http://www.ispeech.org
Last week, we talked about the 4% Rule, which is a rough guide to calculating a fund value that you should be able to live on for the rest of your life. This week, I wanted to build on the idea a little further and go into a little more detail around the question: ‘How much is enough?’ Or, put another way, ‘what is your number?’
As we shall see, it might not be a single number and the question of how much is enough can also be open to some interpretation too…
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Resources mentioned
Link to the Podcast feedback survey
Sage accounting package
Smartphone
Document scanner app
Main Fossey Taylor YouTube Channel
Fossey Taylor YouTube Renovation Channel
Fossey Taylor Renovation Calculator – email podcast@thepropertyvoice.net to receive a copy
Attend a Fossey Taylor Discovery Day
Today’s must do’s
If we want to achieve things in our property business, we would be wise to listen to the wisdom of those that have already achieved it. Listen again to Jesse’s advice and tips and apply them to your own property business…there was no bad advice in there!
Subscribe to and review the show in iTunes…and while you are at it please help us to spread the word by telling all your friends too!
Send in your property stories, questions or moans to podcast@thepropertyvoice.net and we will try and feature YOU on the show too!
Property Investor Toolkit – here is the book link on amazon.co.uk & amazon.com
Get talking!
Join in the discussion, either here in the comments section below, or by emailing us at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net
Start a conversation on Twitter with us @PropertyVoiceUK or on our Facebook page
Transcription of the show
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 on the show again today.
This is the second half of my conversation with Jesse Fossey Taylor, who owns approaching 200 rental properties. This time we talk about overcoming challenges, mindset, using professionals and the best way to scale your property business. There are also a few great resources available, so listen carefully for those too.
Let’s hear a little more from Jesse now then.
Property Chatter
Interview with Jesse Fossey Taylor.
Jess describes himself first and foremost as a landlord and with approaching 200 rental properties that’s fair enough. He is also a businessman, having set up and scaled his sandwich shops before selling them and then his property portfolio as well as several related property businesses that have spun-off from his property activities. So, he does know a thing or two about scaling a business.
Here is a quick recap of some of the advice and tips that came out of the second part of our conversation.
‘Direct, don’t do – point to the professionals’
Jesse referred to this point at various points in slightly different ways. He talked about a tendency to take on too much himself and not letting go sooner. How when he offloaded a department or function, such lettings, it felt like a relief. He also agreed with my point about ‘poor man’s thinking’ and how a tendency to save a few quid can be outweighed with lower returns on our own time.
As a portfolio landlord with around 200 properties under management, Jesse’s personal time involvement is around 6 hours a month. I would be surprised if a self-managing landlord with one or two buy-to-lets would get away with even that may hours on average!
He talked about how the professionals did a better job, reduced the pain-points in his portfolio, reduced his stress and generally improved the portfolio’s profitability too.
We can achieve similar results without necessarily employing people in our business. We can use lettings agents to manage our properties and we should have a core team around us of a mortgage broker, tax accountant, solicitor and as the transaction volume increases a bookkeeper too.
Then, we should lift our own sights to look at the horizon and not at our feet. As Jesse said; ‘direct, don’t do – point to the professionals’
Top tips in mindset and approach
‘Run a premium business instead of an economy business’ You will make more money this way.
Be patience – you could get bored and you could quit just at the point that things are about to turn around…don’t! Keep going doing the same thing
Mindset – don’t be attracted to shiny new things. In the race between the tortoise and hare…be the tortoise.
Block out the noise! - Don’t listen to outsiders. Don’t read newspaper or watch the news
If a crash comes and you would be in trouble, don’t buy it. Property prices will go up. Make money each month to avoid selling. Things will bounce back again
One way to grow a large portfolio and how to scale your business
Grow: Buy, refurbish and refinance standard houses!
Single let is best for momentum investing – free houses
Leave some money in the deal, payback through the rent within 18 months, better capital growth potentially
Variation HMO is better cashflow IF have a pot of money to begin with 6 HMOs, within 18 months
Running a portfolio is hands off, building one is the tricky part…its hard, especially if you have no time.
Remember the quote we shared though: Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.” Anonymous
Buy value, add value, extract value, rinse and repeat. Be patient (again!)
Scale: ‘Direct, don’t do – point to the professionals’, then have additional spin-off income streams from your activities.
Jesse brought in people to manage the functions of his portfolio, initially for himself: sourcing, refurb & maintenance, lettings & mortgages. He then spun all of these off from own needs into business services offered to other landlords and investors.
Resources and offers
Jesse offered quite a few of these actually!
- Accountant intro
- Utilities sheet
- Renovation calculators
- You Tube renovation channel
- Discovery Day
You can see many of the links in the show notes and you can also visit the www.fosseytaylor.com website, or alternatively just drop me an email podcast@thepropertyvoice.net and I will point you in the right direction to get hold of these.
There we have it then. I don’t know about you, but I do enjoy hearing from people that have achieved success in all walks of life and especially in property. Jesse strikes me as a very down-to-earth chap, but has clearly learnt and applied some sound principles that has enabled him to scale his property business that we can also apply.
At the simplest level, we need to get out of our own way, find a workable model and repeat it constantly and block out all the noise along the way. There will be opportunities that present themselves as we scale…I have also seen this first hand…but it is the race of the tortoise and the hare as Jesse said and the tortoise always wins in that story!
OK, so that was a different take from our usual format, which I hope you enjoyed. I am desperately trying to get my next series ready to share with you, there is much still to do there, but keep listening and I shall do my best to share meaningful content each and every week on the podcast. As usual, the show notes will be over at the website www.thepropertyvoice.net
But for now, all I want to say is thank you very much for listening once again this week and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…it’s ciao ciao.