Does "No Money Down" Really Exists? With Gordie Dutfield

What did you learn? What was the best practices that you were doing at the time to help you go from say five to work to where you are now with 40.

Plus what I did when I got up to four units, I actually employed a full time staff member. Now a lot of people would say, why would you do that? Because that's eating up all your profit. Please understand there would be no profit left if I didn't get that full time staff member in because there'd be no business. So my vision was always very clear. I'm extremely good at getting the properties, but I'm terrible at managing it. So I hired a full time member of staff that came in, systemized the business, ran the cleaning teams, dealt with the guests and this let me focus on what I was really good at.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, welcome to the Boost Hospitality podcast. We are in season six, episode nine and today we're going to be talking about no money down deals. And the gentleman that I've got on to talk about this with today is somebody that I've been following for a while. I'm a massive fan on. It's called Gordy Duffield and Gaudy. If you could just spend just a few minutes just introducing yourself, your background, where you are right now in the world and a little bit more about you and then we'll get on with the talk today.

Listen, first of all, thank you so much for having me on. So everybody knows Gordy Duckfield as the Rent to Rent guy, I got involved in property. Listen, it was only three years ago now when I first set up my first rent to rent. Prior to that I was involved in sales. Never thought of doing property. I think what's very important, the reason I never thought of getting involved in property was because I thought I needed a lot of money. And this is what we're going to be obviously speaking a bit about today. So within my three years of property, I've built up a fairly large rent to rent portfolio. I've got over 40 units now and I train and I now teach it background. Before property was sales, so.

Nothing to.

Do with property, it was an estate agent. But I think when I was speaking about it today, the sales, the sales side of it has became really, really handy in the property side of it as well. So I'm an upfront, I'm an honest guy and I hope that comes across in the podcast today because it's going to get raw.

What was your motive then from moving from the sales world into property? What was the deciding factor for you to go, you know what, I'm going to do a little bit of a career change here just to take you.

Back a bit further. When I was 19 I had a fairly large sales company. I had over 60 staff at the age of 19 had an office in London, an office in Glasgow and I made more money just about then at 19 years old than I actually do now. When times got tough I had to shut the company down unfortunately and go back to full time work. So I got into the corporate world now I worked in the corporate world for three years and that's when I went and approached Paul Smith who I did my training with and asked Paul what do I need to take do to get involved in the property side of things? How do I set myself free from the demons of this corporate world because it is killing me. So that's why I got involved in property.

Paul Smith, for those of you who are watching this have got no idea who Paul Smith is. Can you just give us a little shed a little bit of background to who he is and what he teaches and trains and how he helps you.

Paul's been a fairly experienced property investor. He's got everything from buy to less commercial pension, investors service, accommodation which I think most people know him from.

And.

A phenomenal guy, someone I've got huge respect for. So I now still work currently with Paul, a GV partner, I've got businesses with Paul so still got a fairly good relationship, three years old.

So what skills do you feel that you've brought over from someone? Sales that now helps you to acquire properties and help the people that you train acquire properties. But I'd be interesting to see what skills that you've crossed over from that world into this.

So let's get clear when you're out speaking to landlords and trying to cut a rent to rent deal with them, you're selling the rent to rent deal. When you're out doing negotiations and buy to let you're negotiating prices the sales comes in in every aspect of it from the minute someone picks up the phone to you, you're selling yourself, you're selling the deal. When you're out seeing them, you're selling yourself, you're selling the deal. Everything that you're doing is you're selling and I think salespeople carry a certain swagger, a certain arrogance maybe you could say with a lot of them but a certain confidence. And when you're speaking and trying to negotiate with someone you need to have a certain set of condrens around you to be taken seriously. Now, the sales side massively benefited me because I've been able to go out, negotiate phenomenal deals with landlords. So for the Rent to Rent centre, I never pay a deposit and I never pay a rent up front without having those sales skills of being able to negotiate, build a relationship with the landlord and being able to position and sell the deal as I do, I wouldn't be able to get the deals that I currently get. So from the sales side of it, I take in a huge amount of the skills that I learned and everything that I did in sales before and applied it to the property side of things.

What did you learn? What was the best practices that you were doing at the time to help you go from say five to work to where you are now with 40.

Plus what I did when I got four units, I actually employed a full time staff member. Now a lot of people would say, why would you do that? Because that's eating up all your profit. Please understand there would be no profit left if I didn't get that full time staff member in because there'd be no business. So my vision was always very clear. I'm extremely good at getting the properties, but I'm terrible at managing it. So I hired a full time member of staff that came in, systemized the business, ran the cleaning teams, dealt with the guests and this let me focus on what I was really good at.

Like what you say there, focus on what you're good at, focus on what you enjoy doing because otherwise it can really get pressurizing straight. On episode three of this podcast series, we spoke to David and Amanda from the SA Angels and they talk about outsourcing and that is a real good correlation. Very, very good. Sort of go alongside each other is that focus on what you're good at, focus on the 20% of the activities that bring in 80% of your profit and that means that you have to hire some. There's a really common question that I see all the time in the Facebook groups, whether it's service, accommodation or just anything. And basically it goes along the lines of, I've spotted a deal, now what do I have to say to the landlord to secure it? So when we say landlord, landlord, letting agents, however you want to phrase it. So. So they've found the place, they found the property, the right one for them, they want to get it, they want to secure it, but they don't know what to say. You've obviously got the sales background, got the gift of the gab. What advice would you give to Somebody who's right at the very start and they're looking to now approach these landlords and letting agents to get involved in sae.

Keep it stupid simple. I see people over complicating this bloody simple deal by talking about tax, by talking about capital allowances, by talking about all this crazy shit that they really don't actually understand themselves. I mean, I don't even understand them. So let's be clear. If I pay my rent on the first of the month and I do not pay my rent in that bank account by the first of that month, by the seventh, I need to leave that property, I've got zero right to be there. So where is the risk? You go and put a tenant into this property, they don't pay the rent. At any point in time, you've got an eviction process, you've got no money coming in and you've got solicitor fees. Or you take a gamble with me, I'm going to furnish this place, make it look spic and span. I'm going to have weekly checks by the cleaners, I'm going to have monthly health and safety inspections, and best of all, if I default on my payment at any point in time, within one week after it, I've got zero right to be at the property.

So when you're going to a new area, say, to speak or just an area, just you've seen some places that you like and say, these nine ones that are going to be coming into your portfolio very soon. So what is the sort of checklist that you go by? What do you look for? What is your target niche? Like, how do you come up with your target niche? I mean, this would be a real good route to go down.

So I operate everywhere and my model is very simple. I target where there's big developments going on. So I'm taking on another nine units in a place called Greenock just now. The reason I'm taking nine units on there is 10,000 houses getting built. I am constantly looking for developments.

Can you please explain to me number one, what is no money down? How is it achievable? How is it that people can get away with saying that this service accommodation lack or this property lack is passive income, when we all know hospitality is not passive income? It's anything but. So can you just sort of share your views on it if you think it's achievable, if you think it should be said and just sort of give your overall opinion on those two things, please.

If you're buying a house, can you Buy a house, no money down. Bollocks. You cannot buy a house without any money. So there's two terms here. Can you buy a house using somebody else's money money or using a loan? 100%. Of course you can. But can you buy without any money? No, you need bloody money. So within the service accommodation site, so there's two angles. I'm going to go at this number one angle. I have got properties that are fully set up for service departments that I've had to spend no money on, that I've had to not taken a deposit and I've got a rent free period. That's a no money down deal.

You've built a really good online brand. I see you everywhere. Instagram, Facebook, I see you. So how much of your sort of success that you've had can you attain to building a personal brand alongside your portfolio? Business brand as well?

When you're building a personal brand, what a lot of people do, they think this is what the audience will want to see and what the audience will want to hear. I am not a professional guy. People mold themselves into something different when they get in front of a camera and they'll think it because I need to come across this way because I'm selling this or I'm doing that. What a lot of shit. It's nonsense. I'm never. No one's gonna, no one's ever gonna succeed and try to mold me into something different. I am who I am. I am comfortable in my own skin and I am an excitable, hyperactive. People call me a bit crazy about that. I am fun and I'm doing this for the fun stuff. Listen, I'm here for a good time, not a long time. So I think building a personal brand along with your business is important as long as you've got something to offer.

I totally agree with that. You gotta be who you are. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether you're speaking in front of one of these cameras or whether you're speaking on stage, which is literally one on one. If you're trying to put on something that you're not, people can smell it a mile off. And as soon as you start doing that, people won't trust you and then people just will not want to do business with you. If you lose that trust factor, what is the one mistake that you see your delegates make when they, when they first get started into this world of essay?

The one mistake people make when they come to do any sort of training course, specifically essay is that there's a magic bloody wand and you're going to wave it and it's all going to happen for you. People are scared of work. People want a magic solution. One mistake people make is they come mentally unprepared, thinking that they can come in, learn the knowledge, get three or four properties, become financially free and sail off into the sunset. I hate to tell you, but you will fail if you come with that mentality.

So you obviously coach. There's loads of people who now coach sa. What is some advice that you seem given by your peers that you just simply don't agree with?

Areas is number one. Strategy is number two. People always think that you need to go for the big penthouse apartments in the city centre, Manchester, Birmingham, York, whatever it may be, and that's how you're going to get your bookings. That is fairly niche. You know, I work with Abby, who's got beautiful units in the Peak District, in Whitby, a very niche market. That's not how it should be done. Number one, the leases probably won't allow it as well. Number three, talking about, you don't need any money to get involved in this strategy. You don't need any time. Initially, there's time in this business. You need to put time in to get it up and running. I put a lot of time into it. I was working full time when I got involved and I put all the time in the evenings because I wanted it to work. You have to sacrifice time. So I think a lot of people. Again, just what you said back at the start, they say that you can come in, you don't need any money, you don't need any time. It's wrong. You know it's wrong. You're selling a dream that's not realistic. And for anyone that's been involved in Festus or anyone that's got business, Hugo, to understand that you need to sacrifice and put time and effort and to get something to work. And I think it's morally wrong for people to say otherwise really like that.

Good. Okay. So before we let everybody know how they can contact you if they want to find out more information, have you got any quick tips that you could share with somebody? Because we're gonna have a lot of people watching and listening to this who are in SA, who are looking to grow their portfolio, Maybe they've got one or two, but if you've got a couple of quick tips, just one, like one big one or a couple of quick little tips. I love the going to the chain hotels and look for the workers vans, that's a really good one. If you've got any other little ones that you could just leave us with. For anybody that's looking to build their.

Essay business, number one, Alloy, Premier Ends, Holiday Inns, all those budget hotels. Because if you're targeting the contracting market, that's where contractors stay. I always target rentals. I know it's different where you are in the country that are slightly lower. Everybody thinks that you need a beautiful house or a beautiful apartment to run service departments. That's so far from the truth. Most of my apartments are ex local authority houses. Stop thinking where you would like to stay and start thinking where a contractor would be happy staying. With my market getting contractors, what they want is parking directly outside of their house, Direct links and the motorway to get into any major city. So 20 to 30 minutes outside of Glasgow. Number three, only work with landlords that you are going to get on with. You've got to remember you're going to have a long business relationship with your landlord. If you think a landlord is caught causing you trouble or issues at the start, walk away from them. There's loads of other landlords out there. And number four, just don't give up. The strategy works. You've got to make it work. You have to do the work but just stick in at it, because you're gonna go through ups and you're gonna go through downs, but at the end of that, I promise you, I've seen it, I've done it, it works. You just need to stick in there.

If people would like to get in contact with you, you've arranged a really cool little freebie. So I'll leave it for you, Gordy, to explain what that is and how they can reach out to you to get it perfect.

So if anybody wants to contact me, I've got seven top tips for my essay business that I released and I've also got a book. When we were talking about what can we give away, I totally forgot that I wrote a book called Profit from Profit you do not own. So if you want to get in touch with me, my email address is gordonnyxasset.co.uk but I think we will leave that, Leave it up to you, Mark, where we can put that, where people can find it. Please get in touch. I love speaking to people, it's what I do every single day. I'm more than happy to send you my 7 top tips and if you want a copy of the book, just let me know.

Thank you so much for doing that. I really appreciate it. And a special little wee mention to Ben Porter Smith who provided me with a couple of the questions. I have done my homework and he reached out and it's up to you to figure out which questions that he got me to ask you. So yeah, it was. I really enjoyed that. Thank you so much for coming on and doing this. Thank you to everybody for tuning into the Boostly podcast. This is Beam season six. We're on episode nine. If this is the first time that you have tuned into one of these podcasts, you've got a whole season to go back on. Go to boostly.co.uk podcast Season six has already had Jason Living. We've had Trish McGeer talking about how to speak to estate agents. We've had, like I say, Amanda and David that came on to talk about outsourcing. We spoke to Naim from Zebu Talking Channel managers. We've had Elaine Watt, we've had Sally Kember, we've had Danny Clark. And there's so many more coming up. If you would like to appear on this Boost hospitality podcast, all you need to do is send me a message. Markooster.co.uk and if you would like to leave one of those lovely five star reviews, all you need to do is to go to iTunes, hit 5 stars, leave a bit of feedback, leave a little comment just so we can get this open up and up the charts and more people can see it. So thank you very much for tuning in. I really appreciate it and hopefully I will see you again for episode day. If you outside, never just let me know.