3 projects in their first 2 years, with Candice & Dan

Candice & Dan, are still pretty new to the property world, but with a couple of deals under their belts their on the right path and by the sounds of it, doing all the right things.  It was great to hear about their progress so far and some of the decisions they’ve made - like why they started out investing in flats even though they don’t think they’re the best long term investment; how they’re balancing the time requirements of investing along with days jobs, and how they made the ultimate sacrifice in their relationship in order to push their business forward faster than they would otherwise have been able to do. 

Today’s episode will hopefully give you a ton of inspiration and show you that whilst property isn’t the key to overnight success, you can still cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. So let’s jump in to the interview. 

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Transcript

Mike (00:06):
These guys, Candice and Dan are still pretty new to the property world, but with a couple of deals under their belts, they are on the right path. And by the sounds of it, doing all of the right things, it was great to talk to them and hear about their progress so far and some of the decisions that they have made to help them achieve this sense of momentum, like why they started out investing in flats, even though they don't necessarily think that they're the best long term investment or where their future lies, how they're balancing the time requirements of investing alongside their day jobs, rather than just burning all their bridges, packing it all in and going full time into property from day one, and how they made the ultimate sacrifice in their relationship in order to push their business forward faster than they would otherwise have been able to do. Today's episode will hopefully give you a ton of inspiration and show you that whilst property isn't the key to overnight success, you can still cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. So let's jump into the interview. Well guys, I am I'm delight to have you here, Candice and Dan, I have I've been excited about this one because, well the way I came across you was from a very interesting personal story of yours that I am sure we will get into today. A phenomenal sacrifice a sacrifice of all sacrifices in your grand plans to build your property portfolio. And I really wanna understand a bit more about the motivations behind that. But first of all, I just wanna say thanks for being here. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

Candice (01:48):
Thank you for having us. Yeah,

Dan (01:50):
It's a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to getting stuck in and revealing. All

Mike (01:54):
Good. That's what I like to hear, all of the dirty details. So first of all, just to get us started to give our audience a bit of an idea of who you guys are, what you're up to can we go back in time a little bit? First of all, just tell us a little bit about who you are on a personal level, introduce yourself, where you're based, what your background is, family life, all that good stuff to give us an idea of who you are before we get into the property side of things.

Candice (02:21):
So I'm Candice. I am originally from Bristol, but I've lived in Bourmouth for nearly 10 years now. Dan and I actually met at work. We've both worked for a loan company. Can I say the name?

Dan (02:38):
No, let's not say the name. Oh,

Candice (02:39):
<laugh>. Keep it

Mike (02:42):
Probably

Candice (02:43):
<laugh> for a local loan company. And yeah, I mean I kind of feel like our story before property is really boring, <laugh> nothing really happened. I mean once we met each other it got a bit more interesting, but there's not really much to say before that. Just sort of dead end jobs and no real direction in life.

Dan (03:08):
Yeah, I think obviously my name's Dan. I've lived in Bourmouth for my whole life grew up in a very household, parents, both worked for other people. Dad went through several redundancies, which is quite hard to experience and go for as a family. Always kind of been encouraged to find a safe job Never had any kind of entrepreneurial role models or anyone who just did their own thing essentially. Similar to Candice, just worked in beige jobs and kind of still do. And I'm not afraid to admit that even if my employer does end up seeing this. And yeah, I guess we almost came alive a little bit when we first got into property and it was that kind of moment where we came out of our shells a little bit kind of flourished and where we all of a sudden had an end goal in sight and direction I suppose.

Mike (04:15):
Okay. Well we'll dig into some of that, but I'm curious, how long have you been together now? I

Candice (04:20):
Think it's just over four years.

Dan (04:22):
<affirmative>. Yeah, I'll let Candice sounds

Mike (04:24):
Okay. Okay, so that was Candice. So you said that was when the heavens opened and the rainbows came out and life start to take on. So I mean I think that's nice Dan, you've obviously had a good impression on her, which is great. So you've been together for four years, you've been investing together. How long has investing been on your radar for? Is that something you jumped into straight away when you met or where did that idea come from?

Candice (04:50):
We've actually only been in property really for two years. It came about in a funny way, <laugh>. So we were looking at buying a first property. We just really wanted to get onto the ladder and we were looking at a house that was 300 grand, couldn't really add any value to it. My uncle is a developer well seasoned developer. So we just spoke to him about it and said, What do you think? And his response was, What are you doing <laugh>? You're gonna spend 300 grand on a property, which is a thousand pound a month mortgage that is really something that you can't afford and for what you know, can't add any value to it. He said, Why don't you look at some other options? So we did that and funnily enough, my uncle gave me a rich Dad poor dad when I was about 15. I really didn't have any interest in it at all. I didn't even pick it up but he said, Look, read this book. So I read it about two years ago and it was like I overnight, just my whole perspective had changed <affirmative>. And then I said to Dan, Look, you need to read this. And once he'd read it, we were both sort on the same page and said, Yeah, what are we doing? So let's look for something else. <affirmative>, which we then did. Yeah,

Dan (06:25):
<laugh>, I was just gonna say it was really quite opening and I think if there's one bit of educational or one bit of resource that I think a lot of people who are lacking direction or just an understanding of what you can do with your life, what you can do with your finances. I think it's an invaluable book to read because I've never been a reader myself, but like Candice said, overnight, it was just a completely different perspective on things and that's not an exaggeration. We really viewed everything so differently. So anyone listening to this who is looking for that, I would definitely advise picking up that book for sure.

Mike (07:05):
Yeah, it is funny. I mean I've been doing this podcast for a while now and one of the questions we used to ask in the first episodes was a favorite book, a book that you would recommend. And without Phil Rich Dead per Dad came up like 90% of the time. So I stopped asking that quite. I got so bored of hearing the same answer. But it is testament to just how powerful that book is and people will progress past that pretty in some ways. It's a fairly basic lesson, but the way that it just changes your entire way of thinking around income and assets and working for yourself versus building somebody else's income. It, it transforms so many people's lives. So it or lump it, it's a hugely powerful book. You said you read that about two years ago, so you went pretty quickly from we need to do something different to we're gonna invest in property. It sounds like wasn't a huge gap in between making that decision and then springing into action.

Candice (08:05):
No, not at all. I think as soon as we started to understand assets and liabilities, we knew what to do with our money, then we looked for a cheaper property that we could add value to with the end goal of making money from it.

Mike (08:21):
Yeah, okay. And I mean from a starting point, you said what to do with your money. Did you have much to start with? I don't need the exact figure, but were you sitting there in a fortunate po? We all come at this from different places, right? There's no right or wrong answer, but were you fortunate that you had some money behind you to use for deposits or were you having to scrape that together from your day jobs and save that up yourself? Where did you start this from a financial point of view?

Dan (08:49):
Yeah, I mean I think at this moment in time, neither of us had much kind of education in how to manage our finances. So neither of us were particularly good at saving. Well can, this gives me a dodgy look, but we didn't have much savings. We had about 10 grand, which I guess is, in relative terms, it is a lot for some people, but if you're looking to get onto the property ladder, it doesn't really go that far. So we were in a position where we had to borrow the rest in order to fund the deposit and then borrow the amount for the refurb as well. But because at this stage we knew what we could do in six months time, ie. We could refinance that property and we had an idea as to what it would be worth. So we had an idea as to how much money we could pull back out.

(09:38):
It wasn't too troublesome being able to borrow the funds. So yeah, that's kind of what we did and we got stuck into it and successfully refinanced it pretty much exactly six months after we'd got the keys for about 40,000 pound more than we paid for it. And because we bought it on a residential mortgage, there was no stamp duty. We benefited from being first time buyers. So actually the purchase costs were relatively low, but we were in a good position where we could pull out about half of the money in the end which then helps in terms of paying people back and also then went towards purchasing our second property.

Mike (10:22):
Okay, so that one, that first one then you said you refinanced it rather than sold it. So it was a long term investment rather than a flip. Yeah. Okay. Did you go into the early days of your property investing with much of a strategy, an idea of goals that you wanted to achieve? Or was it just a case of hey, let's go and buy something and we'll figure it out as we go?

Candice (10:45):
I think we're still in our early days, to be honest, <laugh> there's a lot more <laugh> of people out there doing a lot more than we've done so far. I think the main goal is, has always been for us to replace our income so that when we do eventually start a family, we don't have to stress out about childcare and not being around. We just want to be able to have that freedom, which is something that we've never had in neither of our families and a lot of people don't ever have. And also retiring early. So I remember there was one day when I was at my office job and I just checked my Nest pension page which come up with a delightful figure. My retirement age is 68 <laugh>. That's not something that we don't wanna be working for the next 40 years. So property really is, I think, a way to retire early for us. That's a big goal.

Dan (11:55):
Yeah, definitely. And when we bought our first place, we really had no education in property. All the only education we had was Rich Dad bought that, which doesn't really tell you how to invest in property. All that we had was the occasional slice of direction from Candice's uncle, cause he wasn't local to us but we were going in blind almost. And just hoping that we'd pick up as many learnings as we could along the way. And I mean there was a million things that went wrong but we're almost glad in a way that it wasn't run smoothly because there were so many lessons that we learned that actually just getting 'em outta the way on the first project, having all these failures, learning as soon as you get stuck in it, kind of gave us thicker skin moving onto the second project and a much wider, I guess, perspective on what could go wrong, how we can future proof ourselves from those issues and just gives us a better overall control over what is happening with our future projects really.

Mike (13:07):
Yeah, okay, I get that. And I mean, you said, you know, don't feel like you have done a huge amount so far. I'm sure you've still got a long way to go to get to what you're both capable of, but you have done a lot more than most people have by actually getting started. There will be a huge number of people listening to this who are just thinking about doing their first deal. And I think one of the biggest things that I try to remind people is that first project that you do will probably be some of the best education that you get. You read Rich Dad per dad, but you didn't have a huge amount of insight or experience beyond that and you figured it out and it's probably made you a far better investor as a result of getting started than you would be had you spent that same time reading books and watching YouTube videos and join in free webinars and all that stuff. So just that act of getting started and doing a deal, even if it doesn't work out exactly how you want that is phenomenally valuable. And you said yourself, there were some lessons there. So can we dig into that first project a little bit more detail, like the decision to, So okay, take me back. You were thinking we're gonna go out and invest in property. Were you looking exclusively around Bomo? Did you want to keep it close to home?

Candice (14:26):
Yeah, I think not being seasoned investors, we were a little bit scared to go further afield. And also we didn't want to be one of these people that's driving up and down the motorway all the time to visit their projects and keep an eye on things. Now everyone sort of advised us against investing in the south because purchase prices are so much higher. But yeah, no we did, we went out and we viewed a whole bunch of flats really sort naive to the whole lease hold, sort of dealing with freeholds and service charges and whatnot. But we found a flat, which was about one minute away from where we lived, that was a probate sale that hadn't been redecorated for about 50 years. And it's sort one of these older purpose built blocks where the room sizes are huge and there was just a lot of potential that we saw there. So yeah, we went ahead and got stuck in

Mike (15:30):
<affirmative>. And what did the work look like to do that? Was it fairly cosmetic? You said it needed redecorating, but did you do much else to add value to it along the way?

Dan (15:38):
Yeah, there we did. We did a fair amount. I mean it wasn't in a livable state whatsoever, so we completely replaced the he sink system full rewire. Everything in there is brand new. We added an additional bathroom as well, so it had a separate toilet and then a separate bath with a basin. We managed to extend the bathrooms into the hallway, which was an abnormally large hallway. So we extended the bathrooms out to allow more space for the original bathroom to be a full suite. And then we just punched a hole through the wall into the separate WC to enable us to fit in on suite in there as well. So that was one of the big changes in terms of increasing the value, it went from one bathroom to two bathrooms. One being an suite, which is obviously very popular when it comes to the resale value. And also in terms of the rental yield, it makes it incredibly more appetizing to any prospective buyers or tenants. So that was the biggest change that we made. So some structural changes but not huge.

Mike (16:52):
Okay, sure. And you said you got to the end, you were happy with the evaluation, you got it refinanced pretty quickly without mean this was what, two years ago? So during Covid, but all of that stuff went relatively smoothly from the signs of things?

Dan (17:06):
It did, yeah. I mean we got the keys for the flat a couple of weeks after anyone even heard of Covid. So we were quite lucky really, that we got in at a good time. And in terms of refinancing it, I mean we had one valuation back, which we weren't happy with because we knew that the property was worth more. So we actually went to a different lender and got a surveyor out and got it revalued for 10 grand more, which we were happy with. We weren't gonna challenge that and get someone else back out. So yeah, we had to go through a process of getting someone else out to value it, but we were really pleased that we made that decision in the end. That first refinance actually went quite smoothly.

Mike (17:49):
And that project now then, so that you, you've hung onto that, I guess that's still sitting in your portfolio. Is that just a single that you've got in there, a tenant that's in there renting it off you? Have you done anything more exciting with it?

Candice (18:02):
<laugh> unfortunately, due to covenants in the lease, we weren't able holiday. However, we do have tenants in there after living in it ourselves for two years and we have just achieved 1200 pounds a month for that one, which we're super happy with considering there's no parking, no garden, it's a too bad flat in the center of town. So yeah, happy with that. Got great tenants in there, which is amazing. So <laugh>

Mike (18:36):
Good. And you said you went from that pretty quickly onto deal number two. So what have you done since then? Bring me up to date to day, What's the portfolio look like? What you focusing on now? You mentioned holiday lets there, I believe that's become part of your focus as well.

Candice (18:53):
Yeah, for sure. We never really had a particular strategy. I think we were just more open to seeing what was out there and what we could do with it. So the second property is a flat again but it caught our eye because holiday lets were permitted. It's also one that had a separate kitchen that was big enough to become a bedroom. So that was a one bedroom, one bathroom that we converted to a two bedroom, two bathroom and is our first serviced apartment <affirmative>, which has done extremely well over the summer. We've, we've got six weeks week guests in at the moment as well. So yeah, we'll just see how the winter goes.

Mike (19:44):
<laugh>, I do love it when those long-term bookings drop in. Obviously you've maybe offered a little bit of a discount over if it's over a week or a month or whatever works for you, but just to see that whole block of time taken up by a single guest. Nice. Cuz I think the holiday let market, it can be hugely profitable, but it is a bit more last minute. Do you ever feel like you get those nerves? Is somebody gonna book it or is it gonna be empty and then usually it does fill up, but it is, it's a bit more intense than just having a tenant in there that's paying the rent every month.

Candice (20:18):
Absolutely, yeah. There are times when we go into our calendars and we think, oh, should we reduce it or should we hold out? What should we do? There is so much more work that's involved with a holiday, but considering that I don't have a full-time job anymore yeah, it's easily manageable. <affirmative>.

Mike (20:40):
Okay, so this is in Bourmouth as well? Yep. Yeah. Okay. And from I guess a couple of things, the building, the apartment is in a block, <affirmative> got I guess full-time tenants that live in that block, potentially owner occupiers in that block as well. How has been, have you had any negative experiences of trying to operate a holiday in a building where people are living full time as well? Or has that been pretty smooth for you?

Dan (21:10):
I dunno if I'd use the word smooth <laugh>. I'd say its been a bit of a bumpy road actually. We are the only holiday let apartment in the block. There's four other, there's three other flats in the block. And I think generally if you're running a holiday in a block that is predominantly Airbnb and I think you're not need to have many issues. But yeah, this is the opposite. We're the only one in the block, so we're outnumbered to a certain degree. I mean the first thing we did when we purchased the flap was we told all of the tenants what our plan was. We will be using this for shortest time stays. So we were very transparent from the get go with everyone in there and try to build relationships so that we've got everyone on side. We've only had issues with the tenants that live or that live beneath our flat.

(22:02):
The problem is that flat had been empty for two years. So naturally now that there's people living there, it's gonna be noisier than it was when it was empty for two years. And they, they're on benefits so they're at home all the time. So because it's a converted block and it's converted quite a while ago, the soundproofing isn't amazing. So generally they get a little bit upset with banging around. And we went for a stage where we were quite almost apologetic to them cuz they've got our number. So they'd messaged us quite a lot a few times a week. And we got to a stage quite recently where we fought this isn't no sustainability in this, we can't keep contacting these tenants. So we kind of changed our tone and put our foot down a little bit and said, look, here's our house rules, unless these things are happening such as they're making too much noise past a certain time or before a certain time, et cetera, et cetera, there's no need to contact us because there's nothing that we are gonna do about it. So we kind of just laid out the ground rules in terms of our relationship with them. And from that point we don't really hear from hear from them that much because generally our guests are very accommodating, they're very polite, we haven't had any issues. So there's really no need for those residents to be contacting us. And that's actually saved a lot of time in our week cuz it was taking up too much time and too much energy quite frankly. It

Mike (23:42):
Goes both ways as well. You want your guests to show up and have a good experience. We thrive off positive reviews, whether it's on Airbnb, booking.com, TripAdvisor, wherever we need those reviews for our short term rentals to grow in popularity and to get more bookings. And if they're getting hassle off neighbors who live in the building, that can impact that as well. So it's important to try and get that balance for both sides of the equation. But yeah, no, I like you laying down the law there with your neighbor and saying, look, this is a situation, we're not doing anything wrong here <affirmative>, if something genuinely bad does happen, we will step in. But if you're just moaning because there's people here and there didn't use to be people here then sorry, but that's life and from a management point of view. Candice, so you said that you're no longer working fulltime, so am I writing, are you managing this yourself? Are you doing the sort of day to day bookings and dealing with tank communications or guest communications and all that sort of stuff?

Candice (24:43):
Yeah, I've, we've done it all ourselves. We've just started to outsource just a few things even for a while when we first started I was really not precious about it but I just wanted, it had been designed so well and staged and styled that I just wanted it to be like that when the guests came. So for a while I was doing all the cleaning as well, but I just found that taking up too much time. So yeah, we have a cleaning team in place now and we've started to systemize and automate ready for our next serviced apartment when it's ready. But doing that all myself so far and managing our buy tolet as well and whatever current refurbs or projects we have on.

Mike (25:36):
Yeah, no it is good. I think having that hands on experience, it teaches you a lot, right? Particularly when it comes to outsourcing, whether it's the cleaning, the communications, even just the admin on the back end with your booking system, your channel manager, whatever else, to have that experience to say, okay, well this is the sort of skill that we need. We need a type of person who can communicate in a certain way or we need a cleaner who's got very high standards because this is the type of thing that we want. We need somebody who can be flexible cuz we might want to be juggling like a late checkout request with an early checkin request. It gives you a real insight into what the business needs so that when you are looking to outsource, and I'm glad you've said that, you're now starting to do that cuz it's not scalable to do it all yourself forever. But doing it to start with it saves you some money and it does give you a real good insight into what it takes to run that effectively, how you would like it to be run so that you can then create those systems and processes off the back of your own preferences.

Candice (26:37):
Yeah, absolutely right.

Mike (26:38):
You said as well, keeping an eye on current projects. Have you got projects on the go just now that you're working on?

Candice (26:46):
So we have purchased a studio in on the sea front which we are currently refurbishing. There's not too much that we've been able to do the space due to it being grade two listed. However we've made good use of the space so that it can accommodate four people. So yeah, that's been ongoing for quite a long time. Unfortunately we've had some issues with our contractors and we are no longer working with them, so we actually had new contractors start yesterday. So it was a project that was only supposed to take eight weeks and it's now been what, five months? Yeah. So yeah, it's a really painful one. <laugh>,

Mike (27:37):
How much longer do you think until it's finished, now that you've got those new contractors in place, what do you think the total, so it should have been eight weeks, how long do you think it'll be overall? Well,

Dan (27:45):
It should be done mean they've been working now for a couple days. They've sent us photos and actually they've made a lot of progress and it's not a huge amount to do. So we are really confident it should be done within the next two or three. So overall it'll be about a six month project, which considering our last project was also six months and we converted a one bed into a two bed, two bath and rewired, replanted did everything. And it's taken a same amount of time as a studio is hurts a little bit, but again, we're learning as we go along and yeah, it's, it's another lesson that we can add to the big ever

Mike (28:29):
Growing lessons

Dan (28:31):
That we've accumulating at the

Mike (28:33):
Moment. Yeah, no, I mean like I say, getting your hands, hands dirty, getting stuck into projects is the best way to learn. So you said this was a studio, is the plan for a holiday for this one as well?

Candice (28:46):
It is,

Mike (28:47):
Yeah. Okay. It's a little bit further away from home. So Weymouth is what is about an hour away from Bourmouth, something like that.

Candice (28:54):
<affirmative>, yeah, about that.

Mike (28:55):
So, okay. I mean you said the project hasn't exactly gone smoothly so far. Has distance played a part of that from a management point of view?

Candice (29:06):
Yeah, absolutely. I think I was really used to being on site all the time, so I hadn't necessarily built up the skills that were needed to manage it remotely, but in mind I have no project management experience at all, but being on site allows you to pick up on any problems straight away and come up with a solution and work with your tradespeople. But yeah, not being on site all the time, I was there a couple of times a week meant that I was missing things and tradespeople were unfortunately saying that they were there when they weren't there and there's no way for me to tell until I get there. So yeah, that's been a huge lesson for sure.

Mike (29:55):
How do you feel about the ongoing management as well? It is too early to tell, but that's gonna add a new challenge as well. I guess it's gonna be different cleaning teams, it's gonna be I don't know if it will be a different clientele, probably not. I guess it's people that wanna be on holiday in the south coast, but there will be some differences. You can't get there yourself personally. You maybe can't have the relations with the neighbors that you've got with the ones that are closer to home. Was that a strategic decision or did you just think it was the right property and we'll do whatever it takes to make it work?

Candice (30:28):
I mean the purchase price in Waymouth is considerably lower than borer. So I think with us recycling our funds and momentum investing really made sense to look for something that was a bit cheaper and also it has a similar nightly rate. So it just made real sense to go for it. <affirmative> it is a concern about managing it. I think just getting on board a new cleaning team, there's always teething issues, you know need to do spot checks and you really need to be there for the first few weeks to just make sure everything goes smoothly. So yeah, I think one thing at a time, we just wanna get the refurb done because once the tradespeople are done, there's a few things that we are gonna go in and do. We'd like to do paneling ourselves and make it really special. So I think once we are at the stage in a couple weeks when they're done, that's when I can start looking at cleaning teams and all of that jazz

Dan (31:34):
<laugh>. And I think as well, it's a challenge, it's a test because we recognize that the entry costs are quite high and actually if we do want to consider investing slightly further afield, Waymouth would be a good kind of test for us and a good opportunity to build that skill set that you require to invest slightly further away from home. And it's not too far, it's an hour, it's not too bad. So we're kind of seeing it as an opportunity to learn that skill set as

Mike (32:07):
Well. Yeah, no I like that. Like you say, an hour really isn't a big deal. It's when people start talking about investing 5, 6, 7, you're spending your whole day effectively getting somewhere it can make things more challenging. An hour is definitely feasible. It won't be as easy as it being on your doorstep. But yeah, I'm sure you guys will make it work. And I know there will be people curious about the breakdown of relationship with contractors. It's one of the biggest frustrations that we see when we are speaking to other investors. How do you find good trades and how do you keep an eye on them? How do you manage them even if it is on your doorstep? A lot of us are working nine to five jobs and we can't be on site when they are and all that sort of stuff. So what was the breaking point for you? You said there was times where they weren't on site and they said they were that sort of stuff, but when did, it was time that you know had to ties with them because often I think we let these things probably drag on a little bit longer than we, maybe we make that tough

Candice (33:07):
Call. It's not a decision that is to be made lightly. It was a really a series of unfortunate events, let's call it. So we were due to have a sparky start, I mean it's a few months ago now who was actually recommended by someone else in property who owns a holiday let in the same building as we've bought in. So yeah, they gave us a recommendation for an electrician which we took and he was due to start on Monday and I got a message I think on the Friday saying I've been asked that I can't start work until 11:00 AM each day, so this job is not feasible for me anymore so I won't be coming to work for you. So that was a really bizarre situation. Unfortunately the person who owns a property in this building as well, who is operating it as a holiday is trying to protect their investment and their guest satisfaction I guess and put their <laugh>, I don't really know how to explain it. Just contacted this electrician and

Mike (34:34):
I think we can all get a sense of what you're saying. Yeah,

Candice (34:40):
So that was the first thing. So then we are trying to find another sparky at really short notice. We have now found really great electricians, <affirmative> who have done a smashing job and then a main contractor who was actually doing the bulk of the work. So doing any structural work, doing in kitchens, bathrooms, tiling, flooring, literally everything had actually moved to Devon from borer halfway through the project, which I completely understand. It does throw a span in the works. I think it kind of got to the point for him where he realized it wasn't worth his time, which again I understand, but instead of being honest and having a conversation about it was just coming up with every excuse under the sun, <affirmative> about not being able to work. So it got to the point where I think we are of three months delayed. It should have been done ages ago, we should have launched already. And I think he said that he was ill with Covid for a few weeks and I said, When do you think you'll be back? Or I don't know, I can't really say. I said, look, I need to get this project moving now it's sitting on this, we're paying holding costs each month. Luckily we're not paying bridging finance or anything like that. We don't have those associate costs because we have private investment but we need to get on with it. I need an answer

Dan (36:20):
<affirmative>, sorry. So <laugh> losing a voice. So it got to maybe what a week and a half ago where we just decided that we would just cut ties, send us your invoice we'll make any necessary adjustments that we feel are appropriate for the time delays that it's resulted in. And I think we've left it pretty amicably and yeah, we've got new contractors in now as we've said and so far they're moving at a pretty quick pace. So we've definitely made the right decision. Of course we've had to pay a bit of a premium to get guys in quickly, but it means that we can miss the property sooner, which ultimately means we can start getting the booking sooner. So it's a bit of a double edged sword rating.

Mike (37:06):
Yeah, no, absolutely. Sounds like you made the right decision there. So the three projects you've spoken about, they have all been flats, apartments, <affirmative> a property type that a lot of people shy away from. They hear horror stories about them, about leasehold problems, about poor block management, about neighbors. You've kind of mentioned that you've had some minor sounding issues but still it's caused a bit of extra work for you with the neighbors. Is it a type of property that you think you'll continue to invest in and what would you say are the major pros and cons of investing in flats versus houses?

Dan (37:52):
So to answer the first part of your question, it's not necessarily something that we plan to continue doing. One of the main reasons why we're involved with flats is because of the entry costs naturally been a lot less down here in Bulmer and even Muff due to the kind of problems that we have faced with other tenants like you said, issues with management companies. One of our next steps really is now we want to look at taking over a small block and scaling a lot quicker and doing so, but also that allows us to eradicate issues with neighbors and also centralize the cleaning team, centralize the linen and just make the operation run a bit smoother. In terms of the, sorry <laugh> in terms of the main

Mike (38:43):
Candice, I love Dan, you're just cracking on and Candice is just gradually dying in the background,

Dan (38:49):
Starting it out in terms of, I guess the main things to look out for, one of the things that Candice's uncle told us to request when we bought the first flat was a schedule of works <affirmative> for anything that's due to be done around the property, around the building over the next five or 10 years. Because that will give you an indication of whether the service charges are likely to increase. Sure. So that's something that we've recommended to a lot of other investors who weren't quite aware that you could actually get that before exchanging or before signing on the dotted line. And also just really make sure that if you're buying a flat, you can afford the charges especially if you're living in a city center or a town center like Boer for example. There are some flats where the service charges are five grand a year and actually you need to really think about can you afford that because it's like having a second mortgage on the property and actually there's no guarantee it's not gonna stay at that, it could go up.

(39:49):
So you really need to be realistic with yourself. The first flat we bought was just under two grand a year and now we're like, we're not touching anything anywhere near that now because we understand actually it does have an impact on the bottom line. So I would definitely be asking for a copy of the schedule of works definitely in incorporating the charges into your budget plan and just off the big one as well, just making sure the lease isn't too short, right? Because the lower it gets, the more expensive it's gonna become to extend and the less desirable that property will become over time. So yeah, there's definitely a few things to be cautious of

Candice (40:31):
On the other side of that. Yeah, some pros, I think obviously the entry cost being the biggest taking on a house is a lot more responsibility, a lot more maintenance with the flat as well.

(40:49):
Even though you know, have the service charges, that means that someone else is taking on any work that needs to be done <affirmative>. And I think really comparing it, someone that's bought a 300,000 pound house and has it on a buy to what are they achieving per month, I don't know, 1500 say. And then look at hours, which we've purchased our first serviced apartment, which was 137,000 I think made 12 grand in four months. So it's really just weighing it up. If we can buy two flats for the same price as one house <affirmative> and have double the income, it just makes sense.

Mike (41:35):
Right. Yeah, for sure. And Dan mentioned some of the sort downsides. There are obviously two sides to every type of property investment and it's just good to get that balanced view. But on the whole, it sounds like you're pretty happy with the decisions that you've made. It's allowed you to get started with lower capital up front and I think the move into blocks of apartments is a really sensible thing to look at next. I also like the fact that maybe not so much with the studio, but with the first two you did what a lot of people don't think is possible, which is adding value to apartments by reconfiguring the layer. It might just be adding an en suite like you did with the first one or in the second the case of the second one, you know, were able to get a full second bedroom in there, turn it from a one bed into a two bed. So there is still scope to add value to property even if it's an apartment in a blog versus a house. And you've shown that which is, and again helping you recycle your cash and invest quicker, grow your portfolio quicker and ultimately I guess achieve your goals.

(42:43):
What are the goals for you, your business, looking ahead, you started out without maybe the clearest idea, but just thinking we want more freedom, maybe replace our income someday and certainly think about retirement. When you opened up your nest pension statement, have you got an idea now of what your goals look like over whether it's the next couple of years or longer term beyond that?

Dan (43:06):
Yeah, I mean this is something that I, I'm quite open to say that we've kind of struggled identifying our goals and I think a lot of people may be in the same position as us. How do you plan for the future when actually you haven't had that education to tell you how you should go about those things? So we've really kind of racked our brains recently to make sure that our goals and our visions align that actually it's actually what we want and not just what we think we should want. Like Candice said, the big over overriding goal is time freedom, being able to make our own decisions with our time, go on holiday, work remotely and just do whatever we want to do in terms of a medium term goal to replace my income on a consistent basis, which will then enable me to go into property full time. And then shorter term, like we say, we're got our eyes now on a small block we just need to find the one that stacks. We've viewed quite a few recently and the numbers just haven't worked and actually our single unit sometimes outperforms them. So it's really a case of just keeping an eye on the market, keeping our relationships with our selected estate agents and hoping that that comes across sometime soon. But yeah, that's I guess our roadmap to a degree, our kind of short, medium, long term. Would you agree?

Candice (44:43):
Yes.

Dan (44:44):
<laugh>, maybe

Mike (44:46):
You're on Always positive. That's always positive. Yeah. As a couple it's important that you are aligned. Has that been fun? Has there been any challenges there working on this business? I guess did you worked for the same company, right? You met working together so you maybe had a bit of an idea of what it was like to work together, but how has it been working as a couple on the property business?

Candice (45:09):
I think actually it's been quite straightforward considering that Dan's working full time. So that does take up majority of his day and I sort of deal with the property side of it. We are both working on weekends, we'll go to the projects and we'll get stuff done. I think with delegation of tasks, we don't really have any set delegation really do we <affirmative>, we just sort of go with the flow.

Dan (45:46):
But basically Candice does most of it. <laugh> and I'm here is a second opinion to add reasoning, to add a second perspective on decisions. So yeah, like I said, we don't have any set boundaries as it stands right now, but as we grow, as we take on more properties and more responsibilities, the kind of separation of tasks certainly become a lot clearer and at that point I think the delegation will play a huge part in making sure that we continue to grow.

Mike (46:19):
Yeah, no I'm sure it will. It'll be something that evolves naturally. There will be conversations sometimes smooth, sometimes heated, I am sure as you start to decide who's gonna be responsible for what. But even just playing that role then for Ken, I'm sure it's been hugely valuable to have that sounding board. I guess Kendice holds you accountable a little bit to make sure that you're not just sat at home watching Jeremy, Kyle and Dossing around it is good even if only one half of the, I know you both work on it, but even if one party isn't involved in the property business, just to have that interest, to have that person that you can talk to, share ideas with, that is a super important part that every investor needs. Cuz it can be quite lonely if you are trying to do everything on your own. You guys in particular though, as a couple made the ultimate sacrifice, if I can call it that you were due to get married and that's all gone out the window for the sake of your property business.

Candice (47:17):
We were supposed to get married in July this year and God, I actually never realized what goes into planning a wedding. It is ridiculous. <laugh>, even for a small wedding of 35 people. I think at one point we were up to sort of 15 grand and I don't know, it was just completely overwhelming <affirmative> because we are used to handling a lot of money, but not in terms of things for ourselves because we don't buy ourselves nice fancy things, <laugh>, it all goes into the business <laugh>. So yeah, it was a real struggle I think trying to balance planning the wedding and I think we had a couple of projects on at the time and one we ended up pulling out of that. That's a whole separate thing. So we had everything planned, the venue, the caterers, I even had my wedding dress, we'd sent out all the invites we were due to get married and I think it was about three months before we were just sat on the sofa completely shattered. And I just said to Dan, Do you think that we can postpone the wedding <laugh>? And he just said yes. And just straight after that, a massive weight was lifted from our shoulders, <affirmative>. It was just indescribable. Its, I didn't know how much it was wearing us down

Dan (48:49):
<laugh>. Yeah, it was one of those things that we were both thinking it, we were both thinking, we shouldn't get married this year, we just can't afford it. We've got too much pressure. But mm-hmm <affirmative> a hard conversation for someone's open because you'd never know how the other person's feeling. So it, Candice was brave enough to open that dialogue and as soon as you said it, I was like, yeah, I, I've been feeling the same for months. And like Candice said, it was just felt such a weight off our shoulders. Obviously we did have more difficult conversations telling family, but I think we had so much positive reinforcement about the decision. Everyone was like, Yeah,

Candice (49:33):
Fair

Dan (49:33):
Enough, fair play to decide to cancel the wedding is a big decision. It almost felt like a bit of a turning point. We're actually adults now <laugh>, we can make grown up decisions and yeah, it was just now we haven't even book the wedding. We dunno when it's gonna be like our focus is just on our business and then when we are happy with the position that our business is in, then we can start to think about how we want to go about getting married. But at the moment it's just so far on the back burner that we haven't really opened the conversation again.

Candice (50:12):
It was a bit painful. I mean we did lose a few thousand pounds in deposits cause you have to book things so far in advance. But I'm still confident that we made the right decision. We would've ended up getting into debt, we would've ended up borrowing money to be able to afford this. We didn't want to make loads of compromises on how the day was gonna be. And yeah, I mean who wants to start a marriage being in, I mean, there's good debt and bad debt, but that I think falls under the bad deck category. <affirmative> for a one day party.

Dan (50:48):
<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. I mean we had our refinance coming up for our Airbnb and we were planning on using some of that to finance the wedding and it just felt wrong. We, like Candice mentioned earlier, momentum investing, recycling cash, buying more property, We didn't want to do that at such an early stage just to pay for our wedding. So we thought, no, this isn't gonna fly. We need to make a change here.

Mike (51:17):
Yeah, no, it sounds like an incredibly tough decision, but such a smart one and one that will give you a phenomenal return over the course of your life versus a one day party. And that's not to diminish the value, the importance of what that day would mean to you, but you can do that again at some point in the future. It doesn't change how you feel about each other. And if anything, it will hopefully get you in a more comfortable life position that you can have more fun together every day rather than just on one day. So I think it's great. As soon as I heard that, I was super excited to hear from yourselves how it panned out and why you made that decision. And like I said, I think it is the right one. Just to wrap us up, aside from canceling your own wedding, what advice would you give to someone who's just starting out in property? Maybe think back to where you guys were a couple years ago and what you've done since then. What would be the one piece of advice or suggestion that you would give to them to help them take those first steps?

Dan (52:23):
I guess we'll give one each. My one piece of advice and this comes from I guess struggling with it personally and now overcoming it, is just comparing your journey to other people's journeys. No one's, no journey that is the same. You're on your own path, have your own destiny. So long as you work hard, you make the right connections and you know, have the drive and the motivation you'll be successful. So yeah, just to kind of round that up. Yeah, just don't compare yourself to others.

Candice (53:00):
And I think mine would be delayed gratification. There are a lot of things that people around us are doing, buying their dream homes and buying nice cars and things like that. If you want to have a successful business, well this is what we, we've experienced anyway. I think you need to be comfortable with not having things that you want in order to put your focus, your energy, your time, your money into something that is gonna give you that in the future. We're in it for the long game. The profit that we're making at the moment, for instance, is not ours. It's to pay our investors back. But five years time we're gonna be rolling in it.

Mike (53:50):
<laugh>. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean think both of them are great pieces of advice and a fantastic way to wrap up this interview. I am excited to catch up with you Candice in five years when you're rolling in it and I'm sure it'll be fun to see what you have done since then. But <laugh> just in terms of where people can keep in touch with you and can see your progress over those five years and beyond, are you active online anywhere, social media, is there a good place people can connect with you and see what you've got going on?

Dan (54:22):
Yeah, I mean we recently split our social media accounts, so you can find me at that property, Dan,

Candice (54:31):
On Instagram,

Dan (54:32):
On Instagram

Candice (54:33):
<laugh>, and I'm just can's, property or property, Oh no can's property. I will

Mike (54:39):
I'll find out the right variation of that. I'll make sure that we link up initial notes as well. No, I'll make sure everyone knows exactly where to find both of you. Thank you so much for joining us. I have had a blast talking with you. I know you said at the start you don't feel like you, you've done a huge amount, but for two years to have gone from zero to where you are and with all this potential ahead of you, the smart decisions that you have made, I see good things in your future. And I've had I feel honored to get the chance to talk to you at this early stage. And like I say, I'm sure we'll do it again in future. But thank you for your time today guys. Thanks for sharing your story, your experience, and your insights with me, with our audience. I'm sure they will enjoy it as well. And I look forward to catching up with you again at some point in the future.

Dan (55:24):
Yeah, it's been really nice chatting to you Mike. Thanks for

Candice (55:26):
Having us. Thank you so much.