Why Most Property Investors Stay Stuck

We are live.

Morning, we're live again in the Secret Property Club. So I'm Steve Hannam and delighted to be joined by Heidi Louise. Hello. So the live subject that we're talking about this morning, just for a 10-minute snippet, is why most property investors stay stuck and how to break out of it fast. So there's obviously people are mostly stuck, so we've got some talking points. So a lot of people go into training and never take any action. So they're constantly trying to get the next level of training, the next level of training, and paying thousands and thousands of pounds on these training courses where they could use that as a deposit.

Yeah.

And actually learn. And most people do it alone, try and do it alone as well, and it's often better to joint venture with somebody who's got experience. So I don't know what experiences you've had around that, Heidi.

I'll tell you what's interesting. So I did, um, property training about 5 years ago, and there was people on that course— what, people that were already successful, people that were brand new, people that was halfway through a course, for example. And it's interesting to see where everybody's ended up. Some people have gone on to be amazing, like fantastic. Some people have done absolutely fuck all. And some people have given up at the first, like, couple of really difficult hurdles. And I think people don't treat it as a business. I've, I've done all right out of it, but like I've said on a previous live, I haven't, I haven't taken a day, I haven't stopped, I've carried on. And I think that's where people go wrong. If they have a hard day or something goes wrong, or they haven't got what they want straight away, or they're not a millionaire straight away, they give up too easily. And it's like that saying where— what is it, the little saying where you're digging for gold and you're really, really, really close and then you give up? A lot of people do that. I, I know I'm going to be successful because I'm not going to give up. Like, I can't imagine giving up now, going back to work and closing my business. I can't imagine it because this is my life now and people don't treat it like a business and their lifestyle. So I think, yeah, we've definitely got some tips today for people, for sure.

Yeah, I mean, obviously one of the— if everybody who's going on training courses and training courses, it's kind of in like information overload. However, out there, there's so many free resources. I mean, obviously we're sort of giving value in the Secret Property Club, but there's podcasts, there's, there's YouTube, there's a lot of free resources. You, you don't need more potentially more knowledge. You just need to do more actions and make decisions. Yeah, and I think a lot of people— oh, go on, sorry, Heidi.

No, you go.

I think a lot of people fear of actually getting it wrong in terms of, like, the waiting for the perfect deal or just waiting for the right time.

Yeah, I'll tell you one of the mistakes I made, or one of the thousands of mistakes I made, is I, I trained in No Money Down, which was fantastic, and I really loved that. But there was like 7 or 8 different strategies. When you're first starting, you do all the strategies and you don't get anywhere. And I remember one of my friends saying to me, just focus on one strategy to perfection— not perfection, but Focus on it, then add something in. Yeah, something in, then add something in. So for the first 6 months, I was viewing houses. I had no intention of buying, to get experience. I was trying to do rent-to-rent deals. I was trying to do assisted sales. I was not raising any money, and I wasn't doing one strategy. After 6 months, when I was like, fine, I'll do rent-to-HMOs, that's when I started getting some success and some progression. I could have give up 100 times over in those 6 months. So with the fear of getting wrong, getting it wrong, and also too much information, just choose a strategy. So a lot of people go, I want to do buy, refurbish, refinance, but they don't know why. A lot of people don't understand the cash flow strategies that we want to do flips because that's what we think is property. They don't do something that they're passionate about and they don't work backwards from that. So for me there's loads of information out there. Definitely listen and read something daily, but make sure it's relevant to the strategy you're doing.

100%. I mean, people— yeah, as you say, people like, sort of, one week it's sort of buy, refurbish and refinance, then it's SA, then it's HMOs. So just be consistent, which kind of leads us on to the next one that we want to discuss, which There's a lot of people have a lack of consistency potentially. So sort of viewing deals randomly, posting on social media when they feel like it, networking occasionally. But you have to be consistent and people aren't going to know about you if you're not on social media. Imagine if you never walked out of your home and never met anybody, no one's going to know about you.

Yeah, and people think you're gonna get handed stuff on a plate, and it's like, if you're out of sight, you're out of mind. And I, and I'm out of sight for some people, out of mind as well. And as well, with the, with the strategy you're doing, you need to be focused on it, and you need to be consistent, and you need to have a framework for that consistency. So for example, I do a couple of things. I've got rent to rents, I own properties, I flip properties as well. But for my legacy, I want to do a completely different strategy. I want to do something completely new. There's a reason I'm doing it, like I want long-term legacy for the kids, and it is new to me. So I've had to learn about it, get new contacts, look at different areas that I've never invested in before, and completely learn something new. But I've built a framework around it. So the first thing I've done is, what do I need to do to get that one deal first? Before a massive portfolio. I need to learn about the deal. I need to find a deal and— sorry, the strategy. Learn about the strategy, find a deal, get your power team around you, or people, your brokers, your solicitors, your insurance brokers, your tax people. I've got a really good tax person that it could save me thousands, which would really help in raising finance. Then I need to raise finance. So look at it like a spider diagram. What is it the strategy doing? What do you need to achieve it? And put an action plan in place to achieve it. So if you've got absolutely zero knowledge on it, learn about it first, even if it's 15 minutes a day. If you don't know a correct broker, go and find one. I think I spoke to 12 brokers to get the right one I need for this deal. Not all of them can do everything. Go find the correct solicitor, go and raise some finance, go and speak to a planning consultant, whatever you need for that deal. You've got to get a little bit closer every day to achieve it, and eventually you'll buy one, or you'll get a deal, or you'll get a rent-to-rent. Then do another one, and then it'll become second nature to you. But a lot of people, I think, go out there and go, I'm going to buy a portfolio. Wouldn't— no, you're not straight away. Like, do the first— do the easiest thing first and build up.

Yeah, I think also sometimes it's also good to have those team, that sort of power team around you before you even find a deal. I know it's a bit of chicken and egg, but if you, if you suddenly get a deal come across your desk, you've then got to go out and find an investor, build relationships with solicitors, architects, or whatever. If you've already got that team in place behind you, you can then actively go out and find deals.

Yeah, what I found as well is that the first person I needed for mine was a broker that understood what I'm doing. So I'm doing title splitting, and then I said to him, do you know a solicitor that you work with? Oh yeah, I work with blah blah. Okay, do you know a planning consultant? Oh yeah, there's blah blah. And actually they've got their own little mini power team that they work really well with. Like, we're all colleagues at the end of the day, which is odd because we're all self-employed, but we're all actually colleagues, and people have their own set of respected colleagues they work with on a day-to-day basis anyway. So ask them who they would—

yeah, you, you don't know the people that you're connected with, who they actually know. So it is worth reaching out to people that you already know and asking them the question, do you know someone who does this?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so today has been sort of short and sweet, 10 minutes. So obviously what you need to do in order to sort of progress in investing, just keep bloody going for a start. Number one, keep bloody going. Stop giving up.

Um, don't give it up.

Yeah, stop absorbing loads and loads of information without doing anything about it because you're a busy fool. Yes, you're gonna get things wrong. I still get things wrong. I've lost money, but I've gained deals. I've fucked up here and there. You know, you've got to learn at the end of the day. Practice. This, you're going to get it wrong even if you think you know what you're doing. Be consistent, pick a strategy, get on with it, and then also abide by your own framework. So have you done everything on your little spider diagram for that strategy you're doing? Keep ticking it off and eventually you'll get there and just keep going.

Yeah, so like I said, I give it a like sort of simple framework would be to aim to have like, say, 3 chats a day with people to network. View 2 deals a week and do 1 post a week. Um, so just as a simple 3-2-1 kind of sort of thing. So if you're serious about getting inside the community, this is what we're here to actually help you fix. So have a look around, obviously, the Secret Property Club on the Substack. We're also on Facebook and we've got a WhatsApp group as well. So it'd be good to see you inside any of those. So thank you very much if you joined us this morning or watching this back on the replay. And, and thank you, Heidi, for joining us.

Yeah, thank you very much. See you later.

See you. Bye.