terms and all that kind of stuff. But also it was, I guess, the alpha part of me really wanted to see what I was made of and to see if I could hack it, if I could set what at the time felt like a really audacious goal, and actually do it and prove to myself that, "Yeah actually this is something that I can do." So there were two sides of, but yeah I think a lot of it really came down to just not wanting to have anybody be able to tell me what to do.
Richard:
I'm dropping my pen there.
Rupal:
That's okay.
Richard:
And proving to yourself. I mean that's interesting. I mean, we already got this really from the first time we spoke, and I was just amazed really about what an inspiration, actually, you are for the property community overall. So I think that's good. But I think stepping out and making the decision, joint decision, with your husband, obviously. So how did that conversation go?
Rupal:
It was actually pretty straightforward. I don't want to say he's like me, but we share some very fundamental values in common. Integrity, independence, equality, that kind of thing. And he's not one... I'm much more of a leap before you look type of person, and a bit, not impulsive but I'm more of an action... I do more than sometimes, I think, he might in the same situation, whereas he's a very considered and very thoughtful and very, "Let me make sure that I fully understand as much as possible without going into analysis paralysis. But I want to fully understand something before I decide which way to move." And it really was just a series of conversations. To be honest, he had started going down exploring additional streams of income anyway after we got together because there was this assumption at the time that when we did get together and get married, we would eventually move back to the States.
Rupal:
And so he, too, was thinking about, "Okay well in the absence of me having my career in the UK, if we did move to the States what would I be able to do to keep myself occupied and to earn a living," kind of thing.And so it was a bit of forecasting about our lives and which directions they would go, how we would buy the independence that we wanted, because again that being a bicontinental family, whether we relocated to the States or we stayed here, one of us was always going to be far away from our families. And again, didn't want to have the financial constraints or the time constraints about not being able to see them as often as we wanted, and for as long as we wanted to.
Rupal:
And so it was just a couple of conversations and we were on the same page, and what we had agreed upon was that he would keep his day job while I focused full-time on building the property business so that we had a bit of a safety net, we would be mortgageable, we would have all of those... The financial back stock that is required, but then one of us could really, really focus on the building and the growing and the foundations because it would have taken a lot longer otherwise.
Richard:
I was going to ask you about that, so it's interesting that you brought that back into the conversation there about, did you both go full-time in property from day one? Clearly you answered that question, which is your husband stayed working. Just to dwell on that one second, so a lot of people have a dream, let's say that, of being their own boss and stepping out. And maybe property's the vehicle. And okay you're a husband and wife team, so by one of you, at least, retaining a stable employment base, it gave some advantages. And you alluded to them already, but just to bring them out there, why did you say that it allowed you to move quicker, because some people might think the opposite.
Rupal:
Yeah. So I think the quicker is that one of us was able to focus 100% on this, whereas... And again, it's not to say you can't do it if you've got other demands on your time, it's just that it could potentially take a lot longer because you've got another full-time job or other things competing for that time. So yeah, I think that was where a lot of the speed came from. It doesn't mean that it took us half as long because I was working full-time in property and he was not, but it did just mean that we were able to make progress and one of us could focus on building what we wanted to build. But also, and you alluded to Entreprenora earlier. So Entreprenora for your listeners who don't know, is my community now that I've founded for women founders in any industry, not just property. And one of the conversations that comes up a lot, both with people in property or outside of property, is this idea of, "Do I quit my job and just go guns blazing with property investing," or whatever. My answer is actually always no.
Rupal:
It might sound a bit controversial or counterintuitive, but you need a financial runway in order to survive. So what I say to people who are considering leaving their day jobs to pursue an entrepreneurial dream is to make sure they have a war chest. Make sure they have savings to cover their living expenses at least for a year, if not a little bit longer, because most businesses take five years before they break even and start to become profitable. In property, who knows how long it might take and your upfront costs are that much higher. But I don't want to be selling people this naïve dream of, "Yeah just throw everything to the wayside and just go full-on and it'll happen overnight." Because that just isn't the reality, if you got the stress of, "Where's the rent coming from?" And, "Where am I going to get my food from?" And "How am I going to afford childcare?" Whatever it is. That is a huge distraction and a huge burden away from the energy and time you could be focusing on building a business.
Rupal:
So make sure, before you take that leap, that you have some safety net, whether it's savings or a partner who's still working or a part time job that you still work. But it's not this, "I'm going to cut everything and just jump into the precipice." You need to have a parachute before you do.
Richard:
Yeah. I mean I still agree with you. I think sometimes you can read the inspiring stories of the entrepreneur who's become a billionaire and they lived on a barge in a river, things like that, and they threw everything into their business. But the thing with that, those stories, is there's a massive survivor bias. And so you only hear about the guys who made it bigger and then they go, "Well this is how I did it. So you do it the way I did it and it's going to work for you." But actually it misses more of the people who tried to do that and it didn't work. So I, like you, try to encourage people to have some kind of runway or some kind of safety net, so whether that's a baseline income from employment, or savings, as you say, for a reasonable period of time, or multiple streams that you can rely on, et cetera. It's sensible. I think the whole one year thing seems to make sense to me and resonates with me. So, that's good I think.
Richard:
I guess, so having made the decision that it's property and then you would be the one to be full-time and your husband would be, presumably, part-time, evenings, weekends, what did you do next? Where did you start?
Rupal:
A lot of busy work, to be honest. So one thing we did do is we got mentoring and we got training. We wanted to fast track things so we signed up to a property program that took us through a 12-month process of just getting smart about various strategies. It gave us a wonderful community to help us when we had specific questions or when things go wrong and you feel like, "Oh my gosh everything is falling apart." It was the mix of getting the content, getting the support, the community, and helping with that mindset around success and what you need to do and who you need to become in order to start a business. So we had that as far as getting smart and being immersed in a community of other investors. And then we just, again I said it earlier, but we're both, my husband and I are both, really analytical and we like information and we want to make sure that we know what we're doing before we try to do it.
Rupal:
And so we learned as much as we could and then, again without going obsessively down this black hole of just constantly consuming information, we're like, "Okay well we still don't have any experience, but we know enough to start taking small baby steps." And so we just got started. And our first property, a rental that we bought, was before we started any of our mentoring or anything like that, and it was actually while I was still in business school and we just thought, "Well there's no better way to learn than learn by doing. And so we'll start small, relatively safe." It still felt terrifying and scary at the time. But yeah, we just got started. I mean at some point you have to stop learning and you have to start doing, and start actually experiencing what it is that you actually want to achieve.
Richard:
Yeah. Right. I mean, so just to give us a reference on timing, approximately how long ago was it when you decided to go full in on property. How many years ago now was that?
Rupal:
Eight years.
Richard:
Eight years ago. Okay. And then when you bought that first property, eight years and one day? Minus one day?
Rupal:
Probably eight years and a few months.
Richard:
Just a few months. Okay.
Rupal:
Yeah it was relatively quick. But there was a lot of... It's hard to put a time on when it got started. There was a lot of seed planting and conversation having that went into that point. But yeah, I would say roughly a few months after we decided we're going to definitely do this full-time. We found something. It seemed just enough of a stretch, but still relatively safe enough for us to just go with it.
Richard:
Well it's interesting. So you made a decision and relatively quickly you took action on that decision, which is the point I wanted to highlight really. And then the learning and the training that you talked about, your one-year program, how long after that did you decided to step into that?
Rupal:
Our first property we bought in April of 2012, and then I think we didn't start that program until 2014. So about a year and a half later.
Richard:
Okay. And were there other properties that came along in between?
Rupal:
Oh yeah. There were. There were a few that came and went and thankfully went. I also always tell people, "Be thankful for the ones that get away." But yeah we were always looking, but one of our biggest constraints was finances. And we literally, after having bought that first property, all we could afford... So which was just a small two up, two down Victorian. All we had left of our personal funds that we could look at as potential investments were flats, one bedroom flats. And so that's what we were looking for, and we had one... I can't even remember now why it fell through. But yeah we had one that had gone pretty far into the process of completing, and then it fell through. And there was a long hiatus. So the next property we bought, investment property, wasn't until June of 2014. So over two years later.
Richard:
And presumably at that point you were in the one-year program, were you?
Rupal:
We were. Yeah. So we were doing the training and the mentoring and all of that stuff. To be honest I don't think it was the fact that we had started the training that got us that property, but it was more just that momentum that we had maintained over the previous two years of looking, of assessing, of developing relationships, all of that kind of stuff, had finally come to fruition.
Richard:
Is that why you said a lot of busy work?
Rupal:
Yeah. I think... Well it was busy work in two sense. One, it kept me busy. But two, I didn't know what I didn't know. So I was doing a lot of activity that actually was going to lead nowhere. And it was a lot of days... This is the thing with when you become your own boss that a lot people struggle with and I sure as heck did, is structuring your time, because all of a sudden you don't have those daily markers. You have to be in by this time, and finish by this time, this is when you get a break, and this is when you get to... All of those things that structure your day are gone, and you're doing it for yourself.
Rupal:
And so one of my favorite quotes is "The task expands to fill the time allotted." And so I would spend all day just meandering slowly between research and agent phone calls and doing viewings and all this nonsense, and I mean if I, at that time, looked at the actual concentrated, targeted, goal-focused work that I was doing, it was probably a lot less than what I would've liked to think. Because I was just all over the place. And I think, again, for my personality, I need to go through that process before I impose a structure on myself and see what should go into that structure, but there was just a lot of, "Oh check my email, or I'll go on Zoopla for a little while and see what happens." There wasn't a, "This is what I'm going to do and then this is what I'm going to do." It's just more reactive than proactive.
Richard:
Yeah. And I know you now. I didn't know you then, but I know from what I know of you now, that you don't just drift through your days, and you've learned a lot. In fact you mentioned a phrase earlier, and I might not be quoting you directly but you said it's what we become. And so, maybe we can come back to that. I just want to sign that statement, because I do know you today and it's exactly like the description of yourself even that you're portraying back in 2012, 2014 might be slightly different. Let's say that.
Richard:
So approximately two properties in 18 months or so?
Rupal:
Yeah about. Yeah.
Richard:
Yeah. But I think things have picked up a bit quicker since then, haven't they?
Rupal:
Yeah.
Richard:
So what did you do? How did it expand?
Rupal:
I think, I would say from 2015 to 2018 it was a much faster pickup. And really I think, like I said earlier, it was just a lot of the momentum was building up and the relationships and the seeds that we had been planting were starting to bear fruit. Some of it was also confidence. So we started going for more things that previously felt uncomfortable, now we had a bit of experience. It felt more comfortable. We also had access to more finances, because again in addition to the learning we got from doing our first few deals on our own, we also were then able to have a bit of credibility to then go out to just friends and family initially and just say, "Hey look, we're out of our own funds, but we're still investing because it makes sense for all of these reasons. If you're interesting in being an investor, let's have a chat," kind of thing.
Rupal:
And so it was a combination of, okay we started to find ways to get access to the funds we needed to invest, we had a bit of confidence and a bit of experience from the projects we'd done. And so all of that, plus all of the learning, community, the support, the network, the contacts, all of those things, it starts to snowball. And I would say those three years were the peak of our what one might refer to as our fast-paced growth.
Richard:
Okay. And so just if it's all right with you, can you give us a sense of either the quantities or whatever of properties that happened in that three-year period?
Rupal:
So, in the first two years we did... Yeah I would say in the first two years we did two properties. Actually sorry, at the tail end of that second year we got us our third property. So two years, three properties. And then in the subsequent three years we did 17 more.
Richard:
17?
Rupal:
One seven. Yup.
Richard:
Yeah. Brilliant. So that's quite a change isn't it?
Rupal:
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard:
And what strategies were you adopting? Because it sounds like at least the first or perhaps two, I'm not sure about the third one, were more buy to let style.
Rupal:
Correct. So we started out with single lets, and then we moved over to HMOs and then we moved over to conversions. So title split type projects, and house to flat conversions. And by that point, as of that 2018 marker when we had reached those 20 properties, we had also then reached the income point where we had replaced both my income and my husband's income, so he retired from his day job in June of 2018.
Richard:
Oh brilliant. Yeah. I pretty much know the answer, but was that a clear goal to get to that point right around that time?
Rupal:
It was. It definitely, definitely was. Yeah.
Richard:
What was also interesting, you just talk so naturally, I'm just trying to restate what you said to make sure everybody heard it, but you said you had some single let, buy to lets. Then you went to HMO. Then you went to conversions. It's a progression, perhaps, in complexity. Would that be fair?
Rupal:
Yeah. And again that was always part of the plan because after... Gosh. I mean it sounds silly to say it out loud sometimes, but after about HMO number five or so, we just started to get bored. It wasn't because... Obviously every project has its own challenges, its own unique personality or whatever you want to call it, but from a skills-building perspective, we had plateaued. So we always knew that we wanted to do bigger, better, more challenging, more interesting, that kind of stuff. And so from the beginning we knew that there was going to be this logical progression of steps that we would take, both, again, to feel comfortable at every step and every level, that we were pushing ourselves but not to the breaking point, that we were taking calculated risks, that we were constantly learning and expanding and growing and pushing ourselves, and not just resting back and constantly rinse and repeating everything we had already done to date.
Rupal:
So it was very much part of the plan. And then the plan from there was, once we had replaced both of our incomes, bought back our time, bought back our freedom, all of those kinds of things, then both of us could focus on what we're really passionate about. I, in the beginning, didn't know what that would be. Over the past eight years, I've really come to understand that, for me, it's training, mentoring, coaching, helping other entrepreneurs. And for my husband it's development. Property's in his blood through and through, and I mean that not genealogically but just for him as an individual. And so now our main focus as far as our property business is concerned is on just buying off-market new built opportunities, and he's been doing brilliantly with those.
Richard:
Yeah. Well, actually it's worth diving in. There's a couple of strands there, but it's worth diving into the post-2018, when your husband was then able to work in the business full-time. He focused on development projects, large development projects by the sound of it. Yeah?
Rupal:
Correct. Yeah.
Richard:
And so what made you choose that direction, collectively?
Rupal:
I think it was, again, just the next logical step. We had done some conversions, which felt for us pretty big, and we just thought, "Okay if we can do three units, why not five? Why not 15?" It doesn't get to three to five times more complicated, but it is a different set of skills, a different set of professionals that you have to work with and all of that kind of stuff. So again, it was the logical next step. But also because it would give us a lot more creative license, to some extent, because again, with conversions you're sort of stuck with the fabric and the four walls. Whereas with new builds you really can just do some fantastically beautiful things, and again all credit to my partner, but he's found a couple of architects, these one set of architects in particular, who just... I mean you cannot help but gasp when you see their mock ups.
Rupal:
And we had a really lovely little interaction with a tree specialist who's consulting on one of our sites now, and he's a tree specialist, and... No sorry. It was the heritage specialist, who works with listed buildings. And even he said the designs that the architect has come up with are just remarkable. So it's that. The emotional gratification, the almost... Yeah. I don't know how else to put it, but being able to have that much creative control and creative license to just do something truly breathtaking is really nice.
Richard:
And was there an element also that perhaps you were both more free to take what might be... Because larger projects, they take longer time, they perhaps carry more risk. They're more complex and you need a different skillset and you need different people on the team as you already mentioned. But you had this baseline of income.
Rupal:
Exactly. That's 100% it. Yeah, and that's why I tell people you need to have your income sorted before you do anything else. It's the recurring income you have to get sorted, because otherwise these would also be very much pipe dreams. As you said, developments are hugely time consuming, are hugely expensive, you're adding one, sometimes two zeros to the end of everything, both cost and potential profit. So the risks are just that much greater, and if you don't know where the money's going to come to put food on your table, and you're taking on those kinds of risks, it's just, for us, for our risk profile, it was just too much. Whereas once we were able to have a recurring, consistent stream of income, that took care of all of the background considerations so then we could focus on slightly higher risk, longer term projects.
Richard:
And was that develop to sell or develop to rent or a mixture?
Rupal:
So I think at some point we'll probably develop to sell. Right now our focus is just really on getting planning permission and then selling it on with planning, so we can cycle out of those deals relatively quick, either buy new assets, new rental properties with it, or maybe pay down mortgages so our cashflow goes up. But just to give us a few more options for those first few in particular, I think, especially now given all the uncertainties in the market. But the biggest uplift comes from the planning game, so we're both keen to make sure that we capitalize on that, and then use that money to rebalance our portfolio in other ways.
Richard:
Oh that's interesting. So you're using your skills and expertise to get the planning uplift, but then rather than stepping into building out the developments, you're selling them on to develop with planning approved.
Rupal:
Exactly. Yup.
Richard:
And having working on some projects at the moment, there's a lot of merit perhaps in looking at that. There is more risk, obviously, in development and building out. Being not able to go on site for 12 weeks is one of them, right now. So I think that's an interesting angle. So you go from the planning and capitalizing on that. And as you say, rebalancing your existing portfolio. That is interesting. So just again, in terms of scale, so you got to about 20 properties around about 2018. Fill the gap in, what happened between 2018 and 2020 then?
Rupal:
We actually rationalized, to use a fancy term, but we sold one of our properties, a couple of our rent to rents that we had had since the beginning we gave back, or packaged on and to sold on to other investors. And I think our focus really is just on consolidating, because I don't think either one of us got into the property game to be a landlord or landlady to hundreds and hundreds of tenants. We just want to have quality over quantity and make sure that we're constantly reviewing how our assets are performing. So we've actually shrunk a bit. We went from 20 we're now down to 17, and to be honest our plan is over the next 18 months to perhaps maybe shrink even a little bit more, to just really tighten our business and just free up the time, the energy, the mental capacity to do some of these bigger deals that we're doing.
Rupal:
So yeah, over the past two years it's really been... Actually, so that's bene on the rental portfolio side of things. On the development side of things, the two years have really been invested in, like I said, working with other great people and getting super smart about planning policy and the various councils that we're looking at, and then again my husband has been coming up with his whole process of identifying these off market opportunities and then reaching out to sellers cold. That takes a lot of time. I would say we got started in earnest on doing these cold letters to these sites that he had identified back in June 2018 when he joined us full-time in our business, and we didn't sign our first option agreement until maybe April of last year. So, these things take quite a long time before you even get close to a deal. So it's been constantly progressing those things. And again, getting really good at, as I said, understanding local planning policy so that when you go in to put in a planning application it's as close to a home run as you can possibly get.
Richard:
Understood. And so you are into multiple income streams here, aren't we?
Rupal:
Yeah.
Richard:
So the you got the rental portfolio and then you got the planning uplift side of things. We haven't even got to some of what you're doing, which is on the training, mentoring side as well. But I think, just to pause a little bit on the rationalization, because I think that's really interesting. You said you rationalized in terms of numbers of properties. But you also kind of alluded to maybe you're paying down a bit of debt as well. So was your equity position actually going up?
Rupal:
Slowly. I mean it was never very... We've never been overly leveraged, so every year we calculate across the portfolio what our average is, and I think at last December it was like 65 or 67% loan to value, average across the board, so we've got some properties where we've got over 60% equity, other properties where we've got 25% equity. So it is a bit of a mix. But yeah, I think what we'd like at some point to be, well totally mortgage free, but we also want to be sensible about how you pay down. So it's always a priority to paying down the most expensive one first, and that tends to be from private investors, and then making accelerated payments on some of the mortgages that are a bit higher.
Richard:
Okay. Yeah I mean very sensible. Then you can ride out some of the rough times that inevitably all happen when we look at market cycles. So that makes sense. You kind of touched on a little bit of working with third parties, let's say that, private investors, friends and family, from the financial point of view. Would you say that's contributed quite a lot to your growth over...
Rupal:
Oh 100%. Yeah. I mean I think, I don't care how rich you are, at some point you'll run out of your own money, unless you're nine, ten figure wealthy, whatever. But for most people, at some point you will run out of your own funds, and that, to be honest, let's be real about it, that is the biggest constraint. Properties are expensive, even regardless of where you live they're still five, six figure investments, and most people don't have multiple millions just out there in the bank doing nothing waiting for them to invest in. So we found that we had to start working with private investors, relatively early on.
Richard:
Yeah. I don't know if you're comfortable, but would you mind sharing any order of magnitude in terms of funds or numbers of people you've worked with? Whatever you're comfortable in sharing really.
Rupal:
Gosh. So we've worked, probably... I mean it's over 20, the number of private investors we've worked with. I would say the bulk of them, maybe 60%, I would say 60, maybe 65% of them are our family members. The remainder are either close friends or investors we've developed relationships with over the past few years. I can't tell you... I think over time, not all at once, but over time we've probably close to three million, and paid back various parts of it. And then just as far as the range of investments, I think the lowest investment we've got with us at the moment is a 15,000 pound investment. And then the biggest one is 250,000 pounds. So, quite a range, but I would say most of them tend to be 50K plus.
Richard:
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Put you on the spot a bit there. I was trying to make sure you were comfortable sharing the numbers.
Rupal:
Yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah.
Richard:
But it's really interesting because it's a holy grail, isn't it? It's holy grail, working with private investors, joint venture partners, whatever language you want to use. But you've just said some really interesting things there about, the majority at least, were sounds to me like...
Rupal:
Still are.
Richard:
The vast majority are very close to you in some way. Friends, family, people you become closer to. SO you've not gone out and tapped up a lot of people randomly in a coffee shop and they've given you a million pounds to invest in your portfolio, basically.
Rupal:
Yeah, no. To be honest, again, well I spoke to your mastermind group about this a few weeks ago, but for us the relationships are so, so key. We don't want just dumb money. We don't necessarily need active investors in every investment, but we want to know the people we're working with. We want to know that our values are the same, that our standards are the same, and yes even though they are passive investors, we want to make sure we like them, and that they like us, and that there's some sort of a mutuality there. So we have some investors who are friends and family, but we got to know them for, at a minimum a year plus before we took a penny of their money, because for both sides it just makes a lot more sense that way.
Richard:
Yeah. I'd love to dive into that even more, but probably can't today. But I just wanted to ask, because you got so many really positive things about your business. Another thing you shared with that mastermind group, if you don't mind, you talked about the direct to vendor letters that you were sharing. The statistics in terms of the response rate, et cetera, you have there, were amazing to me. At a global level, could you just say what that was?
Rupal:
Yeah. So, I don't have my whiteboard in front of me in this room, but I think, and again this is all credit to my partner. I had zero role in this sort of success aside from a bit of refining things on the margins. I think just this year, so not even tallying what he's been doing over the past two years, but just calendar year, so January to June, for the first six months of 2020, he sent out close to 550 cold letters and had about 300 something responses. And look, not all of them have been like, "Yeah I want to sell this to you." Some have been, "Please don't contact me again." Or, "I am not interested." Or, "Yeah, tell me how much you're going to give me over the phone and then maybe we can talk." So I would say whittling that down, the real sites that have some potential for a longer conversation and a negotiation are probably maybe 30 or so. So 10% of the responses. But yeah. I mean he's getting really, really good responses. A good response rate.
Richard:
I thought it was impressive. To be honest I get some of those letters, not from you, but I get some of those letters and they go in one place, which is a circular thing which is to my left now. They don't get a response, so that was impressive. So you're obviously doing something. Congratulations. But now I'm very conscious that you talked about freedom and being able to do what you wanted to do. So, we've spoken a lot about property and you said it was a means to an end for you personally. So, where are you now? What are you doing? What has property enabled you to do? And what are you active and very interested in?
Rupal:
Yeah. So I think to be honest at my core I'm a teacher, and I say that because everything that I've done in my life, and reflecting very carefully on the things where I've felt most in my flow or most happy or whatever, is I love to learn and then I love to share. And for me, the main outlets for doing that learning and sharing have tended to be presenting at seminars or at events or whatever else like that. Or writing. Writing for me it's a deeply soul-broadening experience. So, what I have started doing, and again this wasn't part of the plan but it unfolded over these past few years through trial and error and through starting to tune in a bit more to what I care about and what I love.
Rupal:
So I started doing some training and coaching, just for people in property. And then about a year and a half ago... Is that right? Maybe just over a year and a half ago I started this other community called Entreprenora, which is focused on helping more women founders become six figure plus business successes for themselves in any industry, not just property. And that for me is the main focus moving forward is just helping more and more founders basically find and explore their own potential for business and professional success. But of course, as we all know, none of these things... They're ostensibly about business or success or profession, but they really are about developing who you are or who you become along the way, and that's really where my focus is. For me, to be honest, that is the forever project.
Richard:
Okay. That won't stop by the sound of it. Being a teacher, I know you love to consume knowledge, you love to share knowledge, and you've got a great writing style. I know that. I can vouch.
Richard:
And so you building this community, you're working with some property did you say?
Rupal:
I am. I'm starting to wind down my property one on one stuff. I think for me I'm still exploring what is the right medium for my teaching. So what I'm mentally playing around with is doing a more membership-based thing for people in property, and then for the non-property just general founders, entrepreneurs, they can be in property but for my entrepreneur community I've got a small board room that's like a small mastermind, and I'm also looking into what a membership site of some sort where people get resources and again can come together online, that that would be the right way forward. So I'm still figuring out what's the best way to reach as many people as I can, because I think for me that's the other thing is trying to have as much of a positive impact on as many people as possible, and just exploring the way to do that most efficiently, I guess.
Richard:
Yeah. Sounds to me like the property has provided the baseline. You don't love it. You don't love property.
Rupal:
Well I love parts of it. Like I said, I love the creativity, I love the transformation, I love all that kind of stuff. Some of the day to day admin... We self-manage all of our properties and that's partly why I have been the driving force behind the rationalization because it doesn't take a lot of my time, but it still takes a lot of energy, mental energy. So again it's just making sure we are as lean and mean as possible on our personal expenses so we can live and survive on... We make good income from our property portfolio, but it's really just to cut out all of the fluff in every way possible so that way we don't have other distractions, we don't have other demands, we don't have big overhead as it were, and really just giving us that freedom, that time, that headspace, whatever you want to call it to focus on what we really care about. And to be able to explore it with a bit of leeway.
Richard:
Yeah. Sounds good. And so just walk me through it. Not literally today because we're in the middle of lockdown, but what does your lifestyle look like now. Just paint a picture of either, not necessarily a daily routine, but a typical week, or a month or a year in the life of Rupal. What does it look like?
Rupal:
Yeah. It's a bit different, but I would say the broad themes that capture my attention on a regular basis are, so writing. I do a lot of writing for both property community but also for my Entreprenora community. At some point in the not too distant future, as in the next few weeks, I'm going to seriously sit down and actually start writing a book, which has been, again, in the mental works for a while. And then I would say my property portfolio, our rental portfolio, takes maybe about 10%, maybe 15% of my time. The rest is really invested in building the Entreprenora community and mentoring and coaching and writing, and again we've talked about this offline, but I have now become much more diligent about tracking my time.
Rupal:
And so I would say on average, even when we didn't have our daughter at home with us, my working day was anywhere from four to six hours. But that's concentrated working time. And then family time. And I think that's been pretty consistent. Obviously there are peaks and troughs in that and sometimes it's 12 hour day, and other times it's a 20 minute day because of other things going on. But yeah most of my time is on... I would say if I had to give you percentages I would say about 15% on managing our portfolio, and then the rest, the 85%, on various coaching and training and writing activities.
Richard:
Yeah. Which is still, it's what you're doing, but it's active, right? You're writing and you're working on portfolio, and you're working in your community with the Entreprenora community and property community. And then outside of that you mentioned your daughter, for example. But do you stay in one place or do you perhaps move around? Do you take holiday? How does that work with your lifestyle?
Rupal:
We used to take holidays. Yeah, no. To be honest, one of the big lifestyle goals that my husband and I both, I mean we're both world travelers. We've both lived in multiple countries for multiple years. Him mostly in the Middle East, me a bit between the Middle East, South America, and Europe. And we would love to travel more. I think with young kids, we've got a three year old daughter and then I'm currently pregnant. So with super young kids it's a bit tricky, but we love to travel and in normal times we would at least go to the States about three to four times a year to see my family, and then maybe have one or two smaller holidays in Europe to see something different and get our daughter out and about.
Rupal:
So that's one of our lifestyle goals is to just see more of the world and not so we can start ticking things off our list, but we both love to travel and we love people and we're fascinated by the endless differences but also commonalities between communities and people. And food is a big thing too for me. I love to broaden my daughter's horizons. I don't want my kids in any way to live in any form of a bubble. So when travel is possible again, it will definitely be back on the agenda. High on the agenda.
Richard:
I'm looking forward to that day too. But just drawing some conclusions, I suppose. You talked about what you've become. Just to bring us back to that thought. And I was just wondering if things that you've learned along the way that perhaps you could impart in the form of wisdom to others who might be either at the beginning or just partway down that track. I know you've got a lot of wisdom and a lot of learning. What did you pick up along the way? What did you become? What tips or advice might you give to those listening right now?
Rupal:
That's funny because as I'm thinking about the answers I'm literally getting chills. I think I could really distill it into two. The first one is, if you don't write it down it won't get done. And as I said, I was much more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of person, and literally it was actually through our property business that I started planning my year, my life, my targets, my goals. By disposition I'm a much more intuitive person, generally. So I don't really feel as much of a need to write things down. I know, or can feel when certain things need working on or addressing or focus or whatever. But it wasn't until I started really sitting down and thinking about, "What do I care about? What do I want to accomplish? How am I going to do it?" That is actually started to happen. This comes up so often, and whatever books about habits or performance or whatever it is.
Rupal:
But there is literal magic in putting it down on paper, and I can tell you without exception, anything I've written down and then made a plan and executed on the plan has happened. I mean, literally everything. And it might not've happened in the time that I wanted it to, or in the exact way, but it's happened. But if I had left it all to my memory and my intuition, something would've gotten lost. So this isn't to overburden ourselves with endless goals or to-do lists or whatever. But for me, I every year focus on between three and give big things that I really care about. Some are personal, some are professional, some are physical or health related. Whatever it is. But keep it relatively simply because that's what your life is made of, and I think we can lose sight of it in the day to day routine or rut, whatever you want to call it. But until you write it down and then come with a plan to get there, it just won't happen. So, that's one.
Rupal:
And then the second thing is accept who you are and really, really, really get to know who that person is. And the reason I say it's a combination of the knowing but then also the acceptance, is because it was only over maybe the past five years or so that I've started doing a lot more of these reflective exercises for myself. What do I care about? What makes me happy? When do I feel I'm in my flow? All of these things that we were talking about. And for the longest, I would struggle between, "Oh I'm so happy when I'm doing X." So when I'm in front of a room, or when I'm writing. That is me in my zone. But because it became easily or because it gave me so much joy or because it felt natural, I would almost dismiss it and devalue it. And I think once I started to accept that actually those are my superpowers and not everybody can do them, not everybody likes them, not everybody can do it well, it's really changed a lot of how I approach my work.
Rupal:
And it's made me much more conscious of doubling down on my strengths, amplifying them, finding ways to work them into more of my day to day reality, instead of always feeling like, "Oh well it comes easy to me so it's not worth it." And to be honest a lot of what I'm building now with my Entreprenora community was a result of that process of reflection, of the themes in my life when I look at them was this element of teaching that I've talked about before, about creating community, about building community, about understanding people, about wanting to connect people and being able to help them improve their lives in some meaningful way. But you just do these things naturally or whatever your own superpower is you do naturally and you don't really think of it as anything other than who you are. But once I started really paying attention to me, to what is important to me and what I'm good at, it's just helped me be a lot more, I don't want to sound overly woo about this, but just helped me feel happier and a bit more content, that I can just be me.
Rupal:
And again, not everybody has the same skills. Not everybody has whatever talents that I have or anybody has or whatever, and to not always try to do something or to work on something just because you're not good at it. It's that whole idea of, "Oh well if you're bad at something, work on your deficiencies." Well, I've started to flip it on its head and think, "Well actually why don't I just focus on what I'm really good at and let the rest of it go," to the extent that you realistically can.
Richard:
Yeah I mean there's so much there, really important I think. And I love the superpowers. Focus on what you're good at and don't focus necessarily on what you're not so good at. You can pull up your gaps, you can bring people around you who can do all that sort of stuff. So, there's a release once you really uncover your true identity, your strengths, and double down, as you say, on them. And I'm really glad you said write it down and make a plan because I talk about that quite a lot with people. Some people resist that...
Rupal:
I was one of them.
Richard:
Yeah. Okay. But equally, Rupal you said something really important there which was that you've got your own unique strengths and character and identity, my interpretation of what you said. So not everybody can be exactly like you, but perhaps they could resonate a little bit with the path that you've taken, and I just wanted to say thanks so much for sharing, for being so open with... I got a few... Oh okay I can hear it. Never mind. So yeah. I really appreciate you sharing and being so open about things. Perhaps thinking about just wrapping up shortly, perhaps one thing I like maybe, maybe I'd like but maybe people listening would like is if you want to, how people can connect with you, because I know you've got more than one brand maybe you want to mention. And if there's any parting thoughts or anything I've missed out that you think really we should talk about before we conclude. Would that be okay?
Rupal:
Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So if you want to get in touch with me for property, you can just get in touch via our website and email, it's just www.blueinfinityproperty.com. If you're a woman in property or in non-property business, the Entreprenora community that Richard so kindly mentioned earlier on is for women founders only, and that's entreprenora.co.uk, so Entreprenora, as in the name Nora, entreprenora.co.uk. And I am still very much responding to any communications or emails people send me either through our property website or through the Entreprenora website. So do get in touch with us in either.
Rupal:
And then as parting thoughts, I guess this is going to be an extension of what... Well I guess part of the theme of this, or some of what we talked about earlier, was having multiple streams of income. I think the other thing to appreciate is that many of us, if not all of us, are... One entrepreneur I know refers to as multi-passionate. And so yes you have to have a focus for a little while or at least something that brings in, again, the money to pay the rent, to buy your food, all that good stuff to cover the basics. But it's okay if you like more than one thing, and it's okay if your pursue more than one thing. And as long as you are doing it responsibly and you're taking care of yourselves, your family, whatever, I don't think that there's...
Rupal:
With some exception, I think most people aren't just one thing. And there are many different aspects of ourselves that we can bring to the forefront that will lead to different businesses or different types of businesses. And so just because you think you're something or you're told your something, just give yourself a bit of room to explore that. And I actually meet a bunch of people in property who, as we go through our time together, they don't actually want to be in property. They went to a seminar or it's in their family and they just feel that they should do it or it's the hot new thing to do, but you can still listen to a property podcast and not actually want to do it. And that's okay too. So I guess really just tune into what is important to you, what's important to you life, what interests you have, and just explore them. Again, responsibly and carefully and all of those things, but none of us is just one thing. So give yourself permission to explore.
Richard:
Yeah. I so agree with that. I mean I think there are some people where they just need to focus and be that one person, but we're all different, and I use the phrase portfolio people.
Rupal:
Yeah I like that.
Richard:
Multi-passionate people, you... Multi-passionate. So I think portfolio people, those people who just feel they like variety, they get stimulated by being involved in different projects, perhaps, multi-passionate portfolio people. So that sounds like a great way to end. I'd love to dive into more conversation with human design and things like that.
Rupal:
Oo yay.
Richard:
But maybe we'll part that for another conversation.
Rupal:
Sounds good to me. Wonderful.
Richard:
Thank you so much Rupal. As ever, really appreciate you sharing. I'm sure a lot of people are going to get a lot of benefit and merit from listening to your inspiring share today. Appreciate it.
Rupal:
Thank you Richard. Always happy to be here.
Richard:
You're welcome. Great stuff.
Richard:
Well there you go. Hopefully you enjoyed that. I certainly did. I know Rupal quite well now as you've probably seen if you've listened to the podcast a couple of times now you'd have heard her voice if not seen her in some of the videos that we did together once or twice now. And I really connect with her. I really enjoy spending time with her, and she's great as I'm sure you found out.
Richard:
So she's gone full time in property along with her husband, and they talked about the deliberate act, if you like, this means to an end, of starting in property as a means to an end so they could both do what they really wanted to do in life. And in Rupal's case, ultimately that wasn't necessarily property, although she really enjoys what she does. It was a means to an end so that she could do exactly what she loves and some of the passions that she has. She loves writing, she loves training and mentoring, and particularly helping female founders now. But it was property that got her there, and it did her husband who enjoys getting into the development side of things. And so they've really made a business of this. They've become their own bosses, which was deliberate, as I said a means to an end. They followed this meandering path but with a deliberate endgame.
Richard:
And some key takeaways, having a runway before you just dive right in and go in full-time with property. Just want to stress that. The idea of being busy with what they were doing before they knuckled down and momentum kicked in. I think that first couple of properties took a couple of years really to land, and then they grew quite rapidly after that. The key drivers being momentum, confidence, access to finances including private finance, and the snowball effect, I guess. And they've grown to single letting to larger projects, HMOs and indeed development projects over time, which they saw the logical progression.
Richard:
As I mentioned, Rupal describes herself as multi-passionate, or I would describe as being a portfolio person and having many, many different interests. So that is great if you have lots of different things that you're interested in. Property enables you, perhaps, experiment in that area and to dabble a little bit. I would suggest focusing for a time and solidifying and embedding things in before you dabble too much, but it does allow that. I can vouch for.
Richard:
And I think her parting comments were the two lessons, if you like. One is, if it isn't written down it won't get done. So that's all about having a written or documented plan. Yes it's going to change, but have it written down in the first place. Have documented goals. You've got something to aim at, something to strive for. And then I thought this was really interesting, her second point, about accepting who you are and getting to know what your superpower is. Do you know what your superpower is? Yeah. So there's ways and means you can discover that.
Richard:
In fact, actually if you want to know how you can do a profile to discover your strengths, your wealth profile, just drop me a note. I've got a very simple tool for a property strategy profile. Drop me a note on that and I'll share that with you. That's not going to take you too much, just give you an idea of some of the property strategies that you can follow. If you want to delve a bit deeper into the psychometrics behind your personality which might give you a direction about your superpower, drop me a line and I'll maybe put you in touch with someone who does a lot of work with me in that vein and I'll refer you and you can have a conversation and just see where it leads to.
Richard:
So there you go. Hopefully, you enjoyed that. We've got another super powerful lady coming up next week, so don't miss that one. That's going to be great fun too. But I'm going to draw a line there and say thanks for joining me this week. The show notes are going to be over the website, thepropertyvoice.net, and if you want to talk about anything from today's show or if you want to connect with Rupal, just drop me an email, podcast@propertyvoice.net, and I'll be delighted to hear from you. But all that remains to say is thank you very much for listening once again this week. And until next time on the Property Voice Podcast.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening today. Not head over to thepropertyvoice.net for more inspirational content and get updates through our mailing list. Join us next time on the Property Voice Podcast. And if you enjoyed the show, please don't forget to rate us on iTunes.
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!