Dr. Mayo's Real Estate Journey Revealed

All right, all right, all right. We're back at it again. I've got someone really special in the house today. He's a busy man, but he literally wears several caps. I've got the amazing Dr. Maya Thomson in the house. I'll give you a little background and I'm sure I might not be able to do justice fully to his portfolio. So Dr. Maya Thomson is a medical doctor? Yes. The doctor there is not just like for Dr. Dre. He's a medical doctor, the GP. But that's not what we know him for. He's known as Mayo the Builder because of his vast experience with actually building properties. Building buildings. He started his property as a property investor. Most of us in the UK who have known him for a few years, we knew several years ago he started being a property investor, I'll say 2017 or even a bit earlier. But what most people don't realize is that before 2017, he had even started dabbling into property at a very young age. Even as a teenager, he started buying land. So I brought Dr. Mayo on board today so we can have a chat, just as we do on Money Wise Doctor. We identify doctors who are money wise, who are taking big financial strides, you know, sort of to share the idea, to share their experience with us and, of course, see what we can learn from them and how we can connect with them. You're welcome, Dr. Mayo, thank you very.

Much for having me. It's a pleasure today.

Lovely. I mean, before the mic, before we started recording, I was commenting on your fresh new haircut and saying, that looks nice. Yeah. But of course, we're not here to talk about your head. You're talking about your brain, that big brain. So, quick question. Why property? You are a doctor, you're a fully qualified. Actually, you are. You. You're a member of Royal College of gp. But it's obvious that you've got other hearts. Why have you decided to delve into property per se?

Okay, well, I think initially when I came into England, you hear that people work very hard, but a lot of their incomes get eroded by tax. And I started asking a lot of questions. The how, the why, you know, how can I work smart rather than work too hard? And it became very obvious that the business industry was where there was room for people to be tax savvy. And which is. Which was legally done. And I started asking questions. And so, because I've always had a business background, and I was like, okay, fine, what is the safe place to be? What is the questions I used to ask Myself was, what is sustainable? What is it that I am doing that I can find myself doing in the next 20, 30 years? And I started digging and asking questions and at the time, a popular innovation program on TV used to come up, Homes under the Hammer. And you know, it was, the show was for entertainment, but you hear people, you know, make money, lose money. And that got me interested and I started digging and digging and finding out more and that was how I found myself here today.

Wow, that's amazing. So we just watched Homes under the Hammer for entertainment. But while you were watching it, you're thinking, I can do that, why can't I do that? I like how you're thinking about it from sustainable. You're not just thinking of something you can do now and make a quick buck? Because we've had a few conversations, I intend to have that long term sustainable. We're not just looking to make a quick buck. All right, but basically it couldn't have been that easy. I'm aware that you've obviously moved to the uk. I think you weren't born in the uk. Moved to the uk. Your, your accent doesn't, doesn't suggest that you weren't born in the uk. Sound like you're born in the uk, not like me. Right, so you moved to the UK probably seven years ago, eight years ago, thereabout.

Oh, yes.

Yeah. So I don't imagine, from my experience, I don't imagine it could have been just an easy ride starting because you've got a huge. We've seen doctors who do businesses, we've seen doctors who invest in property. But it's rare to see a doctor who's actually in the midst of property development, raising finance. So could you give us a little bit about your early start in the uk, how you started and sort of like the challenges you met and how you overcame them.

Okay. Yeah. So I did mention that I used to watch Homes on Danny Hammer and there was a chap called Martins. I think he's the major presenter of the program. And I can't remember randomly, I was looking at the newspaper, I saw an advert for, for one of the property academists who would train you to be property investors. And I said to my wife, well, we don't lose anything. Let's take the leap. Went out there, it was in London. I remember the day. I have pictures of the day. It was because for me this was a life changing day, events in our lives. And I went out there and of course it was free. And then free became a Thousand pounds. And a thousand pounds came. You have to pay more. And, but something was quite remarkable. And I said to my wife that whatever it is that we are going to learn in this place, right, we do not have to. I said it very clear to my wife, we do not have to. We're already blessed in the fact that we already were trained, already we had degrees and we knew. I told my wife that very clearly, if we stay on this path, we would not lack money, right? But if we wanted to actually be dynamic and different, then if we go on this path, it will change the course of our lives forever. I said to her, and what, what we then did was that it was very obvious very quickly that all the people around us were going to give and pass on their own knowledge. But with their own knowledge came their fears, came their, came their shortcomings and their own limitations. And so I said to myself, if I wanted to do something unique or different outside of what is being done or achieved, I have to change the people around me. I have to intentionally create a different environment. And so at the time, my environment was simple. It was, you go home, it was family from family was good to work where everybody talks about blood test and talks about investigation and talks about, and that's your life from, you know, from about nine to five and, and then if you, I mean, I, I, I go attend church and people in church, we talk about the things of church and, and nobody was talking about money, nobody was talking about, about safe, wise things to do with your money. So I felt, okay, fine, I needed to be in a place where people were intentionally talking about money and, and doing different things. And that was what, and that was the game changer for us. So we opted to go into having more education. But more education came with a new, new network.

Lovely. Yep.

So it came with people who ordinarily would have never, ever, ever, ever people.

That wouldn't be in your network usually.

Exactly. So it was an act of being in a different environment with a central goal. It was property that was attracting all of us. And everybody was having different experiences but bringing their different experiences to the table. To say, these were my individual experiences, these were my failures, these are my successes. And it was that we were able to unify it. So, so we, you know, so it was, that was the only place we're talking about it. So I'm talking seven, eight years ago. So today it's a bit easy. I mean, there's a lot of information out there today because of social media and all that or Back seven years ago, you know, you know, things like bridge, bridge lenders, things like specialist finance. Those things were not, you know, were not mainstream conversations. Things like. Yeah, I mean, people talk about mortgages very easily, but there were lots of things that were not mainstream information that we had to find out. But we could only do that by being in the right cycle. Right.

Wow, that's amazing. I mean, some of the things you've mentioned that seven, eight years ago, they're very mainstream. I can say that for. Maybe some of my viewers might know what you're talking about. I'm sure there are a lot of. A lot of people, doctors, who don't. Was it talking about bridge finance and all that? Yeah, but that's sort of the rabbit hole going down is something. Is your bread and butter. Now, just to give a bit of an insight, basically what you did, you came in, you weren't satisfied with just doing the nine to five thing, just going about it, do the regular stuff, go to church, go to work. You wanted to change your sort of, like, trajectory.

Yeah.

So you took a very big step. You don't live in London. I'm aware. You traveled to London with your wife and then you went into this free property seminar of which some people say is a scam. But what that did for you, it wasn't just the education, because you can read the education anywhere on Internet or whatever, but you also were in a new environment where you got connected, the network, actually. Then how to get to doing big deals. You're doing properties, you're doing conversions. That is amazing. That leads me to my next question. Could you give us just a general overview of the type of deals you do? Because when I say property entrepreneur, maybe a million people raise their hands and they might think I'm just talking about buying another house and, you know, sort of like buying a buy to let move out to your house. Just give us a brief general idea of maybe your recent deals or the type of deals you've done in the past.

So I'm a bit. I'm a bit adventurous. That has sometimes put me into big problems, but I think virtually part of the journey. Yeah, yeah, virtually. We've done virtually every. Well, almost every strategy out there. So we done simple houses, we've done flats, you know, convert house flat conversions, one bed to two beds. I've done HMO conversions, I've done commercial, I've done new builds, I've done service accommodation, I've done your rent to rent HMOs, I've done your rent to Rent, service, accommodation, I've done it. All right, so. So it's. Yeah, so we do. I. I mean, so basically I work in anywhere I see a deal market.

Backgrounds, property is just a bit of dibble, double. But for you, you're very much into property and one time you said to me, if everything goes down, the value cannot go to zero because in stock market you can get 100x. We've had investment, I made 100x. And then there are things that could actually go to zero. We've been fortunate not to be there, but it's very, very possible. And you said it's ready, it can go to zero and worst case scenario.

We'Ll move into there.

I think you said that.

Absolutely. People always make reference to the 2008 crash and it's interesting that when you look at the data, values actually dropped just by 20%, actually.

Yeah.

And it dropped 20% over a span of about 18 months. So it didn't go from boom. No, it gradually dropped for over close to two years and it dropped by 20%. The interesting part about it is that by almost all the properties that dropped 20% in 2008, by 2010 they were all back to baseline.

So that goes to say, time in the market is much better than timing the market. This is true for any investment. So trying to time the market, you're probably going to miss it. So previously, as a younger person, I used to, when I was my early 20s, we do all these strategies, evaluate companies and all that. But now when people come and say, maybe you should buy an index fund, I'm not sure you want to stay up all night listening to investors call. But that's amazing. That's, that's really quite insightful because people always refer to that 2008. And remember, most people forget 2008. A lot of unsophisticated investors, people who just jump in, they didn't go to get an education like you, they didn't do trial and error, they just jump in and start thinking, oh, I'm a property investor, I've got property here and there, I'll borrow money on 0, 0% return.

I mean, if we go back then, I mean, the banks were lending at 0% loan to value. Yeah, you, you basically your job. I mean, I know somebody who practically, he bought a house, he didn't know. No deficits really at the time. And, and so, and so when they, and when those, and so when there was pressure, the question is, what do I have to lose? Bank, take your house back.

Just fling, fling the house and run. Yeah.

And then. So you had so much of supply in the market. Wow.

And obviously simple economics. Still my supply less demand just crashes.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's very funny we're talking about zero percent now, but I know in July 2000, sorry, July this year 2023, we did a blog post on our moneywise doctor.com about Skipton. So Skipton.

Yes.

Decided to sort of like open the box and offer the 0% mortgage of which it was. People freaked out. They said oh, is this 2008? And we did an article on. On it and why we're skipping for joy. But what's very different, I found out that there are quite a few differences from the sort of loans keeping his offering. You obviously are aware of Skipton under 0%. Can you sort of highlight us on the differences between that and what happened in 2008?

So, so, so at the time, at the time the banks just wanted people to take. Again, I think they were moving with the market. You know, people. Yeah, people didn't want to own houses for a lot of challenges. And that was a bit to encourage people to. To say that rather than if you're going to rent, why don't you just pay the money to the banks anyway? And that's. That was the idea behind why there was 0% loan to values at the time. Deposits at the time. I think it's a bit this time around because keeping they are well protected. Absolutely. Well, because when you see the metrics, when you see the criteria for those loans, it's like it's only really a handful of people.