We switch gears a little after our last series. Let’s start us off with a conversation I had with Matt Baker, who wrote the book Next Level Landlord. He is also a business founder, trainer, developer and potential most impressively, also a musician, with a penchant for South American music.
Matt and his co-hosts, Niall and Jo, over at The Property Jam Podcast were kind enough to extend an invitation for me to join them recently. This time it was my turn to play host and pose the questions to Matt.
Listen as we dig into what it takes to get into the top 5% of rental properties and shared living properties in particular.
We will touch on space, community and service as the Big 3 elements to focus in on.
If you listen very carefully, he will tell you how you can your mitts on a copy of his book for free, so what’s not to like?
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Transcription of the show
We switch gears a little after our last series. Let’s start us off with a conversation I had with Matt Baker, who wrote the book Next Level Landlord. He is also a business founder, trainer, developer and potential most impressively, also a musician, with a penchant for South American music.
Matt and his co-hosts, Niall and Jo, over at The Property Jam Podcast were kind enough to extend an invitation for me to join them recently. This time it was my turn to play host and pose the questions to Matt.
Listen as we dig into what it takes to get into the top 5% of rental properties and shared living properties in particular.
We will touch on space, community and service as the Big 3 elements to focus in on.
If you listen very carefully, he will tell you how you can your mitts on a copy of his book for free, so what’s not to like?
Property Chatter
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.
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 today. Well, I'm gonna do something a little bit different now. I've got Matt Baker with me, Matt. Hi, first of all, how are you?
I'm very well, thank you, Richard, thanks for having me
on. You're more than welcome. And we're gonna do a little bit of a Tables turn sort of thing here because Matt and your colleagues from the property jam podcast actually invited me to speak on your podcast. We'll talk about that in a second. So that's how we got to know each other. And I thought I'd return the compliment a little bit in by inviting you to talk to our audience. So a little bit of audience crossover. And but maybe before we get too far into that, maybe if you wouldn't mind, just a quick intro about yourself. Quick, you know, elevator pitch, if you like about some of the things you get into, and maybe we'll just pick up the link of how we got to know each other, and then we'll have a conversation after that.
It's okay. Yeah, sounds like a plan. So my name is Matt Baker. I wear three hats. Generally, one, I'm a developer. First and foremost, under Scott Baker properties, we develop generally HMOs and CO living spaces. And, but we also do things like commercial versions to flats that also hold some commercial property as well. My second hat is as a mentor, trainer, coach mastermind host, we have the business called virtual platform, which is designed to be a professional services, but also somewhere where people are inspired to then go and deliver HMOs and CO living spaces for themselves. So and that's working really well today. Over the last couple of years, we've done over the last year, we've done almost 12 million pounds worth of deals, or close to almost 12 million pounds worth of deals, which is awesome in a pandemic. And then our third hat is or whether that is as the managing agent as well, which are they something which you're very, very heavily into now. And so yeah, CO home is our sort of CO living kind of management agency, which is very kind of early days started this year. And the idea behind that was we wanted to manage our own portfolio well, and now is looking at that now we're working with some other landlords as well to deliver co-living in a few different places throughout the UK.
Thanks very much for that intro, a man of many hats, and a bit like myself, to be fair, and there's one you didn't mention. And these you know, I think we're fellow knowledge shares, as well. That that probably takes us back at least to talking about your, your podcast, and the audience can't see this, but I can behind you is also a publication which we should talk about. So if you want to just sort of talk a little bit maybe about how we got to meet and what, you know, what, what the outputs of that is to start us off with property jam. And then you know, maybe what's behind you, it'd be really interesting.
Yes, so we, I host a podcast called property jam with my business partner. Now Scotland's got like properties, and also one of our really good friends Jay life. It's who we all kind of started property at the same time, about six years ago. And we all did the same property education course. So we all met on that and became friends in Ireland, I started working together, Joe and I used to host a networking event together in London. So we become really good friends. And the podcast was really great way of us coming together. And just talking about what we used to talk about, which is the human side of property. And so essentially, we used to get together and say, Oh, this has happened. So this is going on and have a bit of a celebration, a bit of a moan, and generally every bottle of wine, so then we decided, let's put a microphone in front of it, and have a good time. And then the pandemic kit and we thought, well, we can't meet a person. So let's start recording over zoom. And let's get some guests in let's start broadening the conversation and say, you know, we should you checked out the property voice podcasts are rich, it'd be great to invite on and thankfully you said yes. So we met and we had that conversation a week or so ago. And that episode will be out on the eighth of November. So I believe in a few days after this one gets released.
Perfect and I actually really, really enjoyed that conversation. It was a lot of fun. You know, you'd have different personalities and character and you know, that came over you know very much in our in our conversation. So thanks for inviting me on and we appreciate it. And
yeah, maybe linked to the podcasts that's coming out on Monday and vice versa.
Yep. Yeah, no, we'll do that as shownotes. We'll probably have to do after your vet effect. I don't know, I can't get my words out. We'll probably have to do it at the end. Yeah, we'll put links to the various podcasts in the show notes. I'm sure. We will have my end sounds like you probably want it you're in. But that'd be great. And cross fertilization between the audiences. So the human side of prophecy, I really enjoyed the conversation. I think it's really good concept. So any property voice listeners out there, if you haven't found it already, you know, go and check out property jam. It was very good, because some interesting little spins as well literally spins, by the way. I think one of them was, you know, some little audit and guest participation and, you know, different kind of gamifying podcasting to some extent.
Yeah, I think the idea is, well, our tagline is that this podcast is not meant to be informative or educational, and has the potential to be completely irrelevant. So the whole idea of that is, we're aiming to, to, to educate, through story through, we're not well, we're not aiming to educate, we are aiming to educate in the same way. So it's through stories and people having you know, real experiences and hearing from real people about what it's really like to be an investor to be a landlord to get into property. Yeah. And our listenership, it ranges from people who are just getting into it to people who are highly experienced, and then they're just kind of nodding along going. Yep. Yeah. And they say, it is good fun.
No, no. So eight to November and check out that that's me on the other side of the mic. It's good fun. So thanks for that. And good luck, obviously, with the ongoing podcast. So I think you're a couple years old already. So that's,
we are we just had our second anniversary a few weeks ago. So in fact, we had our highest listens, that relationship ever, on our second-anniversary episode, which was great. So it's really exciting to see that things are going well on that front as well.
Good. All right. So check it out. And then I can't help but notice you've got something behind you.
Yes, you mentioned the book. So those of you, you can't see this, as Richard said, but I've got my own little kind of mini studio setup at home, which kind of the Zoom studio. And I have, I do have a few books, just to remind people that they can go and get one. But essentially, this is called next level landlord. And the whole idea behind this was when we started to think about how we could grow as a developer, and what we were trying to achieve as a developer, it was to create great quality shared homes and CO living homes, because no maybe come on to what I mean by caregiving a bit later. But when you go and create co-living style accommodation, it becomes a lot easier to manage, you get you have less issues with it. And people stay a lot longer in these types of properties. So it makes commercial sense, and also is a much better experience, the living experience for those that are moving to move into those style properties. So the whole idea of getting more of this into the marketplace was, I think, because the market deserved it. And because HMOs generally have a really bad rap. And that's probably quite right, because a lot of them off was pretty bad. So it's about having a kind of a bit of a criticism, some momentum of change in the marketplace. We can't do it alone. So we thought, well, how are we going to get other people to do that we need to share knowledge about how we're doing it. So we started the actual platform to help others to get into that market. But also, we also thought, well actually, let's refine the methodologies that we use, and put it into an easy, succinct way. So I created our tenant first methodology, and then wrote it down in a book, which is called next level landlord, which is that aspiration that I think every person who wants to be a landlord should aspire to. So that's it. And then the book focuses on how to create HMOs anchor living spaces that get you into that top 5% of your marketplace, and which is where if you can get your top 5% And stay in the top 5% Then you will have a business which will last the test of time.
Really interesting. Well, thanks for the explanation on the book. And how's it going? The book sales in the weather is going well.
Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah, it's good. I'm getting loads, loads, feedback, literally good feedback, should I say? And it was a number one bestseller on Amazon when we launched it back in March 21. And yeah, I just yeah, we. Yes, available through Amazon and other booksellers. But also, I'm very happy to send a copy in the pace to anyone, any of you For listeners that want to get in touch, because I think it's important to get the knowledge out there. It's not necessarily about book sales. For me, it's more about getting the book into the hands of as many people that can have an influence in this market as, as we can.
So that's very generous of you, you probably going to get a few people reaching out to you, as a result of that. So well done. And my I'm also an author, you probably spotted a couple of books, which were also Amazon bestsellers. But the third one, negotiations do. But the third one, which is imminent, is the complete guide to property finance, and blood blood blood. What I decided to do there was pay it forward. So people in my case, if you bought the book, if you buy that book, rather, if you decide to donate it to someone else, I will then replace it with a at least a PDF version. So similar role, I'm trying to say doing it a different way, but similar values, insofar as getting the word out and trying to share knowledge, and you know, perhaps, up the standards a bit. So if that's my interpretation of that, yeah, visually, definitely. So I should ask you now then, if people want the book, how would they best connect with you to ask for it.
So the best way is to actually we could do is go in ahead into our Facebook community. It's called Let's Talk HMOs. So if you had to face which type, and let's talk HMOs, and then request to join, and then once you're in there, you can send me a message, or one of our team and message and then we can just pop it in the post. Sounds great. Well, very generous as the same. So look out for that. Let's, let's talk X HMOs. Let's talk HMOs.
Gosh, got it. Right. Cool. All right. So that's the book. But I think equally, and you said a couple of times now before we came on. And now you also talked about getting into the top 5%. And, you know, we're talking predominately shared living, have some description here, right? Because I was talking about getting sub 25%, the top quartile, but you're actually putting it right into the top 5%. So I mean, three intrigued as to what might make the difference between, say, top 25% In my world and top 5% in your world. So what do you think needs to happen to get into the top 5% Generally speaking?
Well, when you kind of get the book, you'll see there's a there's a graph which we've created, which essentially shows where the kind of the magic happens in profitability. And a really good analogy, which I was talking about in the book is about the difference between personal computers and, and the evolution of the iMac. So if we go back to 1998, around that time, all computers were made equal, you had all these manufacturers like Hewlett Packard, Dell, these guys making a personal computer, which all look the same, it was the kind of the beige box of computers. And they'll quite complicated you have to use like MS DOS to code in them. And because all these computers do exactly the same thing, then the only point of difference was the price. So the price will come down, down, down and profit margins are just being squeezed. And then outcomes Steve Jobs in 1998 with something very, very different, which is the iMac G three. And the iMac G three was the first kind of major kind of breakthrough products, which starts to separate apple from the rest of the marketplace. And in the computer, which is all in one box. It's colorful, it was colorful, that kind of that that that's that's kind of colorful perspex see through case. And it turned on and had a really easy to use graphical user interface. So and because of that, it was different. It wasn't called a computer anymore. It was called an iMac, it was called a it was a brand in its own right. So they created their own marketplace. And because of that, then sales of those into English skyrocketed and their profit margins were up beyond 20%. So essentially be the top 5% is to be the iMac of your who marketplace and that's essentially where the coliving HMO or what we call the next level HMO sits. And there are three key parts to that. Because some people get really confused. I think co-living is just a really nice looking HMI. It's not good. That's just a really nice looking HMI code. Everything happens when you have a group of people who get on well living in a property and is in order to get that you need to deliver a good with generally needs deliver a good level of service to the property. So from our perspective, Next Level HMO gets you into the top 5% of design the top 5% of space and the top 5% of service. So and you can probably get away with without The design as long as you've got some space and some service, and you probably still going to rent really, really well, the design is actually the icing on the cake, which really captivates and gets people into your house. Because design fades over time design can be of the of the time today can be a trend could be on trend in five years time, the whole place needs redoing, because you didn't think about I want this house for 20 years, not just for two years. So that really great rent you get now you have to spend reinvest, and probably do a lot more work than you would if you just designed it for for the long term. So that's essentially what I mean by top 5%. Space design service.
Yeah, and we haven't even got into sort of CO living full review that we've had, you know, that's next level, and I guess co living is another level, again, presumably,
with CO living is that this is kind of my definition of CO living is the space design on the surface. So co living is how would you deliver that service, I would say that, actually, I'll start that again. So the confusion between HMOs and kind of incomes, because people think they just have that they're only thinking about the asset itself, that they've got the property. And CO living can only happen when you've got people living in the property. So it can only really happen through the management of the property. Reality. So the CO living is sort of the HMO is the thing, the CO living is that the wrapper that goes around it that makes it work really, really well. And so from our perspective, like coliving, you're helping them to form those relationships through putting on maybe some events or helping them to put on events, you have community facilitation, you're, it's not just about somebody moving in, you help them move in with a really nice that I did a really nice slick process, they apply for a room, they take the room and they move in. And that's the agent's job done. That's not coding, as a coder of an operator, you're thinking about every single touch point, from the moment they first see your business to the moment they move out of your business. So when they move out, you want them to be shouting about what you're doing, essentially finding one of their mates to move in. And that's, that's where you want to be going as a cutting operator. And that's what we do at Kohane, which is the one of the hats that I wear. And those are the types of things we implement in the properties that we manage. So So yeah, I think co living is about how we can form meaningful relationships within properties.
Yeah, so meaningful relationships, or the community element is definitely one of the distinguishing elements of CO living versus, but basic shared living HMOs, I think, and that probably partly, partly explains my 25% and your 5%. Because I think you can still have a really good shared living experience in the top 25%, which doesn't necessarily have that, you know, manager LED or operator led community experience, that some houses naturally do it. Right, they made the club together, and, you know, get house, for example, or students, you know, and, you know, we know what goes on there. And, you know, so I think it can be, you know, led by the meant by the occupants or residents, attendants, the members, were maybe talking about that distinction in your service piece. But I think in terms of community, you know, if you you're facilitating that, that would differentiate between, you know, an everyday shared living, you know, house, let's say, or accommodation, and maybe co living? That's,
yeah, no, definitely, I think so. And I think it's as you get, like, further up that percentage, so that percentile to recall that five to 10%. And I think that 5% is it's, you know, when you when you're 5%, because you're even just let like that, yeah, and added premium, presumably, and that's a premium. That a 5%, I think is expanding to be called five to 10%. And I would say, but there's still not enough of that of this type of combination the marketplace to really warrant it. So the five percents good place to be right now, because we are getting a bit of a premium. And when you start to slip down to the day of 75%, below 75%, that's when you get into that highly commoditized marketplace, where as an HMO landlord, you're always going to be fighting on price. So your price is only ever going to go, it's going to be is going to remain a lot more static or go down as the quality of your HMO goes down in the grand scheme of the market. So the only way to retain that is to continue to reinvest in the property. So doing things like proactive maintenance to make sure that the properties stay in a really good neck. And to do some of these things like community facilitation, say that people actually love living in one of your properties.
And I want to extend it into the service Angular second, probably should talk about space as well. But I think what really just to go back to your analogy with the, with the, with the Apple analogy, of course, you know, we're moving from a commodity to an ish, you know, with a premium and, you know, differentiating on a number of different levels, and that you perfectly painted that picture. And I think if you look now, I mean, Apple are a trillion dollar company. And I think yesterday, I heard that Tesla made that list as well. But I think that six of them five or six of them, that doesn't include Dell doesn't include Hewlett Packard, doesn't include the box, you know, manufacturers that you kind of alluded to. So that in itself, you know, demonstrates the value potentially, of getting up into that upper, you know, 5%, as you call it, five to 10%, maybe of the market. So, think just reference that point, if anybody ever wanted evidence. And, of course, the other thing is, you know, probably is it wanting 10? I don't know what it is, is it wanting 10, you know, people buy a Mac versus a PC. So it's still, you know, 10% range versus the mass market. But pretty much everyone who owns a Mac have raving fans. And, you know, they really tell you how fantastic it is. Sometimes not that sickening, how a raving fan like they are, but is that sort of where you're headed with this type of, you know, ethos and thinking,
Well, if you're thinking about the tenant in mind, our methodology is tenant first, and I'm using that term tenant, because it's the it's the term that the majority of the market now, it's not the term that we use in our business, but the tenant first methodology, if you put the tenant first, then you've got a business model, that surely is going to work. Because in any other business, you find a problem. And then you solve that problem, and you charge a fee to solve that problem. Then think about housing is it everybody needs housing, so everyone's got that problem. But which means that you can do it badly or do it well, and you can still get paid for it. So I think it's about knowing that we are providing a service. People say things like, Oh, the actual market is saturated. It's really hard. It's really difficult. It's like, okay, yeah, people can have that view if they want. But actually, the Deutsche Mark has got so much potential. As a growing market, there's so much evidence just in the last year that's come out to show that it's a growing market that's got so much potential that yeah, the marketplace for good quality is growing. People are more discerning a lot of data showed that we do an annual survey called the shared living survey, we did one in the middle of lockdown. And the results coming out shortly that shows that people are looking for more of what have more kind of CO living style accommodation.
Your question was, well, you've answered it. What is the market serving? And you know, is the discerning and I'm going to ask you, by the way, what do you call a tenant in your business? What do you call a tenant in your business?
Is that the question? Yeah, it's, we call them housemates.
housemates. Yeah. So it wasn't the question, but it was a question. And so your housemates there, you know, the top five 10% are more discerning. And they're more selective. And they, you know, they want to have certain different expectations, but equally, they're prepared to pay for it. In the most part.
So interesting. Interesting on that point. Now, the average salary I think, is what about 30,000 pounds now. And if you think about what, as a landlord, and someone who would maybe reference customers, tenants, you're looking at maybe like a 40%, two of what they spend on housing is probably about a, you wouldn't want to spend any more than that, because they don't have any cash left over, it's about 40%. And below is where you want to be. So if you look at the average salary being 30,000 pounds, and you know, the average age of CO living tenants now is going up about 28. Which means that they're more likely to be on average salaries, close to 30,000 pounds, which means actually, if you break that down, a co living room, on average, can quite easily get to about 800 pounds per month. As long as it's and that's, that's nationwide, because that's the national average. So, obviously, there will be nuances. And, you know, I think there are some markets where it's difficult to breach that 500 That is difficult to breach that 600 And you start to see it happening with these types of properties. But I think, while the average is around about 30,000 pounds, I reckon 800 pounds a month for a room is where it could quite easily get to.
Yeah, well, we've got a business in London called capital living, which is a flavor of CO living. And room rents are above 1000 pounds, you know, some of them above 1200 You know, and there's some above average salary there as well. So evidence, your, your point as well, in reality, I think, but let's just sort of dwell on a second. So the other bit is service. Right? So what are these discerning housemates expect? And what do they get, you know, in the next level landlord type of service.
So there's a method that I've kind of put together to kind of make it easy to kind of follow a color coding approach. And because there's eight kind of elements to it, and say, for example, one of them would be about how we nurture relationships. And that's all about how we communicate with our customers. So you want to you don't want to be just moving them in and then not talking to them for six months. It's about providing them with information about what's going on. And, you know, asking them how they're doing. Say there's nurturing relationships, and also listening to feedback, because any other business, a good business will always ask for feedback, how's it going? And they would it by listening to feedback, you can grow, you can evolve. And you might find that the poker night that you put on the other night was just a dead flop, if you pardon the pun. And so I just came to me. So it was a flop. And then you go, Okay, that didn't work. Why don't you suggest? So you can ask them? What types of events do you like to do? Would you like to be put on, you know, we have a budget. And you can spend that budget, however you want to, and you can run events yourselves or we can put something on foot, you say, asking those kinds of questions. And actually, that's the other one is G, G, for gatherings, co living approach spells, co living, funnily enough, G for gatherings is all about how to form meaningful relationships, because you do that through people meeting. And we're the best way to actually over food. So a really simple tip for anyone who manages HMOs, or got even got an HMO manager in place, just tell your manager, the next time someone moves in, please just send them, you know, five, six pizzas, and tell them all to go and eat together and meet their new housemate. So as a landlord, you can just do that no skin off your nose. And if that means that the new person is feels welcomed into the house, and they actually get on with the future housemates, which hopefully that would have had you that would have been thought about by the person letting the room is getting people to you know, housemate compatibility is a really important thing that should hopefully we should have been thought about. By putting those people together, if that means a friendship starts to form, that person, instead of moving out after six months, then moves out after nine months or after 12 months because of those relationships, then you've just saved yourself a lot of money, and avoid in relating fees in, in maybe having to repaint the room or get it redirected ready for letting say that 30 quid that you spend on some pizzas, I think is a gesture of goodwill. Plus, it gets them on gets them on side for if anything goes wrong, then you need to and to fix something. But also means that they're more likely to stay longer.
Sounds good. It's gonna ask you about technology, but maybe not now. Because I think I just want to get your quick view on space, because I'm also worried about our timings. So, you know, space, just quickly, what does that mean in your model?
So space is about not going barely that say you might have, for example, take a property and thinking about maybe an HMO landlord doing their first few properties. And they might go, okay, I can get six rooms out of this. But they're all going to be six and half, seven square meters. I'll go okay, I've questioned that logic and go right, so you can get a 16 ounce bit but really, do you really want to so you might be looking at those rent to go yeah, she that's really nice number. Okay, so how many voids you're gonna have in a six bed HMO way, you've got the bare minimum of space and amenity in there? Would it be better to do an epic five bed habit full most of the time, and provide a much better service to five people rather than a maybe less of a service for six. And pretty much nine times out of 10. When you run the numbers long term, that epic five bed always wins out profitability wise over the compromised six bit. So space is about maximizing what you can do in a building, which is what HMOs essentially are. But doing it in a way which doesn't compromise the quality of products. And also that you don't have to redo it in three years when you suddenly realize actually, I should have just done five, not six, and in fact five there's really worked really well that six bedroom just gets turned into something else now. I'm gonna have to make it into a study room. It becomes an afterthought say think about with a longer view, and it's something I'm seeing quite a lot at the moment is that a lot of people are just not investing. They're wanting to invest, but they're not investing because they're saying, it's just too expensive. I'm putting this together and get all the return, I'm only getting no money hitting like a 14 15% return where I want a 25% return so and it's just not doing deals. And the people saying I'm going to invest when the market corrects itself, because we're in a bubble, and we're going to correct yourself. If you look at the evidence, we're not in a bubble, we're actually where we're supposed to be. And in fact, we're going up quite quickly at the moment. And unless there's some outside force, which is going to bring us down for a bit, the pressure dramatically is up, because we've massively below that moving average. So what you think is quite expensive today, next year, you're going to be saying, I wish I bought it at 250. Because I have to buy 303 50. Now, these property prices are moving at quite a gallop. So it's something that I'm seeing quite a lot of people not taking action, not buying property for stuff. Whereas actually, you could get into the market now and go okay, I'm happy with my 14 15% return today. Because Mark is moving into three years time I can refinance that, and I have a 50% return. So my average return is more than I was going for on day one. So it comes back to this idea of taking the longer view rather than just that short term. Because it is better to get into the market and have some assets, desire appreciating right now in value and get the cash flow.
Well, you know, you're a lot of things I can say that I mean, basically. So it's counterintuitive, isn't it? Because you know, you the logic says the obvious logic says six basic no more than five beds, for example, that in your example, but if you're getting 800 a month on your five bed versus say 600 on your five bed, sorry, wrong way round. 885 Bed versus 686 bed, you probably find those numbers work out, you know, pretty compellingly in your favor. So that's one exam. Do you ever worry about taking action? You know, everyone who's been doing forecasts and predictions over the last few years has pretty much got it wrong. That's why I don't do forecasts and predictions by the way. But literally today read the Zoopla report. And they're saying we predict this is super, we predict 3% house price growth on average next year. This is the back of 6.6% in the last year. And one of the lines in their report says our forecast was wrong last year, by the way. So but the point is, it's still as you say the prices are going up. So if you don't get on that ladder, it's going to be difficult to get on late. It's like an escalator and even if it eases off, and there's a there are black swan events, it's been proven in history, but timing those and waiting for them, you could miss out on a whole load of rental income in the meantime. So
yeah, I actually did some I did this in a webinar recently. And just by waiting one year, if you waited a year ago, today, you'd be down about 45,000 pounds, which is capital appreciation plus rent for the year. Say, It's anyone's thinking, Oh, my criteria is not quite right, I can't find these deals. Maybe just have a rethink, tweak the model, and maybe look at buying some existing stock, which is cash flowing today and go, Okay, I'll take a 12% return as long as I have to work to it for two years. And that will work for me now. And then I can I can start that asset later. So by existing HMOs is a potential really great thing to do right now. Because demand is through the roof, and then you can turn them into next-level HMOs. Later, you know, as long as you can hit that you get the good service. And then I think I think it's good for anything with buying using HMOs that you end up with a tenants that you haven't necessarily vetted yourself to. There's always a learning curve there. But this potentially good strategy.
Well take the long view again, as you said, so you know, maybe you've got a six to 12 months to churn that existing tenant tenancy occupation level. Certainly things we could talk about a little bit conscious of our time together. We booked can't help but mention fielding financial because I think Am I right, I think is that where you three, yourself nine and Joe all kind of met if you like,
correct? Yeah, we did. So we did the training with building financial back in 2015. And that was kind of the spark that got us going because before that I was a musician as a piano player. And freelance piano player and piano teacher how to add a music school. Now I was in financial services. Joe's work in the university sector, higher education. So we're all massively different backgrounds and then we all kind of came together and we met through that training. And I think when you that the people that are listening to this, or in the property industry know that the industry is actually quite a supportive one. Everyone gets on, it's quite quiet. You can pretty much have a chat with anyone and people are very, very helpful as a rule and That's what we found through doing filming financially kind of, as in Gilfillan words kind of lit our spark for property. And then we kind of went and kind of grew from, from that point on, and it's just that got us started, did some other work with some other coaches, like Andy and Lloyd from whitebox, worked with them quite a bit, and some others, some good ones, but also some ones, which I won't mention now, which were not particularly great. So when we set up the HMO platform as our kind of niche, next HMO, coaching and training business, we knew exactly what we wanted it not to be. So which is why we can pretty much say we've got the next 100, almost 100% success rate with with with our clients on getting deals and the year they spend with us, which is amazing. I was so proud of the guys.
Sounds good. I couldn't help but mention that a job as a former guests on this podcast, really enjoyed talking to her. She's fascinating story, I think, tried a couple of times to connect with her training. So that's why I mentioned it got real soft spot for her like her. So if you come through that stable, then I think you're still participating in that stable then.
Yeah, no, I'm still still part of that network. Because there's a really, really great people that can come through there in jail, I think is like the mother of property education anyway, she kind of started it back in the 90s or 2000s. Say? Yeah, she's very much been there, done that and kind of has seen weathered all the storms. So yeah, so having led from the very beginning, I think was very, very valuable.
Great stuff. Well, I could talk to you for a lot longer a lot more actually, Matt, but I know we've restricted on size. So if it's possible to get to some questions, right? Fairly, hopefully, fairly easy. You can ask them in whichever order you want. One of them is going to be and I think you possibly answered earlier, but where can people find you connections, that sort of thing. So just think about that signposting person to learn more about you and you know, your colleagues, for example. And then the maybe the first question is, what be a parting thought, you know, to our guests, right? That you might have, I'm trying to extend the converse the question, so you can think about the answer. The know, what, what did you wish you knew? What regret did you have? Or what you know, what sort of piece of advice might you depart? leave us with today? That would be really cool. And you can answer whichever question you want. First, if you need more time to think about one of them,
okay, well, well, I've got the answer to both. So if people want to reach out and connect with me, I'm on social media, my handles clearly Matt Baker. And, or they can join our community online, which is Facebook, let's talk HMOs is our community, on their alternative, you can head over to a website's HR platform located at UK would be probably the main one. And then, in terms of my parting thoughts, we've talked a lot about HMOs and income strategies. And we work a lot with investors. And the one thing that I would have told myself at the beginning, if I were starting again, is start flipping properties sooner. Because working with other people's money, you're looking at, we talked about some of these returns, at the moment having to be between 12 and 15%, potentially 20%. On deals, and maybe having to squeeze what you're doing, you still want to get into the marketplace. So if you're working with investors, you've got capital in there. So how do you release it? So when you're having to get in there? How do you release it? Do you have a five year view of one year view or a 10 year view? So we've been investing for six years, and one thing I would have said to myself earlier is start flipping earlier, because it brings lump sums of capital, which are really, really helpful, really helpful at times when, when cash can be life. So that would be one piece of advice going come first. But don't wait for those capital projects. You know, say I'd probably say a couple of years of income related project because a great place to start and then start bringing in flips, because that can start paying off investors or people you've got in your business joint venture partners. When some of those deals maybe don't hit or the cash you want out of them? Or maybe they're not designed to say well, yeah, just think about that as well. Capital is great, especially in the market right now. Great to do capital projects, because you're gonna appreciate the projects appreciate from the moment you buy them, maybe get your offer accepted, etc, essentially,
the so called capital event, you know, you can release capital on the way and you know, allow you know, it's just not income forever, I think is Lisa on another guest of the show. She was just purely rental rental rental rental buy and hold, you know, that was her vision her but she changed things on the way and she had someone like you probably suggest to her that maybe she could release some capital from some of these. She never really considered it and then she started doing some of that necessarily all of them. But you know, Stein's releasing capital saying that's a really really good piece of advice. So Take Take some capital along the way, take the wins and builds up the war chest or you know the walls defensive line you want, and also allows you to be more opportunistic and in certain situations, so that's my take on it. I share your view. Man, I'd love to talk to you more. I really appreciate you joining me today. No, we've got a time limit. So I'm just going to say thanks so much for joining me today on the podcast. Thank you.
you for having me. You're more than welcome.
And I'll just do my quick wrap up and then we'll close so thanks, everyone, for listening. Once again, this week on the property voice podcast, you can find the show notes over at the website, the property voice.net. And we'll put those links in we talked about some of the social media tags as long as I can remember them. And if you want to talk to me podcast thepropertyvoice.net If you want to talk to Matt, you've got his contact details or I can introduce you if you want to reach out for me. And but I guess all that remains to be said is thanks very much for listening once again this week. And until next time on the property boys podcast is Jojo.
Thank you for listening today. Now 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.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai