The Inside Property Investing Podcast | Inspiration and advice from a decade investing in UK real estate
The Inside Property Investing Podcast | Inspiration and advice from a decade investing in UK real estate
Adam's 22 Month Sprint to 4 HMOs
Adam was almost a decade into his surgical training, a few years away from becoming a consultant, and working towards his PHD, when one day he looked up and realised this wasn't what he wanted to do for the next 40 years of his life.
He walked away from it all, into a job that he not only found more fulfilling, but that also gave him some free time back to pursue other interests.
Fast forward two years (or 22 months to be precise) since he joined our Inside HMO Investing programme, and he's working on his 4th HMO... on track to acquire 10 within 5 years, and to generate a £20,000 monthly income as a result.
In this episode we dig into how he built momentum so fast, and why focus and execution matter more than unicorn deals.
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Adam was almost a decade into his surgical training, just a few years away from becoming a consultant and working towards his PhD, when one day he looked up and realized this wasn't what he wanted to do for the next 40 years of his life. He walked away from it all into a job that he not only found more fulfilling, but that also gave him some free time back to pursue other interests. Fast forward two years, or 22 months to be precise, since he joined our Inside HMO Investing program, and he's working on his fourth HMO already, on track to acquire 10 within five years and to generate a£20,000 monthly income as a result, while still holding down that full-time job. In this episode, we dig into how he built momentum so fast and why focus and execution matter more than finding unicorn deals? to your background and what you've been up to over the last couple of years. But for everyone listening to this who hasn't come across you before, can we go back even earlier than that and just understand a little bit about your corporate background and who you are as a person?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely, Mike. I guess the best place to start is that I went to medical school in London and trained to become a doctor. And as someone in my 20s, I was dead set on working as a surgeon, orthopaedic surgery specifically, hips and knee support surgery for my career. But I think what you want at the end of your 20s is a bit different to the start. I took time out, did a PhD in Basically, particularly with COVID added on top, I had a lot of time to think. And I just realized where I was going in my life wasn't really what I actually wanted later in life. So I made a bold decision in my early 30s to move across into drug development. So I now work for a company that develops medicines that can help patients at scale. So I find that very fulfilling. it also gave me much more time to pursue side interests um so a couple of years ago i was you know about 33 34 and i had time on my hands to be honest no kids i've got one now but not at the time and i wanted to make the most of it so um throughout my 20s and early 30s i've always looked on pretty enviously, to be honest, that people who, my friends, who parents have properties, seen how well they've done.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_00:it made me determined to look at it myself. And actually what happened was a one-day free training event turned up on my LinkedIn one day, and I nearly didn't go due to a social commitment, but I did end up going. And then as a result of that, I ended up signing for a subsequent bootcamp, And I sort of started on my journey. That particular training provider taught me about the different strategies. And quite quickly, I realized that HMO was the one that really grabbed my attention. I like the fact it's high consistent cash flow. I like the fact that there's increasing demand for it in the marketplace. And also, in my personal opinion, the returns would buy to less. just simply don't match the other HMO and the time it takes to put in and the output. So then I stumbled across your course, Mike, and doing that course was certainly one of the best decisions I did in terms of accelerating my property journey and acquiring a few HMOs.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. I'm glad to hear that. We'll maybe touch on that process. We will, absolutely, because that's the focus of today's discussion, really, is your HMO story so far. Prior to that, though, just a couple of questions on your intro there. So you fell out of love with the idea of being a practicing surgeon. It's completely unrelated to this topic of conversation, but I'm always interested in what kind of triggers those big career changes. That's a life-changing moment for you. You've done your undergrad. You've done all of your... I mean, I guess you were a consultant at the time that you... shortly
SPEAKER_00:yeah i was in this stage of training known as registrar training which is a few years of consultancy but i've done my surgical exams
SPEAKER_02:like coming up for a decade of commitment i guess at that point
SPEAKER_00:pretty much pretty
SPEAKER_02:much
SPEAKER_00:um and i think i got back to my why so why was did i want to do surgery um at medical school um i at that stage in your career it's more theory and not practice um i guess The reality of being in the operating theatre all day, wearing heavy lead, smashing frosty seas into people's thigh bones, very rewarding seeing them walk out of hospital. But it wasn't what I imagined doing for the next 40 years of my life. And it was the PhD that really made me press pause. I was not on a conveyor belt. I had time to really think. And I learned about things outside of clinical medicine, such as drug development, which given me a much better balance in my life yeah um and it was a brilliant decision i've made because it's now opened up time for side hustles such as property yeah i i love it and in fact i i think the skills i've gained during my surgical training um you know they haven't left me that sort of transferable skills like i now apply to uh property as well as my um my job and drug development, attention to detail, working under pressure, quick decisions, stakeholder management. I think they've certainly stood me in good stead for the challenges that HMO investing brings.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay. Interesting. And I mean, you did it, you made that call before you had, before family came along, right? You've got one baby recently.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So maybe slightly easier to make that decision earlier in life. But there must have still been some, I can't imagine it was an easy decision to
SPEAKER_00:say. It wasn't. It certainly wasn't. I'd done pretty well in my training and my exams. And I actually had what's seen as a relatively coveted position, which was both clinical training, but also academic training. And my friends at the time thought I was mad when I told them I was leaving. But I guess it's, I just realised you've got to do what's going to make you happy and what's going to fulfil you and you should do it for yourself and not other people. I guess now, balanced, working from home, seeing my 17-month-old son at lunchtimes, I certainly don't regret that move at all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, good. And I'm glad to hear that everyone else thought you were crazy. It means that there will still be doctors in the NHS. They're not all going to abandon their posts to invest in property. I hope. No, no.
SPEAKER_00:Although I was at the HMO Awards last week, I think there's an ENT surgeon from Reading who won several prizes for his company. So I'm certainly not alone. Yeah, no, absolutely. Seeing that was inspirational
SPEAKER_02:as well. So yeah, I know. So I imagine you're talking about Tom, who was a member of our mastermind group for a while. I got to know his business quite well. And yeah, I mean, massively inspiring portfolio. That's what made me think, you know, between you and him jumping ship and a few others that I've met along the way. There's a bit of a theme forming, but okay. So you mentioned the idea for property came along off the back of almost like a kind of a random LinkedIn post and a free training event. We hear about these quite a lot, right? Come along and we'll teach you everything you need to know about property in 24 hours, but By the way, there's probably going to be a big upsell and bring your credit card and run to the back of the room and all that sort of stuff. But you still it gave you some some good foundation knowledge you mentioned in terms of like the strategy that you're going to go after. It helps you decide the HMOs were the right route. So I know there's a lot of cynicism around these things, but. As an entry point, it sounds like it still brought you some value despite some of the negative connotations you hear about them. It was worthwhile for you. It helped you set your direction and decide which route to go in.
SPEAKER_00:100%. I was so close to not going to that three-day event, but what changed for me from going there was just seeing case studies of people from all different walks of life and the amazing results they've achieved and relatively quickly. And, you know, they kept on saying, the trainers, if I can do it, you can do it. And it did make me think, you know, I've just spent four years trying to do a PhD, which about five people will read the thesis. Maybe if I apply the same to property, hopefully I'll, you know, get one or two, see where I go. So I think, and actually being surrounded by like-minded people, you know, Yeah, and what it also did, it made you challenge the system you're currently working in a different way where you might not have done. And clearly there's reasons why they do that, but they did make me fully aware. You know, we've got limited time at work, we're in a very difficult tax environment. Where possible, try and generate assets that produce income whilst you sleep, do the work once, get paid forever. You see, I've got them at the top of my head now. But that really resonated with me. And yes, the online training they gave for that next stage was very helpful. It taught me about the different strategies. And that's when I really focused and tried to specialize in HMOs.
SPEAKER_02:At that stage, did you have an idea of what you wanted this to become? Did you sit down at any point and kind of map out your goals and say, I'm going to pick up this side hustle. I'm going to invest in property. At some point, I would like it to bring in a certain amount of money a month or allow me to maybe have the option to retire from the day job at some point. What was the driving force if there was one behind it?
SPEAKER_00:I think I became acutely aware that I was exchanging time for money. And even if you're in a relatively well-paid job, after taxes and lifestyle expenses, it doesn't leave a huge amount behind. So I do want to, you know, have a very comfortable next few decades of my life and have generational wealth for my family. And I just couldn't see that happening if I just stuck to the nine to five. My medical career is still very rewarding and I do not intend to walk away from it at all. This is seen for me as a a side hustle that complements that. But I really desired some passive income and diversification in my wealth. And rather than putting a specific number on the income, me and my business partner, we're aiming to do 10 HMOs in the next five years. We're now two years into it and we've got four so i guess i guess we're on track what that probably will equate to i think across the business would be approximately twenty thousand pound per month rent yeah net rent and then i guess split between two of us approximately ten thousand pounds so um so i'd certainly need to start with that in mind but that that's our revised goal now to do that but still alongside both of our careers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I mean, there are significant numbers you're talking about, but when you break it down and you look at the speed you've gone, and most people don't go at the pace that you have done, and we'll talk about that as well, I'm sure, but it is infinitely achievable You're not the first person to come on this podcast who's made a success from investing in property alongside a day job. It's hard work. I'm sure you will agree. There are times where it's stressful. You may be questioned why you made that decision to get involved from time to time. But ultimately, to build an income that's giving you£20,000 a month, it's hard to ignore.
SPEAKER_00:Indeed. So that would be for the full business in five years. But that's our goal now. It's certainly hard to ignore. I think doing it alongside the day job is certainly something that should not be done lightly. However, what I would say is quitting a job is probably not the right idea because I've utilised development and bridging finance. I like the fact I have a job. And also, I think if you really focus down on your investment area, your strategy, your tenant type, the type of refurb you do, your power team, actually, it can become very efficient. To use a phrase I think we've used ourselves, rinse and repeat. Once you've done your first one, you've sort of got your model. So then it's essentially the case of implementing it again. Doing your first one by far is... the hardest and steepest learning curve. But once you're over that, if you don't plan on deviating too much, then I personally think being focused allows you to do it quite comfortably alongside a day
SPEAKER_02:job. September 23 you came into our world via our Inside HMO investing program. What did the first deal look like for you in terms of timescales and the activities, the thought process you were going through in order to secure that first deal?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it was very emotional and a lot of stuff happened. So I joined your program in September. And what you teach in your course is really honing in on your investment area, your tenant type, doing area analysis. So I live in Hertfordshire. I was... Balancing whether to invest in the Midlands, specifically I was looking at Derby or somewhere closer to home. Me and my wife, one trip to Derby, she said, you can't do this. So I followed her advice and I found somewhere closer to home. And then a property came to market, back to market, I should say, at£260,000 on a Thursday. And I managed to get in there on a Friday. And it was a motivated seller. It was children selling a probate property. And they accepted an offer of 240,000. And yeah, getting that call back from the estate agent was a superb feeling. Was that the first
SPEAKER_02:offer you'd made on
SPEAKER_00:any property? That was the first offer, yes, I'd made. But then came the hard work. because we were thinking getting a bridging loan development finance would be easy. As I've explained now, it certainly wasn't. So what happened was we went to a mortgage broker, but then what happened was a bit of a coincidence. The lender had previously rejected an offer on the same property because they had had a value would go out and estimate the GDP, the value after the work's done, and they basically said it would be very low. The numbers didn't add up for a bridging loan, so that deal fell through. That's why it came back to market. And then I kept on speaking to other brokers, and they were saying, well, there's no guarantee we can give you a bridging loan, but in order to find out, you need to pay our broker fee, you need to pay our... the valuation fee, which was about two and a half K. And you're thinking, okay, is this really going to happen?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But then I found out the identity of the person who had made the previous application, messaged him on LinkedIn. He shared with me the valuation report.
SPEAKER_01:I
SPEAKER_00:shared that with my broker. And then she goes, oh, actually, I think this value just didn't know what he was talking about. It wasn't from the area. So then that gave us confidence. And it was actually my broker who really said, no, I think we've got a good chance of getting a bridging loan. So we went to a different lender. And then I was actually on a beach in Barbados with my wife when I got a WhatsApp message from the broker saying, good news. And then, yeah, we needed a GDB of 500 and we got one at 520. So that was really another high, like thinking this could happen. But there was a lot of stress in that period. It was spanning Christmas as well. And in total, we managed to buy that first property with Bridging Finance in May. So offer accepted December, May. So basically six months. So my first big lesson was conveyancing takes a long time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it absolutely does. There's no getting around it. Property is a slow game. But I think that six months is a phenomenal success to get an offer accepted after six. Two months is great. As you know, one of the first things that we do is our eight-week sourcing challenge at the start. And that's really the fastest that anyone goes at. We'll usually get maybe one or two offers accepted in that time from the people like yourself who are looking to go as quick as possible. But if you're getting an offer accepted within six months, I'd say you're still doing well. And I suppose I'm only saying that to... align expectations with people who are maybe thinking about starting. It's far from a get rich quick scheme, right? No,
SPEAKER_00:I think that first decision about where you're going to invest, what strategy, what tenant type, that needs to be done with some research. And I think if you do that rigorously and well at the start, then it sets you up well for them really honing in on the types of property you want to buy. But yeah, it's definitely not a get rich quick. and the stars aligned for me. So that's quite fortunate, I think.
SPEAKER_02:And then from May through to completion on that project, so renovations finished and then the refinance, any major issues to speak of and how long did that take you roughly?
SPEAKER_00:So we did change our bill to last minute because the initial bills we're going to use just haven't done HMOs. And from your training, from listening to podcasts, I realized that you really want a builder who knows about HMOs. And actually, I met some. So I made it quite a brave decision to switch to builders last minute. And these guys are very good. They actually work in the letting agent as well in the area, so they know what the tenants want. And the project, I think we aimed, said it was going to be 20 weeks. In the end, it took 24 weeks. It was a really steep learning curve. There's things I could have done better, for instance, ordering the kitchenettes in advance. I sort of realized they needed them next week and I hadn't even ordered them. But my big learning and my big advice for listeners is the bridging loan, Development Finance, who gave us the loan, which gave us about half of our day worth purchase amount. They gave us the entirety of the refurbishment loan, which came to about£160,000. So we would pay the builders£30,000. installments and then get paid back. So that was a game changer. And yeah, you need to be organized. But I was doing this alongside a day job. So having a main contractor was absolutely critical for me. I would not be able to manage the sub trades. It had to be a main contractor for me. So that's my big tip on someone doing it full time as well.
SPEAKER_02:How much involvement did you have then, saying you were full-time, you had a main contractor? What sort of things were you doing other than forgetting to order kitchenettes? Was it evenings and weekends? Was it a couple of hours a week? Did it feel like another full-time job?
SPEAKER_00:So part of your... online training course one of them was one of the modules is about managing a refurb so i i i did all the due diligence at the start we had a jct contract in place we had a specification of work we had detailed floor plans whether they were followed in the end we made those changes but we also worked with interior designers um elite um elite dwellings um yeah yeah yeah um and That really helped a lot because they give a very detailed specification of pretty much everything through the property. I wasn't choosing the mirrors or the beds. That was recommended to me. Whether or not it was within my price bracket was another matter, but that helped a lot. What I would do is I would go once a week, check in on the main contractor and spent an hour to 90 minutes just going through everything. There were hiccups along the way. So at one stage we needed to build over agreement with the council for a pipe in the back garden, which I've never heard about.
SPEAKER_01:But
SPEAKER_00:that in the end got resolved. But you know, just on
SPEAKER_02:that, Adam, sorry to interrupt you, but that's the type of thing that, and this is just more and more my philosophy than necessarily being the right way of doing things. I think so many people You'd never heard of a build-over agreement. It came up, you found a solution, you resolved it, you moved on. I think some people get too far into their own concerns and worries about not knowing every detail of every... I still don't know everything that could go wrong in a project, but I think it's more about your willingness, your ability to... You said you brought a lot of skills across from your corporate job as well. And I imagine that was fairly high stress and adapting on the fly. It's impossible to know everything before you start, but you will only learn those things and know what you need to know by getting started in the first place. And I think that's something that you always do very well. You learn enough to make the next step. You implement it. And then you kind of go back. You're never done learning, right? You start with a little bit, human anatomy, and then you move on to the specifics of the hips and that sort of thing. And you learn as you go and you adapt and you get better, but not trying to understand it all before you step foot in surgery for the first time.
SPEAKER_00:No, exactly. I think in surgery there's a motto, see one, do one, teach one. So it's a case of incremental gains. I think what I'd say as well that helped my stress levels was... having your coaching calls, knowing there was someone there to drop in on if something really hit the fan. And also anticipating, okay, so at this stage of the project, you know, we've done the strip out, what's going to come next? How do I prepare? So I guess I was always project managing, looking ahead, trying to figure out what the next step was. And once you've done it once, like I've now got two projects ongoing near the latter stage, Yep. This time has been much, much, much
SPEAKER_02:easier. I'd never made this connection before with, you know, as a doctor, you're almost committing to that lifelong learning. I was thinking about this before we started recording and what I think made your... or attributed to the speed you operated at and the success that you've had in a short space of time. And more than most people, you show up to... Virtually every call, certainly in the early days and still now two years later, I see you regularly on those calls asking questions. But there are a few people like that that stand out in my head that have had the best results. I think you're one example of that. Sarah Watt from Alt Street Property, if anyone's familiar with her. Courtney Bryan is another one whose faces I kind of vividly recall on these calls. They're questions, they're their willingness to show up and do the work and i think that is is part of it i think some people think oh well you know i'll go along to this one day seminar and then i'll be rich or i'll pay for this course and they'll figure out for me like there's still work that goes in to to that and you know you you see the results come to those people who who put in the effort like yourself so i don't it doesn't surprise me that you've had the results that you have had um Just to wrap up this first project, so 24 weeks instead of 20, I'd say that's pretty good going. You had an initial estimated GDV of, you said, 520, 525? Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And
SPEAKER_02:Valuer backed that up when it came to refinance?
SPEAKER_00:So the pre-valuation was 520 and the end value was 540, actually. So we were delighted with that because... you know, going from not knowing whether we'd get the GDB we needed to get a pretty known going to exceeding that. I think the valuer said it was because, you know, the project had been done well. I think working with interior designers certainly helped it look nice on that day. Yeah, we were delighted with that. That meant that when we refinanced, based on our net rent, that worked out to be approximately 37% return on cash employed. I was aiming for about 20%. Yeah. So that certainly worked for us. I'd say one of the big blocks when you're new to property and listening to podcasts is unicorn deals. Everyone wants them. I've not seen any... properties that would really give me the option for that. So I think once I just accept it, we would be leaving money in the deal as long as the numbers worked for us going ahead. I think that's a big reason why we've made progress rather than waiting for the dream deal, which you might even get your offer accepted on. I wanted to share that. We are leaving money in the deal, but we're happy with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, I think great advice. Good enough is good enough for me. A 37% return is phenomenal. Anyone who is waiting for that elusive all money out deal, they come up every so often, but you could still be sitting waiting for your first one versus having four in the pipeline now, right? Yeah. I know which position I would rather be in. So from there then, you got that one boxed off and I guess, you know, fully complete before you started to look expanding from there, but you seem to have moved relatively quickly from that point on. So was it a case of this one's finished, we're ready to go again straight away?
SPEAKER_00:So, yeah, what happened was we were... I had my next offer accepted in the August. So... Essentially, I was actually relatively early stages of that first project. But my business partner and I were keen to just crack on. We sort of backed ourselves. I worked out the pre-evaluation gave us some confidence. The deal should stack at the end. And another property came to market that looks very promising. By this stage, I've been building relationships with estate agents, trying to get in there. It's more like a WhatsApp inbox. But anyway, he let me know there was a property coming to market. And this one was 247,500. It was a two-bed, but actually it was a very big two-bed, which you could make seven bedrooms out with an L-shaped dormer. And I had that one accepted at 247,500 pounds. And then when we used Bridging Finance for that one again, this time they said the end value would be 560,000. It was the same value again. So as the first project was drawing to a close, we started the legwork of the paperwork to buy that second property. That one, again, took about five months, six months to buy. And I think we started that one a month after we finished the first project. There wasn't much of an overlap. Yeah, it worked out pretty well. But what did happen was on the day we got the value around to my first property, I went to view another property in my goldmine area and we had that offer accepted as well. That one, that was in December and we managed to get that one in on the 31st of March, the day before the stamp duty hike. So that shows actually if you do I think we paid a bit more for our conveyances this time and we got much better results. So we won't be going cheap again of conveyances in the future.
SPEAKER_02:I suppose the way you're stacking up those projects, a fairly aggressive strategy, part of that will be dependent on how much capital people have got available to them. You've mentioned your business partner. Are you happy to talk about that relationship and how that's allowed you to scale as well?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So he's been central to what we've achieved. At that one day event, what I learned above everything was other people's money. So I think at the time I had maybe 40, maybe shy of 50,000 pounds in my bank. So not enough to do it alone. And that day really taught me that to do that, to do HMOs, I would need to partner with someone. So I thought about my friends and family, and I knew this business partner had an interest in property. So he's a successful entrepreneur in his own right. He's a GP. He runs a successful supplements business. And I sent him a WhatsApp message saying, I'm telling him I've been at this course, and he replied saying, should we do it together? And from there, our company, Scalp Property Ventures, was established. was born so yeah he provides the large bulk of the capital and i provide the large bulk of the sweat equity let's say we split everything 50 50. And without this business partnership, I don't think I'd have any HMOs yet. So I'd much rather own half of four than 100% zero.
SPEAKER_02:I think your example is a great one. A lot of people, they maybe feel a little bit icky or they ask questions like, why would somebody invest with me? But in your case, it sounds like your business partner has probably got a lot of other things going on, but he has capital and he wants to deploy that capital. He wants to get a return on it. What's he going to do? Leave it in the bank, put it in a savings account, invest it with some fund manager who takes a percentage and he ends up getting 4% a year. You've got a great solution for him. It's a true win-win outcome.
SPEAKER_00:And he's interested in property. And seeing that I'd invested in myself, I think in total my property education came to nearly£15,000. So it's definitely cheap. Ours was a fraction of that, let's be clear. Yours was a fraction of that. I don't want people getting the wrong impression. Maybe 10% and incredible value from one of yours. And I think it showed him my business model. I have skin in the game. Yeah. And that
SPEAKER_02:was important. You mentioned as well, I can't remember if this was before we started recording or I've mentioned it since, but you've had good news recently as well. Deal number four is in the pipeline.
SPEAKER_00:Just this week, Mike... I was looking forward to coming on your podcast. And once again, the stars aligned for me. What happened was the market had slowed down a bit on Rightmove in our price point. The property came there and it was listed at 260,000. The floor panel looked good. And I shared it with my business partner, just sort of, you know, FYI, markets cutting up. And he was like, we should get it. And I was like, okay so we jumped in the pool and we figured out how we could fund it um the next day i i knew this letting agent i mean yeah i knew this estate agent but went to spew it with him took along my uh my main contractor okay because i find that incredibly valuable for peace of mind as well if he says it's going to work as a like space and an athletic experience then it'll work and In fact, with this one, we knew that there was interest on it, and it was the number one that fell through. We actually picked up$272,000. So it was above asking price, but it worked. I did the deal analysis. It would still give us a 30% return on cash employed. I was aware that not many at this price point are coming on the market, so we wanted to act fast. My business partner said we could go up even a bit higher, to be honest, but It's a bit like a snowball effect. Once you've got your first one, and then when you go on your next viewing, you can show them a video of your first HTML, I guess it gives you more credibility. And it's just about getting started, isn't it? And hopefully now we've got these four, that will continue.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, that first offer accepted is the hardest part for sure. Like I say, not to make out that it gets easy after that, but just getting that momentum, getting the ball rolling down the hill is the tricky part that most people get stuck at. But I think what you've done particularly well as well is... You've kept it consistent, rinse and repeat. You mentioned that earlier. So it's the same location, same style of houses, more or less, same end strategy. So it's always HMOs. You're not running all over the country. You're not trying to do a little bit of HMO, a little bit of service accommodation, some commercial, and maybe you'll expand in future. But I don't know if you'd agree that your ability to have done four deals within two years probably comes down to the fact that You've had those relationships with agents, with builders, your knowledge of one location, all of that has probably helped you move faster than people who are trying to spread themselves too thin.
SPEAKER_00:100%, I think staying focused, being niched. Maybe it goes back to my medical background in medicine. We're used to picking a specialty and sticking to it and becoming a master at that. So I've decided with property to do that with HMOs. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:nice. Any advice you would give to somebody starting out? You are still relatively close to the starting block, so I'm sure it's fresh in your head. Anything you would have done differently or any advice that really felt it kind of helped get you started versus some of the other more generic stuff maybe?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's plenty. I'd say first and foremost, get educated. I think it gives you peace of mind once you know that there's no major gaps in your knowledge. If you're going into a more advanced strategy, such as HMO, I guess, compared to Vitalet, people say you shouldn't start with HMO. But I think with the right education, you can do so. And having a mentor gives you safety net and the confidence to take action. Now, I said take action there. What I've observed is the people who actually take action and learn by doing that get their results faster. It's very easy to get educated with the theory and don't apply it, but like with many things in life, on-the-job experience accelerates your learning much faster. So as soon as you can get started, I really just get going, but my big piece of advice would be to get educated and take action. Do your viewings, make those offers.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. I'm not sure if you feel like you're ready to give this a plug yet, but in terms of watching other people, learning from others, you have a little project of your own bubbling away in the background, right? Can we talk about this?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. You have a YouTube channel coming soon? I do. I really think there's fantastic content out there on YouTube. And trust me, I watched a lot of YouTube channels in my early days, and I still do. It's brilliant seeing people do walk-arounds. But I think there's a bit of a gap there. Most of the YouTube channels focus on how to quit the rat race, how to slap your boss. it tends to be done by people who are quite advanced in the HMO journey. So I'm creating a channel called the HMO Surgeon, and I'll be talking about how to get started in HMO investing, but crucially alongside your day job. Nice, I love it. I'm excited
SPEAKER_02:to watch that. But yeah, it should be great for you from a brand and exposure point of view. I think your brand in today's economy That's one of the biggest assets that you can have. You're fortunate you've got a funding source lined up already, but I'm sure it will open more doors to you and just make you a valued member of the property community, which is not a bad place to position yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I think something I think on reflection I've done well is using other people's skills. You probably noticed that I'm using letting agents, I'm using a main contractor. All of these things make your life so much easier if you've got a full-time job. I can't imagine what my life would look like if I was not using a main contractor and managing 20 tenants as well. I think I'm certainly not afraid to pay a service to someone else who's going to make by myself at time. I think you talk about that in your other podcasts.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm excited for it and I'll make sure that we get a link up in the show notes for it as well. Do you have a launch date for it?
SPEAKER_00:I'll be releasing my first video end of July.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, perfect. Yeah, well, I'll make sure we link that up. And we will need to get our next interview booked in for what, three years from now? That will be the five-year goal to come back and see how you're getting on. But I've got no doubt you will achieve it. It's been phenomenal watching you over the last couple of years. The four deals in two years is a massive success. You should be proud of yourself, whether you are or not. I'm not sure, perhaps too humble for that, but it's a massive achievement. So hats off to you, Adam, and thanks for sharing your story with us today. It's
SPEAKER_00:been my pleasure. Hopefully see you in three years, Mike.