In today's episode we are joined by Simon Zutshi who has been investing in the property market since 2003, and an author of one of the best selling property books "Property Magic". Make sure to tune in to find out his predictions for the property market due to lockdown restrictions easing, and for the market in general.
Lockdown restrictions are now easing and as a result, there are changes happening in the property market. Simon Zutshi is the founder of Property Investors Network (PIN), one of the largest property training and networking companies in the UK, and an author of one of the best selling property books ‘Property Magic’. He’s been investing since 2003 and has helped hundreds of people become financially independent from property. Tune in to this week’s episode to learn more about the current state of the property market and the predictions for the future.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
>> REGISTER: How to replace your salary with just 3 HMO properties, Free Webinar
>> Property Investor Network Meetings
>> Simon Zutshi Property Magic Podcast
>> JOIN THE WEALTHBUILDERS ACADEMY - CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE
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Unknown Speaker 0:01 The purpose of wealth talk is to educate, inform, and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth builders recommends you should always take independent financial tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances.
Christian Rodwell 0:19
Welcome to Episode 102 of wealth talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for wealth builders. And I'm joined today by Mr. Kevin Whelan. I founder how I Kevin? Hello, Chris, you
Unknown Speaker 0:29
changed the order a little bit.
Christian Rodwell 0:31
I'd like to mix it up bit of variation as we move into our next phase. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 0:38
you folks me a little bit there. But again, you know, we did have a little bit of a get together, didn't we? Earlier this week for a little little game of golf on a day that looked like it was snowing. And then the sun came out and and Bade us beautifully and we had a fantastic time. Just shame about your golf course. Really.
Christian Rodwell 0:55
I four actually played pretty good. I'm seeing some progress at last. Now it was good. It was really good. We we had some strategy in the office with with Paul Brooks. So SAS director and then Yep, out on the green in the afternoon. Very nice way to start the way it
Unknown Speaker 1:11
was indeed. Yeah.
Christian Rodwell 1:13
So today, we are inviting good good friend wealth builders, Mr. Simon azuchi. To to I guess to come back and share again his his views on the market. And it was, as you hear, you know, back in 2019, September when we lost invited Simon and of course we don't need to say all the stuff that's happened in between.
Unknown Speaker 1:34
Now with that was, if I remember rightly, that was up at the the gherkin. I think in central London, wasn't it? We had a little cup of tea and I think you just interviewed some and I having a chinwag. And that was, but yeah, but the pool crumbs. You know, so much has changed since then. for all sorts of reasons. And, you know, good news for him. He said, good bit good news on a personal front, hasn't he and news from a business angle. And, you know, I would count Simon is, you know, one of those rare people. He's a friend, he's got incredible integrity. He's a friend of wealth builders, too. And I'm also pleased to say client, you know, he's worked with me before. And I'm always delighted to chat with him. And we have regular conversations. While most of the time, Chris, he does get it right. On this time,
Christian Rodwell 2:30
he got it wrong to me. Well, yes. And we'll hear more about that in a moment from Simon, of course. But I mean, I'm, I'm guessing most people listening right now that you've probably heard of Simon. However, he is the founder of the property investor network. So one of the largest UK property training and networking companies in the UK, and that was established back in 2003. He's also the author of property magic, which is always up there on Amazon as one of the best selling property books and and packed full of information, we often hand out copies and point people in that direction,
Unknown Speaker 3:04
though we have it we're doing do yeah, definitely, definitely an organization that we like, and we resonate with him and his values. And of course, there are many other training organizations in this country and others, but check, check any kind of training out to see who you resonate with, and definitely we resonate with, with Simon here at wealth builders.
Christian Rodwell 3:24
Okay, so let's not wait around. Let's head on over to our conversation today with Mr. Simon Suchi. Simon, welcome back to wealth talk today.
Unknown Speaker 3:32
Thank you, Christian. Really good to be back.
Christian Rodwell 3:34
It's good, isn't it? Well, I was looking back and it was wealth talk. 27. Back in September 2019. When you go, Wow, we were with Kevin, we were in London, we have the backdrop there. And wow, what a lot has been going on since then.
Unknown Speaker 3:49
Well, the world has changed. Who would have thought that the world could change and so many things could happen since between that an hour
Christian Rodwell 3:55
Exactly. And a few extra things have happened for you as well. Simon recently, I think, which would be pretty big life
Unknown Speaker 4:01
changes. So I got married, which is pretty good. We're thinking about getting married last year, and then obviously COVID hits and then my partner nav is my wife now she she was kind of speaking to the branch office to find out what when we get back because you don't do with offices, and not kind of wedding I'd really planned. But then she came in one day and I've got to take a connotates awareness and she gave me the date. I said I can't do that. I've got more swatches and I know we're doing that. So we had to juggle things around a bit and it was a it was a very quick in and out. You know you can't hang around is only four people. So we're gonna have a big Indian wedding, probably next year on the anniversary just to have a proper proper celebration. But yeah, that's that was that was really good.
Christian Rodwell 4:43
Yeah, congratulations on that. And then the other big big news is of course, the evolution of pain. Now, just before we you know, you share the big news, when you started paying back in 2003 Simon, did you ever imagine Then that kind of 18 years later, you'd be in a position to sell, you know, for eight figures. And, you know, we talked about starting with the end in mind. But did you ever envisage anything like that? No,
Unknown Speaker 5:13
I didn't. To be honest, I set the meeting up for very personal self interest really in the I don't Okay, in property by now, I've been investing for about eight years I've mentioned leave my full time job at Cadbury's. But you know what, I also made lots of mistakes. And I was starting to invest in myself a couple of years before I learned all about the importance of environment, again, like minded people around you. And I kind of realized that although I'd done quite well, I probably would have been much better if I had like minded people around me. So I could learn from them. Because none of my friends were investing, they were all still working. No, my family, we invested apart from their own homes, and I really want to get that kind of community. And I was going to breakfast that work meetings for business where I was really great solicitor mortgage broker countered every need of my property business. But none of them actually owned investment property, they had their own homes, but they didn't really understand what I was going through. And I wanted to, and I can be quite lonely investing in property, especially with family and friends don't really get it. So I went online, and there was nothing available. So that's why I started the very first networking in the UK 14 are kind of the pioneer of it, really. So it's, it's great. 18 years later, that's kind of been recognized, and someone's come along and seeing the value, and they're buying the business for the intent of actually growing it all around the world. So I'm still staying on a CEO for probably three years might be a bit longer, who knows. And it's gonna be really exciting to take it to the next level. So yeah, it's very exciting. But it's, it's it's pretty nice. Pretty nice. rewarding.
Christian Rodwell 6:41
Yeah, no, well done for that. And it's obviously a mutual friend of ours, Roger Hamilton. And, and the genius group. Of course, we talk about wealth dynamics all the time, all of our members, take the wealth dynamics assessment, as do members of pin mark. Yes, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 6:54
That's why it's such a powerful tool and very eye opening, I think, really, and, and it's great. I've been working with Voyager for probably about 10 years properly. I've known about 14 years. And we're very aligned, what trying to do, and he's like me, he's off the chart creator. And it's got a great business there. And it's great to be a part of a, an IPO. So it's been launched on the New York Stock Exchange as part of this roll up, which is also really exciting. I have one my one regret is because a COVID. I'm not allowed to go to America, because actually, you get to ring the bell. Do the IPO that would be once a lifetime have to but I think I'm going to have to miss out on that, unfortunately. But that's why you can't have it. All right. Yeah. Well, look,
Christian Rodwell 7:37
we're here today to really look at the market. And, you know, maybe some predictions from assignment. We're at the start of 2021. We're coming out of lockdown now. And, you know, hopefully, the future is bright within the property market. So it'd be great to get your thoughts on this today. So where should we begin?
Unknown Speaker 7:54
Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk a little bit about the market in 2020, and 21, and maybe 22, as well. And I have to admit, first of all, Christian, I was wrong, because I thought that actually the end of 2020, based on what was going to happen, ie furlough ending in October 2020, I was pretty sure that we'd see the market dip at the end of 2020. But obviously, as we know, the government responded to the Bank of England prediction, because the Bank of England was saying they thought property prices would come down 16% in 2020, due to the COVID parent pandemic and the recession that happened as well. And the government obviously responded to that. And they introduced the stamp duty holiday, which was initially to end of March 2021. They extended furlough again to march april 2021. And that really propped up and stimulated the market, as well as all the money in the economy because of the bounce back loans. As simple as that's why we saw the boom. And then obviously, the budget that the Chancellor did in March 2021, extended the statute to holiday up to 500,000 for three months and up to 250 for six months, also then extended furlough to September 2021. So I think it's what I was saying might happen a year later. Because, you know, with the booming prices, after every boom is always a bust. I don't think it's gonna be as bad as, as we saw in 2007 2008. There were very different circumstances then. But I think prices are really high. And you know, although there's been this demand, it can't continue forever. So my gut feeling is at some point, price level certainly level off. I think they'll probably retract a little bit. But who knows what's going to happen, but it's interesting because sometimes people say, oh, should I buy now Should I wait? I have quite strong views on this. And my views are as long as you know what you're doing, and you do your due diligence, rather than trying to guess the market because to be honest, Chris, no one really knows we can guess and hope. I mean, the Bank of England for God's sakes who've got rooms for stats decisions on economists, they thought the market was going to come down 16%, which I thought was a pretty accurate guess, estimate whatever, they were wrong as well, because of the government intervention. So you never really know. And if you're waiting to buy until something happens, you might end up waiting a very, very long time. So I believe, if you follow the golden rules I talk about in property magic, Golden Rule number two is binding our strong rental demand golden number three, to make sure you make positive cash flow. And Goal number four of the five rules is, is make sure you buy for long term, if you follow those particular three rules, it doesn't really matter when you buy, you know, if you buy now, and then the market comes down a little bit, well, as long as you can rent it, and you're making cash flow and not paying to sell, you haven't lost any money. It's people who have to sell when the market comes down, they're the people who crystallize that loss. So as long as you can afford to hold long term, it doesn't really matter. It's about doing your numbers, doing your research as much as you can, making sure things stack up. buying properties such as HMOs can be much better cash flow with a much more kind of a buffer there in case in case that we have difficult times or interest rates go up. So you know, by educating yourself and and just taking action, property investing should always be seen as a long term investment. So don't really worry about short term fluctuations is my view. Yeah,
Christian Rodwell 11:22
yeah. Now, you know, Simon, we talk about seven pillars, right, the seven different ways that build wealth, and we're talking about the property pillar today, specifically, yes, within property, there's so many different strategies, and this can lead to overwhelm for people. So you know, what, what is? I mean, what are some of the strategies that you're seeing right now, which are working particularly well?
Unknown Speaker 11:44
Okay, so it's interesting. And, you know, I think things go in waves and trends. And we're seeing at the moment, right now, a lot of city center apartments are struggling to rent. Because a lot of people in society Actually, I don't really want to live in a small box, close to the city center, because if the city centers close, so last year, and philosopher months, we've seen a lot of people migrate out to more, I wouldn't say countryside, but certainly more rural areas, not such big metropolitan areas, where actually they've got a bit more space, people are preferring houses, they've got gardens rather than flats. And I'm, I'm actually renting a really very nice apartment environment while I'm waiting to buy something. But actually, my wife, she wants a dog, she wants a pet. And it's not really ideal in our first four flats. So we're looking for just a small house temporary, and trying to find something good on the market for rent, you know, there are a few things but they're just really not very good at all. anything good just goes like that. And so I think there's a really strong demand for houses at the moment. And actually, it'd be housing investing for 25 years, Chris, I've got houses, I've got apartments, I'm a single it's about multi let's, you know, my my personal belief is that apartments genuinely don't see as much capital growth, as you do with houses. So I think there's a couple of really big distinctions here. One is, I think houses freehold houses of property, generally better than leasehold apartments. apartments are very popular generally. And you know, they're nice in new low maintenance, etc. But I think houses have got more potential for growth. And obviously, you, you then don't have a service charge to pay the Freeholder as well, because of your lease. And so that's why I prefer houses, then within that, obviously, you could do single at properties. And I think that's where most people start, probably about 82% of properties are single it's and it's, it's a more basic introduction, a more advanced strategy is HMOs. And a lot of people think, Well, let me start with a few basic properties single, let's then go to HMOs. And I get that logic. But actually, once you educate yourself, you understand that an HMO although it is different from a single let you need to know certain things, it's not that much harder. So rather than tie your money up in a single net property that might make you I don't know, 100 pounds a month give you a 5% return on investment, which is still better than the bank actually won't put it into an HMO, which might give you 1000 pound profit a month or more, and might give you a 15 to 20%. return your vest. I know Kevin's very keen to talk about ROI return on investment in all of the pillars, and actually in property is great because you can really increase your ROI by using other people's money or primarily using a bank, you know, most investments, you can't borrow money to invest for a property because banks know that property is probably the best long term safest investment. They're very happy to lend. So straightaway, you can borrow someone else's money 75%. And then the 25% is where a lot of people get stuck. But that could also be someone else's money. As we know, it could be someone's money from a pension from a SAS, it could be you've got family members who've got money in the bank doing nothing. Maybe you inherited property, you could refinance that use that some of that so there are so many different ways to fund your deals. It just comes down to being creative and not accepting the beliefs that we may be growing up with. You know, people seem to think that having having debts bad well, anyone who's read Rich Dad, Poor Dad or one stand there's a difference between bad debt and good debt. And actually good debt is something where it's you buy an asset, you borrow money to buy an asset that's going to go up in value over time and give you cash flow. So an asset puts money into your pocket, and a liability takes money out of your pocket based on the Kiyosaki definition, which I completely buy into on. I know you do as well.
Christian Rodwell 15:32
Yeah, yeah. And so just touching on that point of like diversification there, Simon, I mean, obviously, the last 12 months with the situation we've been in, perhaps people who had all their eggs in one basket, and one example might be serviced accommodation, right, Airbnb, blu ray, it was hit very, very strongly. So you know, any, any words of advice there?
Unknown Speaker 15:52
Yeah, it's always worth, it's always worth diversifying. So I think you should diversify. So you might have some single at some HMO, some service combination. And it's always smart to make sure that if you can't use the property for one particular strategy, you can pivot and use it for something else. So for example, if you have serviced accommodation, which was very badly hit last year, because basically, it's usually for holidaymakers tourists. And also for corporate clients who might be working away from home, they don't want to live in a hotel. And they work they live there, you know, from Monday to Friday, go home with the weekends. And it was particularly hit when suddenly all the bookings, kind of died. But many of my clients when they pivoted, they changed the marketing. And some of them were marking them as isolation units. So people who were on frontline, and they didn't want to go home, and potentially take COVID-19 back to serve vulnerable family members, they needed units that were close to each other, again, people adjusted their prices down to make it affordable. But it's all about pivoting. And that's the value of being in a community in a group, if you're trying to do this on your own, and work it out on something like COVID hits, I mean, mass panic for most people, but if you're in a community, and you're learning from other people and seeing what they're doing, you don't have to figure it all out yourself, which is really important. And actually, you know, it was hit massively last year, but I think anyone who's got service combination, or still got it this year, I think we're gonna see a massive boom in the summer of 2021, as many people want to get out of home. And in fact, I don't know if you've tried to go in, but I've tried to book a few hotels for some time away, and everything is so expensive, even if they have any availability left. So these things go in cycles. And I think the important thing to remember is that as long as you can afford to hold the property, that's the key thing, you want to cover all the base costs and recognize that sometimes you will have ups and downs. And I completely agree diversifying, not only in the type report and maybe also in the geographic location, you don't have to have all your property in one area you might have in different cities, different locations, because then you're really diversified within the asset of property. Now, you
Christian Rodwell 18:00
mentioned there, so I'm you've been investing for 25 plus years. Now, we probably didn't have social media back when he began, we didn't have the leverage points that we have today, the number of strategies, if you were to wipe the slate clean today, and learn from the last 25 years, what would you do from from point now? So someone listening now who's kind of right at the beginning, but how would you do it?
Unknown Speaker 18:21
Okay, knowing what I know, which I kind of I wouldn't have asked for beginning but but I would advise and and I would start with purchase lease options. A purchase lease option is where you basically control a property, you don't own it, you control it. And you have a management agreements, whereby you you rent it from the owner, and then you rent it out at a higher rates, you make cash flow on a property you don't own. But also you have the right to buy that property in the future. If you want, you're the right, but not the obligation, you don't have to buy it at a price you set today. So you can get cash flow and equity growth from a property that you don't actually own. Now, the great thing about this, and I it's not really a stretch, it's more of a tool. It's a tool that can be used in conjunction with every other strategy, you can use a single let's HMOs serviced accommodation, commercial property, commercial to residential conversion, it works with everything. And it's really just a way of actually acquiring property where you don't need a big deposit. And you don't need a mortgage. So if I lost everything and started from scratch, that is what I would really focus on. Now. The problem with all these things, it's a tool that works in some circumstances, not all circumstances. And sometimes people learn something and they think, Oh, great, I'll use this all the time. And it's not appropriate, and they try to use that tool to fix a problem for a seller. And it is not the right circumstances the seller says no. And so the investor incorrectly thinks, oh, that doesn't work work. No, it's just they use the wrong tool for the wrong job. So I'd start with options but I think getting a broad understanding. You don't need to know every We started but really understanding strategies is a really good idea. Because then you can pick, the strategy is gonna be right for you. So we have one of my courses, I'm not sure if you've done actually that my three day mastermind accelerator, which which we get everyone who comes on my mastermind program to do and it gives a really good overview of all the strategies, so people can work out which ones they specifically want to focus on. And then they hit the ground much, much quicker. So options is where I would start probably using the with HMOs. Because HMOs are the quickest way of replacing your income. And you know, you can make more money with serviced accommodation. But as we've seen, service accommodation can get hit by changes in the economy. Whereas I think there will always be a requirement for people to live in in cost effective housing, which is what you offer with HMOs. And I think whilst there is an oversupply of HMOs, generally in the market, if you go on spare room.co.uk, which is the main website people use to advertise their HMO rooms, you'll see that most HMOs are very, very average. So whatever strategy you use, you need to do it to a really good standard, we make sure you're better than the competition. And you know, if you have a really good quality HMO, a high end HMO, they're much easier to let you have less void periods, and you get a much much higher rental income as well. So it's pilose. And HMO is probably the thing I would start with.
Christian Rodwell 21:19
Now one of the areas that we obviously work together closely on Simon is around SAS pension leveraging your pension, you know that you've worked with wealth builders on your own SAS as well. And, you know, again, pulling us back to kind of current conditions and where things might be going in the next 12 months. And if funding from the, you know, the institutions becomes a little bit harder to get hold of, then there's no better way than obviously self funding, right. And so many people have got, you know, pensions, which perhaps are not being leveraged, they don't understand the power of SAS, you know, any any kind of faults from your side as to how this can really help people too. Yeah, right.
Unknown Speaker 21:56
Until I met Kevin Whelan, I didn't really understand sasses. I didn't know Kevin had to explain that three times for me to actually get it right. So it is a bit of a, it is a bit of a cabbie complex subjects. And there are, there are very strict rules about what you can and can't do, obviously. So it's really important to get some really good advice as I did through Kevin. Um, but I had my pension at Cadbury's only there five and a half years, so it wasn't a huge pension. But I thought I could probably do a better job with that pension than capris could. And obviously, I set up a SAS attached my business and I found a good profitable business, I was bringing profit into that. So I'm going to a reasonable sized fund that's kind of growing. And I've lent it to other people, other investors and I bought other people's status. And I think, you know that the problem with SAS is people only partly understand it, and they get the wrong, they think that you if you borrow money from someone, you always have to offer a first charge. Well, that's not actually correct. If you use your own funds, you can use up to 50%. And fund, you do need to give a first charge security, but you can lend your money to someone else. And and you don't need to get a first shot, you need to be happy with that person. Obviously, they know what they're doing. And the security though, after all, it's your pension, you want to look after it. But I think understanding how it works is is the first step. And the other thing is that a lot of people have a number of painters or dotted around that don't really amount to much. But if you pull them together, suddenly, that might be quite a large amount of money. And you don't have to wait till you're 55 you can access it a lot sooner than that, as long as you follow the rules. So yeah, I would encourage anyone who doesn't know to reach out to Kevin to reach out to you and find out about it, because it's a very powerful tool.
Christian Rodwell 23:33
And and, you know, I know Kevin's been doing the online conferencing, how have you, you know, had to pivot in the last 12 months with your business and, you know, change things around, you know,
Unknown Speaker 23:44
I kind of thought that actually business really a little bit quieter because of the pandemic and working from home, etc. But we had two pivots from effectively a company that does live events, and we add 500 pin meetings every single year, plus about another, probably another 80 or so live in person training events. So almost 600 events, and that took a lot of time to pivot. And thanks to the help of all our incredible pin hosts, and also pin HQ team. It was pretty much seamless the way we moved. In fact, we we decided to move to virtual before the lockdown was announced because we could see what was happening. So I think looking at what's going on in the market and trying to predict and anticipate a good thing rather than responding when everything's happened. So we were kind of ahead of the game, which is good. And actually, you know what virtual events I think are incredible Chris, I do love physical events and we're going to go back to physical events when we can probably made time we're gonna start doing our masterminds we start doing our three day mastermind accelerator in August is a physical, but I've got a big event in September, which is property magic live. And we we might do a little bit of a hybrid. So how Live for some people in the room who want to be there live, but also make it virtual. Because one of the benefits of virtual experts I'm sure you've seen this is there's no traveling time when I traveling costs, no accommodation costs. And we actually increase the number of people who are on our training events because they've been virtual. And we've had people from all over the country who maybe wouldn't normally travel to Birmingham to London to events. And we even had a lot of international clients come especially participate in our pin meetings, because they want to connect with local people on the grounds, who can maybe do some running around them. So here's a big tip, guys, if you've got to fight, we run out of your own money. But actually, you're good at finding deals. And that's really important to learn how to find good deals, go to the property, investor, network, virtual meetings, there are people there who are there, they're not based in that area, they have money, they want to invest in you, but they're looking for people like you on the ground in the area. And you could do joint ventures, you can source deals. So you know, with every, every big cloud, there's always a silver lining, if you're creative, and often you do sit there and think what can I do here? Rather than just saying, Oh, my God, isn't it terrible? We can't have live events?
Christian Rodwell 26:09
Yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, we know that it's been super tough for so many people over the last 12 months. But as you say, you have to look for the silver lining there. And it has people to, you know, it's given people a wake up call, right, they've been doing the same thing for a long time. And they've had to think differently now, and that's had many positive effects.
Unknown Speaker 26:27
And you're obviously right, Chris, we need to acknowledge it has been a really, and I think, you know, for everyone, myself included, mental health has been a real issue, you know, what looking at, you know, the uncertainty about what what, are we going to get back to real life? Are we ever going to go back to life as we knew it? Probably not. And for somebody, I love to go on holiday, I love to go out for lots of meals and things, you know, being restricted as almost felt we've been in prison, you know, we've had a lot of our rights taken away from us. And, and that has, you know, and people on furlough have an uncertainty about jobs. So it's been pretty bad for a lot of people. But you're absolutely right, there are some key things that are happened. First of all, I think a lot of people have had that wake up call to realize that actually, if you just have one source of income, which is might be a great job, or maybe got a really profitable business, something could happen as none of your faults that no one could predict, that wipes out that job or wipes out your income. So it's critically important more than ever before, to have multiple streams of income diversified. So if something happens to one of those streams, you're not adversely affected. So that's, that's one thing. Secondly, I think, actually, it was great to see that how many people felt a real community spirit, you remember when the first lockdown, we're going out on the first human and applauding the NHS and people are concerned about their neighbors and make sure everyone is okay. And it was great to see that real community spirit, I think maybe had been lost a little bit. Also, I think people were, were taken advantage of the time at home locked in. So you know what, maybe now it's time to up my skills and not be just one source of income. So we had a lot of people join our online training programs and use the opportunity to upskill. In fact, you know, a lot of you were smart, they were buying lots of online training, because they reckon that online training programs, everyone dropped their prices, we dropped our prices, we were making sure that it was cost effective for people. And I tell you what, Chris, when we go out to live events, we're going back to the full price, because hotels is going to be so expensive, we've got to do that. So smart people are saying, you know, let's buy training courses, let's buy education, while they're below market value, and getting a whole load of courses and they're all online all access to for them forever, you know, getting the training and working through it using the time but I'm just sitting binge watching Netflix, why not binge watch them, it's going to stimulate your mind giving knowledge and education to take you up to the next level. So we saw a lot of that and we adapted really quickly. And I think you're right, you know, we we probably never would have gone to the virtual events that so much stuff we do online now. If COVID hadn't happened, it actually it's helped us grow our business. And that's one of the reasons Roger Hamilton's approaches we known a long time and their business, they there is wanted to an IPO and actually online education businesses have a very high multiplier at the moment. And so he's been able to come and buy my business for a really good son, but he's still making money doing that, and the whole merger and acquisition, play within businesses I find fascinating as well. That's happened because because of COVID. And I think, you know, unfortunately, one of the casualties there are many retail shops and bars and restaurants that aren't going to make it and and that's a real shame. But guess what other ones come in, they fill the gap and I think what was probably going to happen over 10 years for the high street has probably happened over 12 months. It speeded up the process to shops that weren't really performing so well up and going and it's making way for for a new wave and actually, anybody can sit at home. Anybody can set up an internet business if they have desire to And I think it's, you know it, there's always an opportunity, if you're looking for it, you can either focus on the negative focus on the bad things, and I don't want to take away It has been pretty stressful. It's been pretty bad for people. But that comes a time we have to accept personal responsibility and say, You know what, although it's a difficult situation, what am I going to do about it? How can I do something to make my situation better for me and my family and my loved ones, and be a victor rather than be a victim,
Christian Rodwell 30:29
and you've trained 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people over over those years, Simon, as have we not in as large numbers, but the one thing you can provide people with the best education, the best roadmap, the best system, but if they don't have the drive, the desire inside them to make it happen, then the best training in the world won't make a difference. So any key tips that you've observed for for our listeners, as to what's the difference between those that really make success and those that don't,
Unknown Speaker 31:00
you actually write Chris, you can have two people to exactly the same training, and someone goes and smashes it, and someone doesn't really do anything. And I think there's a couple of factors that influence that sometimes it's just timing, the stuff going on in life, and you don't really know if you don't go through the training, that's, that's knocking you out in the first place, right? So so if you invest in training, or have some course, you've got to actually make sure you go through it and go through all of it, don't skip it, go through the whole point. That's the first thing. But then to actually implement, that's the important thing, knowledge is great. But if you don't implement, it's kind of useless. So to actually implement it, there are a couple of things you need to do. First of all, Chris, I believe everyone needs to get really clear on their reason why? Why do they Why do they want to invest in property? Why do they want to do stock? My whatever it is, what what is that going to do for them and their family. And if you get clear on the reason why make it a burning desire, and make success, a must, failure is not an option, then that's going to motivate you to spend the time and energy that you need to put in, right, because nothing's easy, anything worth getting takes some time and effort and you're looking for some get rich quick, you're always going to be disappointed. So get rich quick suggests or you know, you can make lots of money about doing anything, well, it doesn't really happen, you can make a huge amount of money from property. And my really successful clients have done that. But guess what, because they focus they put time and effort. So first of all, get clear on your reason why get really motivated and self motivated. Secondly, you got to be persistent. Sometimes it takes a while to get results. So something I see happen all the time in property, people try a certain strategy, they, they don't want to do it. They dabble. They dabble, they do a little bit, or it doesn't quite get the results you want as quick as they want. Or maybe try another strategy, the next shiny penny. And they never really focus and the the acronym for focus is follow one course until successful. So it's good to get an overview of the different strategies to understand what resonates best with you, then focus on that particular stretch until you get the results. And then by all means you do other strategies, but make sure you master one before you try and go and learn another. So I think that focus is really important. And then also, it's it's difficult to do things on your own. Getting a group of people around you who can support you who can encourage you can pick you up when things are around and also hold you to account. You know, because if you commit to do something like we've all done this, I'm going to do this. And guess what we allow excuses, maybe their reasons. But I'd say they're probably excuses to get in the way and stop us making the progress that we want to make. And we let ourselves off the hook. When if we're accountable to someone else, just a friend, or even better a coach because you don't want the person to do too friendly because they'll let you off as well, as someone who's whose job is there to be to hold you to account to make sure you're doing the things that you said you want to do that you know you need to do. But are you actually doing them. So just to summarize that get really clear on what you want to why you want to get that really burning desire going. Make sure that you take action, and you keep going and don't give up and focus on that one thing to get the results. And the Thirdly, get support around you and ideally accountability to make sure you're doing the things you know you should do
Christian Rodwell 34:18
couldn't agree more Simon. And obviously you have got so many different training courses within Penn and always looking at different strategies always finger on the pulse, what's coming up, and how can someone learn more from the assignment?
Unknown Speaker 34:33
Well, so we have our year long mastermind prayer, which is not approved for everyone. It's just really, really want to step up to the next level. And we have people who are completely new to property and people who have experience who come on that program. But what we actually do, Chris that might be most advantageous to most people listening to this particular podcast is every so often we bring out some of the core training that everyone my mastermind program goes through, but we also make it available to other people who just want to specialize in that area. So we have courses on deal soul We have courses on purchase lease options as one of my favorite strategies. We have courses on Creative finance, how to use other people's money to fund your deals. And the next one coming up a time of recording, this is actually our HMO training. And we only release our h1 training once a year. And the reason it's not something you can just access whenever we want to provide that support and that network in that community. So we open up for a period of time everyone comes in, all of my mastermind, students go to that training at the same time, as well as all the people who've just paid to come in. And because there are deadlines, because you know, there are six modules you get access to for life. But the whole point is, we released one module a week, and about 10 days later, we have a support call based on that module. So there's an incentive and a deadline for you to go through the videos and get onto this port call and get all of their questions answered. Even if they don't have questions, they can listen to other people's questions, that's a great way of learning because other people will come up with questions you've never even thought of. And that's why everyone's knowledge goes up exponentially. And being part of a group, you see other people taking action, getting results that builds the belief that, hey, this really works and encourages people to move forward. So So that's how we generally do our home study courses at options training is coming up next, I think what we'll probably do, Chris, I've got a more in depth training, all about option, a site, HMO training, big part, I've got a more in depth training on about that. So we'll give you a link for the show notes, where people come and register for completely free, 90 minute, live online training with me all about HMOs. And you understand exactly how you can use them and bust some of the myths about HMOs. And then obviously, if it's of interest to you, you could come and participate in the home study and an all of our home study courses have money back guarantees will come in for like 14 days check them out. And it was not right for them. We were in isn't great program assignments. Brilliant, but it's not for us. No problem within 14 days, how would you mind if I so we really like to take the risk away from people Chris and just make it such that if someone's interested in a resonates make it a no brainer for them. Just give it a try. And and the reason he is so important with HMOs were a good HMO can make you 1000 pound profit per month. Well, most people three to five HMOs would completely replace their income. And that can absolutely be done in as quick as a year or two. So a year or two from now, you could replace your income from property, and you don't have to manage them yourself. Or if you're worried about the increased work with an agent, it is more work than one single lead. But I don't manage my properties. Chris, I have someone else do it for me, you know, because the whole point is that I want to have my time free to do this, have interviews with you and share and inspire people. I couldn't do it. Because if I was managing my properties myself, it would be a full time job. I don't want to be a property manager. And I think most people this is this probably don't want to be property managers. It's about setting up income in a way to make it as passive as possible to spend your life doing what you really want to do what you're really excited about.
Christian Rodwell 38:00
Yeah, and there's probably no better time now when we can start to travel when we can start to go out and look at properties again. So yeah, timing skirt.
Unknown Speaker 38:08
Absolutely. And you know, if we do go into a recession, and who knows what's going to happen, but if times do get hot, I think we have a bit of a boom in in summer 2021. But after that, I think times might get harder when military will come off furlough and might be made unemployed, etc. You know, when when times are tough, and people need to tighten their belts. That's when actually living in shared accommodation is actually more cost effective. And there's a really good demand for that. So yeah, a good HMO in the right area to a good standard should always be able to find good tenants. Well, if you could share that link with me, Simon, I will put that in the show notes. And I will make sure that it's in our Facebook group and everyone can access that training. Fantastic. Yeah, happy to do that. And guys come and give it a listen and check that to see if it's right for you or not.
Christian Rodwell 38:51
Yeah. So Simon, just before we wrap things up, is there anything else we've not covered today about where the markets are? Anyone who's listening now who's in property, or just about to get into property would learn from? Um, well,
Unknown Speaker 39:03
I mean, there's so much we could talk about. One thing I would say is, don't just think about short term. Sometimes we're in a very short term, they don't get the results they want. And one of the things I love about property is you can literally work once get paid forever. And what I mean by that, and I'm sure you know what I mean here, Chris, is that, you know, most people that go to work, they trade their time for money, I had to keep on going to Cadbury's for them to pay me and funny when I left the company, guess what they stopped paying me which I suppose is reasonable enough, really. But my properties that I bought when I was still at Cadbury's guess what they still pay me every single month. And I don't have to do any more work for it. So it does take some time and effort and some commitments to get into property. Let's be really honest about that. But the time and effort you put into property in particular, you can get paid forever for as long as you own that asset. So I would encourage everyone to really think about property and what it can do as part of a balance. portfolio, you know, shouldn't have everything in property. But as part of as portfolio will bedrock. You know, and I know a lot of people at the moment who are making money in cryptocurrency, for example, they're taking that money out and using it as deposits for properties, they recognize that properties are more stable, long term investment. And if you've got family, if you've got kids, and you want to have a legacy for them, well, not only can you leave them property switches, you know, kind of give them a huge wealth and fortune in the future. Probably even more important than that is lead by example, show your kids, your nephews and nieces. That actually, there are alternative ways to create financial freedom, you don't just have to get a job, nothing wrong with jobs, work your way to public corporate, that's great. The problem is, when you leave that Good job, you're going to lose that income, you're going to live on a much smaller pension. And generally pensions are not enough to sustain you. So take some personal responsibility for yourself. Invest in some property as part of a mixed portfolio, inspire your kids, let them learn from your example and teach them the things you're learning from wealth builders, as you know how to manage your money and how to think about it that way. Because I was never taught that at school. And if I was, I will be doing much, much better than I am now. I'm doing okay, but it could be even more. So give that gift on to your kids. The best way to teach them is through example.
Christian Rodwell 41:23
Yeah, great words. Leave us on there. Simon, thanks so much for sharing Always a pleasure to have you on and I look forward to speak to you again soon.
Unknown Speaker 41:29
Thank you so much. I speak Chris. All the best.
Christian Rodwell 41:33
Well, we'll let Simon off the hook, shall we? Kevin? Because back in 2019 Simon's prediction of the market of the year ahead, perhaps was not an easy one to to call.
Unknown Speaker 41:45
Yeah, well, cuckoo who could have forecast what's been going on the Bank of England themselves, you know, predicted a decrease in property values massively so and it's I like humility among people, you know, he doesn't hold himself out as a guru holds himself out as a guide. And you know, sometimes things change if you're a guide, the landscape can change the you know, if you're, if you're a guide rounder, a city, you, you know, that things can change, you know, the roads can change, the environment can change, anything can change. So I think he's a humble guy. And, and I respect him for that. But you know, lots of things he does say there will bang on, you know, certainly we talk about the whole principle around service accommodation, you know, when where that kind of fell out of bed a bit, but that's getting hotter and hotter. I'm going up to Newcastle to see my mother, it's gonna be at this summer, Chris, and I'm trying to find a cottage for me and my family. And wow, you know, things are pricey these days, you know, it's definitely getting harder to find and more expensive to find. So I'm bearing that one out. So
Christian Rodwell 42:53
yeah, yeah. So lots more points there. Before we move on to some of those, let me head on over to trustpilot. And as always, we like to thank our listeners and our clients and our members for taking the time to leave us a review, honest review, you know, and Neha is our latest. And I'll read out what he has written, she's put True Value delivers what is promised wealth builders course is very well structured, and gives a step by step process to building wealth. It is not jargon, it has true actionable steps that are easy to understand and follow to start the journey. I'm highly impressed and would recommend the course to anyone who is serious about creating multiple streams of income.
Unknown Speaker 43:36
Okay, that's a very nice thing to say. And of course, you know, there's a reflection of some of that in what Simon had to say, wasn't it? Which is one of anything, Chris is risky.
Christian Rodwell 43:47
Yes, yeah. And I think actually a lot of parallels there really, with what Simon was saying, and the overall wealth building message that we talk about every week. And, yeah, I mean, it is about multiple streams of income. And we know that there are seven assets. And within those assets, there's multiple different strategies. So there's so much choice and in fact, for many people, that is one of the reasons that holds them back because of the overwhelm. Hmm, well, certainly, you
Unknown Speaker 44:13
know, going back to that point about one of anything, the pandemic has just brought that into sharper focus hasn't really we can see the, the delicate, you know, the fragile thread that hands some people in their income together. And thankfully, we have a roadmap out of that, but nonetheless, some people have suffered and may never recover. So, it's good to know that you can create a plan for yourself. So check out our, you know, roadmap or recurring revenue roadmap, Chris, you'll always give a link to that. So people can see there isn't easy to follow a step by step process to create multiple streams of income for yourself, so you can become financially bulletproof. And that's really never more important than today's more and more onto Oftentimes,
Christian Rodwell 45:00
yeah, wealth builders.co.uk forward slash roadmap is the place to download that you can see our nine steps. And every month we invite on one of our members, actually, we shine the spotlight on member and we walk through those nine steps. And we see exactly, and we hear in their words, you know, how they've implemented those lessons. And, yeah, more lessons then. So pulling out a few other things that the assignment talked about, well, that difference of working comm versus asset income, it all comes down to the entrepreneurial mindset. And I think creativity wrapped into that as well, you know, you you are limited in a job, you know, you kind of have a set of rules, and you have to be there a certain time. But, you know, Simon's built a very successful business with pain over the last 18 years. But in the last 12 months, you know, he said himself, he had to completely pivot, he had to think differently, and shift all of those live events, all of those networking events online. Unfortunately, you know, the whole team at Penn adapted to that very quickly. But, you know, even when you think you've got a great business, you just never know what's around the corner that could completely come in and change the look of that,
Unknown Speaker 46:11
well, that's a test for anybody, you know, whether you're employed or in business, but the, the great enjoyment for me, certainly personally in business is that joy of being creative, to creativity, to choose a positive reaction to whatever you see, and there's always a good thing to learn that, you know, with, with all of this opportunity that's coming in the certainly, Simon Simon posted many of those opportunities, the changing nature of the high street, the changing nature of how people are living, and what that means in in so many different ways. We've got that choice, you know, we have that ability to respond. And that that's kind of our ability to respond is response ability. So we've got responsibility to build our own wealth and not to delegate it to a third party, whether that's a third party advisor, or whether that's to your employer, or whether that's your family, or indeed the state in rare cases. So yeah, take that responsibility seriously. choose who you resonate with, get yourself some education, choose to get supported either from people around you or other people, and build connections and collaborations, because that's where the fun is. We've had some great times, even though it's been tough, Chris, but we've really enjoyed our response in the current situation, and we'll we'll get stronger and stronger as well, because we know the message is bang on.
Christian Rodwell 47:30
Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, there was a lot said by Simon there today, and hopefully, you know, that just resonated with you in listening today. And there's always just one idea. That's all it takes Kevin, just one idea. It could spark something. And that can lead on to, you know, the ripple effect, really just one thing can lead to great things. So hopefully, there'll be a little nugget in today's episode that does that for you. And we'll be back again, Kevin, next week. And next week, we are talking about employee ownership trusts, which is a new topic. We've not covered that before.
Unknown Speaker 48:07
Well, that's an interesting one, isn't it? I mean, we use the word trust quite a lot, not just in the sense of, you know, we're a trustworthy organization. But Simon would have mentioned SAS, which is a pension trust. And we often talk about putting life insurance in trust. But did you know that you can create a trust from your business and that can bring incredible benefit to you, to your employees, but also to give you a super, super efficient tax break. So looking forward to that one.
Christian Rodwell 48:36
So thank you for listening today. We'll be back Same time, same place next week.
Unknown Speaker 48:41
Until then, my friend, I will see you.
Unknown Speaker 48:47
We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the wealth builders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealth builders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealth builders.co.uk slash membership.