Catherine Yuen used Property Filter to cut her property research time in half, spending just 15-30 minutes daily instead of wasting weekends. She bought her first deal for £197k, negotiated an extra £20k off after survey, spent £12k renovating, and now has a tenant. The platform's custom filters and community support made sourcing feel manageable.
Chapters
When I spent the whole weekend looking for a few properties and I didn't even find the opportunity, and they didn't stack anyway. So it's when I miss all the family gathering and activities by just working, and I found out it doesn't really work. I'm Catherine, I'm based in Essex, and I've been building a property portfolio with my family. My focus is on sourcing solid, sustainable deals, mainly buy-to-lets and value-added opportunities where we can improve the asset and hold long Oh, it was very fragmented. I've used Excel spreadsheets like most people. I've also used Notion and it's so time-consuming and I ended up finding myself spending more time on building the system than doing viewings and doing actual work. And I spent a lot of time on due diligence, etc. So Propertyfilter really helped. It speed up the process a lot. Oh, when I spent the whole weekend looking for a few properties and I didn't even find the opportunity and they didn't stack anyway. So I want to miss all the family gathering and activities by just working, and I found out it doesn't really work. Yeah, you're wasting a lot of time. Yeah, it seems like it's such a powerful system. I thought it would take me ages to learn, and it would be— there might be too many functions that I won't use. And but then all the videos or training videos within the system, it's so useful. And the chat on the web chat and all the support team was so— they're all really helpful. So when I can't find something and I thought I've seen it somewhere but I can't find it and ask somebody, they respond almost right away. Overwhelming.
Yeah, it could be seen as to be overwhelming, but what you're saying is the community and the support was pivotal in helping you to get to that level of competence that you're at right now.
Oh yes, yeah, very much so. Not just— it's not just the software, it's the people as well is really important, I think. It's when I can track everything, all the viewings, all the progress, and I can hide all the properties that I'm not interested. That is really powerful. And also with the weekly, all the other calls, it helps me, my mindset, to stay focused. And you always hear people saying around you that deals are not made, not found, and etc. So that is really helpful. I might just do whatever I'm doing all the time and then suddenly lose focus and Yeah, just lose momentum, and the momentum is really useful as well.
What you're saying there essentially is like, we, we say comparison is a thief of joy, but you're flipping it on the head and say, and using the comparison in a positive manner and using it as a way to inspire you to, to do what the things that you, you have in mind.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think about end of July, I think I learned quite quickly in about 2 or 3 weeks I've used quite a lot of functionalities on there. But when I found my property and I found that it looks like it stacks, and it really helped my confidence. One of them, it's— I think the figures look quite good on that one, and it's completely different to what kind of properties I was looking at before. So this one needed work, whereas before I never touched older properties. So, and it's the confidence of seeing what other people do, and yes, it's really helped. And it's also seeing that the property has been on the market for a long time, that the motivation level is really high because the market kept sold and reduced back and reduced a few times. So yeah, that really helped. So I found that property that's been on the market for probably about 5 months and it's been sold and then got back to the market. No, it was on the £230,000, went down to £220,000. Yeah, so it's been left empty for a period of time as well. You can see the photos where tenants were there and see photos where it was empty as well. The landlord was very motivated and I put an offer in for £197,000 and got accepted straight away and was like, oh no, I've offered too much. But then after the survey was done, the surveyor suggested that, oh, it will have lots of work that needs doing, and I negotiated another £20,000 off. At the end, I spent about £12,000 completing everything and it's now tenanted, so I'm really happy with that. Because that was my first one as well. Now that I have a bit more confidence in negotiating a lower figure to start off with, and by learning a lot more from all the videos as well, I would know how to do the perfect offer, use the template, and have a bit more numbers and offer a bit lower with different structures as well. So yeah, it's still— I'm still learning, but just gradually doing it slowly. I think the latest favorite is who owns the property, what company it is, and what other properties they own. So I've been looking at portfolio and landlords trying to sell. So it's, even if I'm not putting offer in or not viewing, it's very interesting seeing what other people have owned. And, and it's like knowing something that other people think, oh, how did you know that? And I find that is really interesting. Yeah. And also it's like, oh, that property is not on the market yet, how did you know about it?
But it was because it was previously on the market that you were aware of it?
No, because the landlord who owned the property I was looking at also own those property and they were, and they were maybe, uh, was lots let out before. So I know that, oh, that might be something else that they might want to sell in the future. Oh, it depends how much work I use, uh, probably save me about more than 50% of time. I think I don't spend that much time now because I use the, uh, Direct to Vendor, send all the letters, and I've got all the filters sorted out and deal pipeline. So probably about 15 minutes, 30 minutes a day. But I do sometimes read all the community posts as well and view some of the videos and join some of the calls, so that might be a bit more time. But actually working on property filters, not a lot, doesn't take very long anymore. Quickly ignore and hide all the ones that you definitely not interested and definitely doesn't suit your strategy and put them in on the deal pipeline where— and reminders and everything. I put a lot of information in there as well, so every time I think of something, I put it in the 'take an action' so I won't forget which property it is referring to.
Yeah, so you leave a lot of notes essentially?
Yes, yes, because otherwise I won't forget. They all look the same. Do more viewings, put more offers in, put an offer in for every viewing you do. Yeah, it's a numbers game. It's for anyone who wants to build a portfolio or anyone who do use— want to do sourcing and anyone If you want to save time, Property Filter has got a great team. I feel like so supported and every time I raised and asked a question, I was surprised that people like Guillaume and busy people take time to read it and reply and gave me advice and recommendation as well. I think I really like that environment and everyone is really nice on the community as well. So yeah, it's really good.
