Interview-style YouTube video (Mark Simpson interviewing Abi Hookway) about property investing and location selection. Abi describes her background (corporate job to property investor/trainer), her primary strategies (buy-to-let near where she lives, rent-to-rent in holiday/tourist towns like Whitby), and that she is expanding into community commercial property. The episode also mentions Touchstoneeducation.co.uk as a place to find related training events.
Chapters
I'm Abby. I'm a property investor, property trainer and mum of two. Before I really got into property, I was doing the good girl thing. So I went to school, worked hard, went to university, got a corporate job, was working my way up the corporate career ladder in British Telecom. I just needed a change and I'd always loved property. So I managed to meet Anniko and Paul Smith, went to work within their estate agency and then worked my way up from there, got into property and never really looked back. I am currently in Italy at the minute, so I'm in a fabulous training room and it's beautiful here near the lakes. And I'm here because we're training some people how to position themselves, so how to write books, run webinars and maintaining courses.
If at the end of this podcast, if somebody wants to find out more about these events and how they can maybe go and attend the next one, is there a link or is there anywhere they can go to find out more? Is there like a website they just go to?
Touchstoneeducation.co.uk they'll see it on there and they can give us a call about it.
Today we're going to be talking about location picking and that's like the core topic I'd be really interested to get your thoughts and ideas on when it is to come in to choose a area to have your properties for yourself. When it comes to finding locations to put your properties, what are the main signs that you personally look for?
With my buy to let portfolio, it is normally around where I live just because it's easier and I know the area and I'm more confident with the property prices and types of tenants.
So as far as the different property portfolios, how many do you currently do? So obviously rent to rent to SAB1 and you've got buy to let. Is there others that you do or is it mainly focused on those? On those two?
It's mainly focused on those two and I'm just getting into community commercial property at the minute. After Paul telling me for three years it's a good thing to do, I'm finally twigging on to that fact.
Nice. How does it feel to grow your portfolio and grow into different industries? Is it something that you thrive on or is it something that you've been a bit wary to do?
I was always taught to play it safe because growing up we didn't have a lot and I was with a single mum on a council estate, so I've not been born with money. So money is one of my drivers in security. So I've always been strong to play it safe. But Paul Nanoco being incredible mentors have really helped me to unlock my fears. And it's just so nice now to have money coming in the bank and not have to rely on a job because if I lost my job tomorrow like some people do and get made redundant, I still have money and at the minute I've got lots of streams of income because I still have a full time job. I've got all my property income coming in and it's just such a nice place to be in.
You mentioned that you choose these locations for holidays, holiday destinations, but why do you feel like Whitby was right for you? And why do you feel like others maybe don't look to these locations?
And trying to find places to stay with them is a bit of a nightmare. So I just started looking at these towns and I realized that they've got because I do rent to rent, that they've got low rental prices but extremely high nightly rates compared to Manchester, London. And so I realized it would be a really good untapped network to go into these places. It would make me money, but also I can.
