Is This What's Holding You Back From Building The Property Business You Want?

Are you having trouble getting your property business started?

In this episode, we’ll cover the five main reasons people often struggle to launch their property ventures. We’ll talk about issues like poor financial planning, not knowing the legal rules, not making important priorities and sacrifices, lacking a strong support network, and being afraid to take the first step.

We’ll also discuss why it’s crucial to understand your finances, plan ahead, and build connections with others who share your goals. If you’re finding it hard to get your property business off the ground, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

Andy Graham (00:02.67)
Hey, I'm Andy and you're listening to the HMO Podcast. Over 10 years ago, I set myself the challenge of building my own property portfolio. And what began as a short-term investment plan soon became a long-term commitment to change the way young people live together. I've now built several successful businesses. I've raised millions of pounds of investment and I've managed thousands of tenants. Join me and some very special guests to discover the tips, tricks and hacks, the ups and the downs, the best practice and everything else you need to know to start, scale and systemise your very own HMO portfolio now.

Andy Graham (00:40.61)
What's holding you back from building the property business that you really want? Why is it that when some people get started, they're able to achieve seemingly so much success while others simply fail to get their property business off the ground? Well, in today's episode, I want to share five ideas that I think answer these questions. If you're one of these people who is struggling to get their property business off the ground, then this is an episode you will not want to miss. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy today's episode of the HMO Podcast.

Hey guys, it's Andy here. We're going to be getting back to the podcast in just a moment but before we do I want to tell you very quickly about the HMO roadmap. Now if you're serious about replacing your income or perhaps you've already got a HMO portfolio that you want to scale up then the HMO roadmap really is your one-stop shop. Inside the roadmap you'll find a full 60 lesson course delivered by me teaching you how to find more deals, how to fund more deals and raise private finance, how to refurbish great properties,

how to fill them with great tenants that stay for longer, and how to manage your properties and tenants for the future. We've also got guest workshops added every single month, we've got new videos added every single week about all sorts of topics, we've got downloadable resources, cheat sheets and swipe files to help you, we've got case studies from guests and community members who are doing incredible projects that you can learn from, and we've also built an application just for you that allows you to appraise and evaluate your deals, stack them side by side and track the key metrics that are most important to you. To find out more, head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk now and come and join our incredible community of HMO property investors.

Andy Graham (02:22.862)
Welcome back. So in today's episode, we're to try and answer the question, what's holding you back from building the HMO business that you really want? I've been investing in property for nearly 20 years now in our wider community. I've probably helped thousands of people build their own property businesses and some of those people I've worked with very, very closely. So I've been very much involved in the businesses that they've been building, often starting from scratch. So I think I've got quite a lot of experience, a of insight into what it takes to actually get a property business off the ground. But it's always interested me, the question, why do some people achieve so much success? Why do some people find it so easy? Why are some people able to do it so successfully? Whilst other people simply struggle to get the property businesses off the ground, why is that the case? What is it? And I think there are five different things. My observations over the years and my experiences have led me to these five different ideas. And I think if people just understood these more than perhaps some of the technical detail that we often get bogged down in. What color should we do it? What should the brand look like? What sort of specs should we do the properties to? I think if people focused on this stuff more than that stuff, they would achieve so much more. I think this, five reasons is really why so many people who have the idea of building a property business, maybe getting themselves out of a job, maybe transforming their lives, maybe building a pension, maybe building a legacy for the kids, whatever it is, I think these reasons could be why so many people actually struggle and fail to ever get their property business off the ground.

So what we're going to do in today's episode is walk through these five different ideas. I'm going to talk to you about them in detail and help you understand why I think they're so important. Perhaps why if you're struggling to build your property business, if you're struggling to actually get lift off, to get scale in your property business, well, why that might be. And more importantly, what you can do differently to change it.

So the very first observation, one of the key things that I often see missing in people who struggle to get their business off the ground is financial planning or a lack of good financial planning. Now, there's different ways of looking at financial planning and thinking about this. When we're talking about investing in HMOs and properties, often we divert immediately to the idea of understanding the economics of deals and what's involved in the deal.

Andy Graham (04:41.974)
What should the purchase price versus the rental income be? therefore what's the yield? What's the return on capital employed? What's my net cash room per month? What's the gross? All of these metrics, all of this important data, which is incredibly important because we need that to be able to interpret a deal. That's our prediction, our estimation, our best guess as to what a particular deal that we might buy could look like. And then it's our ability to plan the ongoing performance. But aside from that, and that is really important, aside from that, there's lots of financial planning that we need to do as business owners with our director hats on.

If you're just starting the property business, you're to have to wear a lot of hats. One of them is going to be deal finder. One of them is going to be the finance manager. One of them is going to be the property manager. One of them is going to be the relationship manager. And in the early stages, you have to be really good at wearing all of these different hats. And that's a challenge, especially if you don't have the experience of doing lots of this stuff. And if you're coming from a job, maybe from a

corporate background or from something completely different like I did when I was just getting started. Remember, my background was initially in healthcare as a physio. Then it can be really, really tough because this stuff can be completely different to anything that you might be used to doing on a daily basis. So financial planning as a director is actually thinking about the financial management of your business.

So Let's zoom out and think about what that looks like. Well, where's the cash and capital actually coming from to buy the deals? Irrespective of what the deal looks like when we do buy it, where's that cash and capital coming from? If we invest in the first deal and we've got some sort of predictive performance for that, well, what is happening next? What does that cash flow then start to look like? What sort of considerations as a business owner do we need to take into account? You might have things like subscriptions.

Maybe some support staff like a virtual assistant to help free up some time. All of this stuff then starts to feed in. If you're planning on building out a portfolio, then you're probably thinking about capital for the next property. How do you do that? Where is that capital actually coming from? Now I've worked with lots of people and everybody's circumstances are quite different. Some people come to me and they've got a lot of capital. They've sold the business or they've worked incredibly hard and had a good

Andy Graham (06:53.614)
corporate career and have saved a lot of cash. Sometimes they've got to refinance. Sometimes they've already got a portfolio of properties or other assets that they can extract some cash from. But all of this is part of a financial plan. And when I sit down with people, and particularly when I see people really struggle to get their businesses off the ground, one of the things that I see that they fail to do is actually plan beyond just the first deal. How does the next deal and the next deal and the next deal and the next deal look, even hypothetically, what does this look like and what do we actually need to do to make this happen?

Because often if we can't see beyond doing perhaps the first or the second deal, it becomes very difficult to motivate ourselves to actually go out there and build a portfolio, especially if our goals are a little bit bigger. If we want to build, let's say a portfolio that replaces the income that we're getting from a job, or we want to create that 10,000 a month cash flow, whatever it might be. So making sure that you properly financially plan everything out is incredibly important.

Now, of course, when you're just getting started, a lot of it is a best guess, but that is so incredibly important. And that exercise and doing that sort of planning can lead you to ideas such as raising private finance. It can lead you to ideas such as how you might manage your cash better, not just in the business, but outside of the business. You might have to make some sacrifices elsewhere to make this work because fundamentally the numbers aren't going to work without you

pulling in some cash from somewhere else and saving elsewhere. It might lead you to things like joint ventures. It might lead you to consider more creative deal options and a slightly different strategy. It might make you think about whether or not you need a financial safety net and actually what that should look like. So there's a lot of stuff here that needs thought and that is very, very different for everybody, but simply just getting started and focusing on the first deal without giving this any thought is one of the reasons that I think

hold people back and actually stops them, prevents them from getting their business off the ground. Because forward planning is one of the most important things that we need to do in our business. Even if you have the cash or the capital to do the first or the second or the third deal, what about the fourth or the fifth or the sixth? If we're not thinking about that from the outset, we're unlikely to ever achieve it. And when you're just getting started, if you are fortunate, if you are in the position where you can perhaps do a first deal, that is a great opportunity.

Andy Graham (09:13.346)
to leverage it. You could use it on social media. You could use it as the context to have discussions and conversations with potential joint venture partners or potential private lenders or these sorts of people that could actually help with that financial plan. Now, of course, and I said it before, actually understanding the metrics of deals and how to interpret the numbers is also incredibly important. And I am always so surprised, in fact shocked, when people come to me and they ask me to look at deals that they really don't understand.

It's quite clear that they do not understand how to interpret the information in the spreadsheet or in the deal stacker that a lot of our community members inside the roadmap are using. Good examples would be people actually being too optimistic on the numbers, putting 100 % occupancy in when it's a professional or a social HMO that's unlikely to ever achieve 100%. It's people being too optimistic or even pessimistic on some of the rental income. And actually that can quite significantly skew the numbers.

It can skew the rental performance, can then skew the potential for the end valuation. Understanding end values, a lack of understanding when it comes to commercial valuations. How are they actually derived? Where does that figure come from? Why is it so variable? Why is that question in itself so difficult to answer? All of that information is out there to learn. fact, a lot of it is, in fact, all of it is inside the HMO roadmap, but...

I think a lot of people fail to understand it. They don't actually spend the time to really understand it. And there is no silver bullet solution to any problem, any deal. There's always a spectrum of best case to worst case that we need to work within. Now, we should always be working to that realistic case and we should be basing our numbers on that, but we should absolutely be taking into account what the deal could look like if X, Y and Z were to happen and it might not look as good.

Can we exit that deal? Would it be okay? Would it be palatable? Or actually, is there simply too much risk there in that event? These are the sorts of things that we absolutely have to be factoring in and really do have to understand. And if we don't understand it, the risk of course is that we get it wrong. Either we overshoot or we undershoot a deal. If we undershoot the deal, we might end up not buying it. We're not competitive enough when we're putting the offers in, so somebody else gets their hands on it and actually we miss that opportunity. And I see so many people

Andy Graham (11:26.36)
do that and end up sitting on the sidelines for so long simply because they do not understand the numbers. Equally, I have seen people make the opposite mistake. They've overshot. They've paid too much for the deal. They've overestimated what they can get out of the back end of the deal. So they can't get the valuation. They don't get the rental performance. That's then impacted the ability to buy the next deal or pay an investor back. And it causes really big and often very expensive problems. So all of this financial planning is a really important thing. If you do not know the numbers on your deals. If you don't know how to interpret the numbers on your deals, if you can't sit there and tell somebody else what the value should be at the end, you have not done enough work. You need to do more financial planning. I can't tell you how many people have sat opposite me and asked me what I think the value is. Well, I can only really tell you what the anticipated value of a deal is in an area where I actually invest, where I thoroughly understand the data, where I follow, track the trends in the market, where I understand and have experience of evaluations. You need to be that expert in your location. You should be that person who is able to say, well, I've got this data. This is what I'm looking at. And this is what I think this value is going to be. You need to have that sort of confidence. And that only comes from proper financial planning. So just to underline it, the very first thing, the probably the key reason why I see so many people fail to get their property businesses off the ground is because they just do not do the appropriate financial planning.

They fail to actually map out that financial plan and really understand their numbers across the board. And that makes it very difficult to then align the expectations with your long-term goals. And without that, you get demotivated, you lose the enthusiasm for the idea, you just can't see a way to get yourself there financially. So inevitably you give up or worse yet, you make a mistake that then hinders your ability to continue growing and you never get the business off the ground.

So make sure that isn't you. Now a few quick tips to make sure that you are good at this and you're able to do it. First and foremost, go and get the advice, go and get the education. If you're really struggling, if numbers isn't your forte, which is absolutely fine, work with somebody who could help you understand that. Maybe think about getting a mentor, but we've got everything you need in.

Andy Graham (13:44.088)
Deal analysis and around deal analysis, advanced deal analysis, understanding commercial evaluations inside the HMO roadmap. You can learn all of that there. You can then come along to drop in Q and A's. That's a good opportunity to have conversations about things like this. You just don't quite understand how to interpret what is coming out on the spreadsheet. That's fine. That comes with experience. And the next thing that I want to say that you should be doing is actually practicing this. Stack deals up, stack lots and lots of deals up, spend time playing with them, tweaking them, stress testing them.

Having conversations, bouncing your ideas about the deals across the table with people who have a bit more experience than you. And this will really help improve your confidence. It'll help iron out the creases. And that's really, really important. The last thing you should do is skip straight from stacking a deal, your first or second deal, to buying that deal. Actually, it's really important that you've tested your own ability in the numbers. You need to be able to demonstrate that your confidence is actually just, you can actually evidence it.

And it's really important that you follow that process. I see so many people pile into the market, start stacking deals, and because they don't have the experience of doing a few and having these conversations and often just letting the ideas mature a little bit and monitoring the markets, they get it wrong. They either undershoot or they overshoot. Often when people undershoot, they go around and around looking at different markets as well. How many times have you seen that someone's buying here and then the next thing they're buying there and then the next thing they're buying there because they don't think the numbers work.

Well, actually that says to me that they just don't understand how the numbers need to work. So lack of financial planning is the first thing I want to talk about today. Make sure that that is not you. Really spend some time commit to understanding your numbers, commit to understanding how to plan the finances of your business and commit to building a financial platform that can sustain the growth of business and the plan that you have got for your property business.

Okay, let's move on to the second idea I want to share with you today. The second reason that I think a lot of people struggle to get their businesses, their property businesses off the ground. Now, this one I think is a bit more excusable. First one, financial planning. That's all on you. All the information's out there. You've just got to do the work. You've got to understand it. You've got to commit. The second one's a bit trickier. Now, the information is out there. We can go and find it, but it's more complicated. And depending on where you are in the country, it can be different. So of course,

Andy Graham (16:06.222)
We're talking about the legal and regulatory requirements. So we're talking about things like use classes. We're talking about things like Article 4 directions. We're talking about things like HMO licenses, the variation between license requirements for professional HMOs and student HMOs and social HMOs and big and small HMOs. We're talking about mortgage regulations. We're talking about management regulations. So there's a lot of stuff here. Now, from a distance, it all looks quite scary. There's a lot of information that we've got to get our heads around and that is overwhelming and a lot of people are simply too overwhelmed when they start to realize how much stuff there is to understand. It just scares them off. They don't commit. They don't get started. And as a result, they never get the business off the ground.

Now, the first thing to understand is that this stuff is different everywhere. So you have to really commit to understanding this depending on where you are based, where you're intending to invest. So Article 4 directions. Well, it depends where you are. That Article 4 direction can look quite different. There's blanket directions in some places, gets pocketed in others, and some places don't have it at all. And then understanding in detail how that Article 4 direction is enforced is really important.

We've talked on the show a number of times, there's a lot of information inside the HMO roadmap about this, but the way that councils make decisions on whether or not they would or would not approve a new application for a change of use within an Article 4 direction depends on a variety of factors, often things like density factors. If there is already a certain threshold, a certain number of HMOs on a particular street, then often

Actually, they'll be inclined just to approve it because, hey -ho, what's another one going to mean? But actually, the threshold is more like 20% and they've set that within a certain distance from either that property or that postcode or line of sight from the property. There's different ways that they implement it that can mean that they wouldn't accept it. And I've seen so many people charge in with the greatest plans in the world to invest in an area and then actually figure out some way down the line when they're trying to buy the property partway through the conveying thing that it's going to need planning permission. And actually,

They haven't really thought or even looked into the details of what that means or how they would get around it. And then they haven't looked at from a planning perspective, what would actually need to be done to apply for that planning and get it, what the chances are, how they would structure the finance on that deal because you won't necessarily be able to buy it on the right sort of mortgage without the planning. Does it need to be a subject to planning offer that can then change the conversation with a seller? So there's so many variables and we're talking about just one thing there, HMO licensing, really, really complicated topic.

Andy Graham (18:34.136)
Just understanding what's required for your property can, like I said, be overwhelming and that can impact the refurbishment costs. It can impact the timelines. So understanding this stuff, whilst it is complicated, while it is a bit of a hassle, it is incredibly important. And the one thing I would say is, look, when you have committed to a particular type of property within a particular type of location, and by the way, that is how I like to start with all of my mentees. I start with a plan.

that in an ideal world we would stick to. Now sometimes as you get into the detail, you find that actually you can't do that because that plan just simply doesn't work with the expectation and your objective with the numbers. And sometimes you have to reverse back out and you look again. And there is often a bit of trial and error, but in an ideal world, and let's just use this as an example. Let's say I want to invest in professional properties outside of an article 4 direction in, I don't know, Manchester.

Well, going to be away from the student districts. I'm going to be sort of around the fringes of Manchester, greater Manchester. And if I'm really clear on that, I can just focus my energy and attention on properties in certain locations. That way I'm sidestepping an article four issue and any planning issues. But depending on where, let's say it was Rosendale council, their requirements in terms of HMO licensing could be quite different to the neighboring council.

So then we have to go in and we have to understand that sort of detail. How is it interpreted by that local council? What do they require? What are we actually going to have to do? What you don't need to do is understand all the license requirements for every different county around Manchester or every different county in the country. There's so much work that you could do that you simply don't need to do. And this can take up a huge amount of your time. It can absorb your energy. It can absorb your enthusiasm, all of your motivation. And again, this is one of the reasons why so many people struggle to get the businesses off the ground. It simply overwhelms them. It looks too complicated. It looks too expensive without the assistance of an expert like a planning consultant or an architect or even a mentor who's been through this before. It can all just feel a little bit too much. So failure to understand the legal and regulatory requirements is one of the big reasons why people just simply don't get this business off the ground. But what I would say is once you do understand and you just need to understand where you're based and there are some

Andy Graham (20:51.752)
legal and regulatory bits that obviously affects us all, mortgage regs and often the management regs. A lot of that is very similar. It's pretty standard. We just need to spend some time getting our heads around it. We have to commit, we have to find the time to do it, to digest it, to understand it. But I promise you it's not rocket science. And actually, if you do that and you commit, you'll be so much further ahead than most people in the market. There are still so many landlords out there who don't pay any of this attention. And of course they give a lot of us good landlords the bad name because they don't do things in the right way.

You can do it in the right way, but you can do it really strategically. And I promise once you do and you know this stuff, you'll feel so much more confident. You'll realize that actually it's really not that difficult. It's pretty easy and it'll just help you build your property business. You can use it to your advantage. So if you want to find out more information about article four directions, about HMO licensing, about mortgage regs, about management regs, it's all inside the HMO roadmap. So there's no excuses. It's all there. So you can go and find it out and it's really easy to digest and understand. Moving on then, the third idea I want to share with you.

Today, this is a biggie. This is a really, really big one. I've talked about it on the show before. One of the reasons I think so many people fail to ever get their property businesses off the ground to scale it in the way that they want is because they do not prioritize and they're not prepared to make sacrifices elsewhere in life. There's this idea, this thesis that building a property business should be some passive investment adventure where we do practically nothing and reap the rewards in terms of cash in our bank account every single month. And the reality is that is just not true.

One day in the future when you've got a really good business and you've got lots of systems and processes and everything's substantiated, then yes, it can be relatively passive. But in the early stages, absolutely not. So if your short-term goal is passive income in the first three years and your objective to get there needs you to generate five to 10,000 pounds of income per month, then you can bet that you are going to be working your knackers off for the first three years.

You are going to be doubling down. If you've got a job, if you've got a young family, if you've got other commitments in life, you are going to be doubling down. You are going to be very busy for a few years while you do this. Maybe at the end of that, the reward will be you can take a step back. You can have a bit more time back. You can maybe put your job down because you've got this income stream. But until then, it's going to be hard work. Some of the stuff we've talked about today.

Andy Graham (23:13.824)
Understanding the finances, planning, you really getting into the detail of your market and understanding the data, understanding legal and regulatory requirements. These are just two parts of a much bigger picture that we really have to be able to paint. And this all take time. It all requires commitment and you need to be able to put that time aside. You need to be able to prioritize these actions and activities. And there are many, many more above other things that might mean your evenings and weekends are taken up for.

a good period of time to do this and get your head around this. When you find your first deal and then you take on your first refurb, that's when it's really gonna dial up. That's when you're really gonna start to feel the pressure and the heat. It's gonna be very, very busy, especially if you've got a lot of stuff going on. But you are gonna have to make sacrifices and compromises to do this. You're also gonna have to be really, really focused because these actions are gonna have to come before other things. You might have to spend less on other things. Talked about it briefly in my first point.

You might have to put everything that you've got into this venture. And for three years, you might not be able to do the nice holidays. You might not be able to do the avocado on toast breakfast. That is just the reality. You might have to hand the car back, get rid of the expensive lease and just get yourself a banger to run around in for a couple of years. I drove a Volvo estate car for about 10 years while I was in the early stages of building my property business. It was great because I could chuck loads of stuff in the back of it, but it was cheap to run. It was reliable.

And it meant that I could put as much as I possibly could from a financial point of view, back into my property business. But so many people simply do not want to do this. I can't tell you how many times again, I've sat in front of people and they've told me they just haven't had time or they can't afford to do that. And they're driving around and an Audi that's on lease costing them four or 500 pounds a month. They're going out the weekends, they're drinking, they're doing other things with their time and it all boils down to choice, I say this to everybody and I am quite black and white. It all boils down to choice.

Either you want to do it or you don't want to do it. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. Let's not sit here and have that conversation. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that this is the most important thing to you because clearly it isn't. If it was, then you would make these compromises. You would make these sacrifices. You wouldn't go on that holiday because actually that five or 10,000 pounds that you're going to spend, you could use this on this venture. So you've got to have that long sighted approach to this if you really want to achieve great thing.

Andy Graham (25:38.84)
The people that I've worked with that have achieved the most and I put myself in this category, sacrificed a lot. I've found a good balance over the years. I've found a way of still managing to enjoy life and it gets better and better and better now. But it's those people, those individuals who've been prepared to do that, who've been prepared to make those choices, do the tough things that have obviously gone on to achieve the most. So failure to prioritize, failure to make sacrifices. It is one of the single biggest reasons why most people never get their property venture off the ground.

You've just got to take a long hard look in the mirror, ask yourself how much you really want it. And if you do really want it, you've got to do what is required. Okay, moving on the fourth idea I want to share with you today. And I think that this is a great one, one we'll all be doing and it costs you practically nothing is building a strong support network. How many times have you heard the idea of you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with? How many times have you heard your network is your net worth?

It's cliche, but it's so incredibly true. I sat down earlier this week and had a conversation with an investor and this relationship really is the byproduct of 20 years of building my network. This is a conversation that I couldn't have had when I just got started. I was neither in a position to have those conversations and give somebody the confidence that I was an individual that could be trusted was credible enough that had the experience to deliver on what I was talking about. Nor did I have ideas big enough to actually satisfy their appetite to lend money 20 years on. I'm able to have those conversations and I'm able to bring a lot of money to the table for projects that I and we want to invest in. But that has all come through building my network. And when I just got started, it was simply having conversations with people at property events and at business and network events. It was about telling my friends. It was about telling people who I met. It's about going out of my way to actually find people

who had an interest and a passion and were doing things in this space because my friends and my family weren't doing it. I didn't have that support there. I didn't have that motivation, that encouragement, that guidance. You need to go and find that. And there's lots of ways to do it. Join the HMO community, our online community, 10,000 members strong now. And there's so much support and guidance in there. There's so many great ideas being shared. There's so much enthusiasm and motivation and positive energy towards doing this sort of stuff that you might simply find difficult to achieve anywhere else.

Andy Graham (28:00.13)
So online networking, it's free, it's easy. Physical networking, get out there, meet people, have conversations. You have to put time aside. You have to do that both for the online and offline, not loads and loads of time, but invest in building relationships, investing, building your network. Because I promise that will ultimately turn into the opportunities. That will become the doors that open that you can one day kick down and find great things behind them.

There'll be deals, there'll be finance, there'll be investors, there'll be all sorts of things. And ultimately that will carry you through to achieving the things that you want in your property business. But early on, if you're just starting this and perhaps you don't have any friends or family members that are doing this, perhaps you haven't got anyone at home that's supportive or encouraging this or even able to bounce the ideas about this, your anxieties, your excitement. If you haven't got that sort of person to talk to about this sort of stuff, then you

absolutely need to go and find it. You need to go and build a network. You need to find a mentor and somebody or group of people that can lift you up and help carry you. Because I promise you, it's going to be tough. It's going to get tougher. But the more of that support and guidance and motivation and enthusiasm that you can find and muster up, the easier it's going to be. And this is one of the reasons why so many people fail to get the property businesses off the ground. They simply just don't have people there supporting them, lifting them up, encouraging them, pushing them forward. So make sure you prioritize this and make sure you do go and do it.

For me, I would say this has been the single most important thing. My friends, my family were not doing this. I got started and when I really wanted to ramp things up, I had to actively go and find people who were doing this sort of stuff, who could advise and guide me. And that completely changed things for me and I continue to do that now. And look, I don't just talk the talk. If you go into the community, you'll see me walk the walk. I'm in the community regularly speaking to our community members, sharing ideas, enhancing my network, building credibility and authority. It's really, really important that you do the same thing. And finally, the fifth idea that I want to talk to you about today. What are the reasons why I see so many people fail to get lift off in their property business? And I think that this is the saddest one of all, is the fear of taking the first step.

Andy Graham (30:16.93)
I've worked with so many people and I've seen so many people do all of this work. They've done all this stuff. They've done the financial planning. They've gone and learned about all the legal and regulatory requirements. They've been making the priorities. They've sacrificed the time. They've worked the weekends and the evenings. They've got up early to put the work in. They've built a network. I see them in the community. I see them meeting people. I see them having coffee meetings with investors, but they fail to take the first step. It's really difficult, but there is a point and I think almost all investors will get this, but there is a point at which you cannot do any more work. You cannot get any more confidence from anywhere else.

And there is still an element of insurity that is normal, but being paralyzed by that fear is why so many people fail. We all want confidence. We all want absolute, we want predictable outcomes. But the reality is when we're investing in property and we're doing what we're talking about, there are some things that we simply cannot absolutely guarantee.

A good example, you cannot absolutely guarantee what your refurbishment is going to cost before you buy a property. You just have to do all the work you can and get as close as you think you can to the figure that it's going to be and then plan and hope for the best. But you won't know exactly what the end valuation is going to be after your refurbishment when you're buying the property. You have to make your best assumptions. You have to trust in the work that you've done, but you have to take that step. You have to move beyond the fear.

And it's that point there where I see so many people, down tools, step back and just walk away. Because that confidence, that crystal ball isn't there. But that's normal. You need to understand that if you've done all the work, if you've done the financial planning, if you've looked at all of the different potential outcomes, if you've considered best to worst case, if you've looked at what you would do in all of these circumstances and how you would manage the outcome of all of those predicaments, then you've done everything that you possibly can. At that point, you are ready.

Okay. And you have to be prepared to take some risks. And this is where some of the risk is. It isn't a zero risk game. You can mitigate a lot of it, but it isn't a zero risk game. You have to, as a property investor, as someone who wants to build a property business, you have to find the confidence and get over that fear to get the first deal and get the second deal and get the third deal. And sometimes it's a slightly bigger deal. And sometimes it's a deal with slightly more problems than the last one. And I still get that now when we buy big deals, 10, 20, 30

Andy Graham (32:41.368)
thousand square foot buildings. I still have these hesitations, but I do all the work I possibly can. I get to a point where I think I've covered absolutely every base. Here is the residual risk. Am I happy to take it? And at that point I make that decision. It's normal. It'll happen to you, but you need to be able to step over that. And I promise you the most successful investors, they get it. They are comfortable with risk. I've actually talked about this on the show before. They're comfortable with risk. They understand that risk is an essential component of building a property business. It is not, like I said, a zero risk game.

So you need to be able to deal with this. So if you've done all that work and you're feeling like this, that is the point where you just got to make that leap. You've got to take that step. And I think that this is particularly where having a good network is really, really important because at that point, someone just standing behind you, holding your hand, a mentor, whatever it is, just to say, look, you have done it all. I agree. We've done everything we can here. This is the last bit now.

pull the trigger. That is often all it takes. But so many people turn around at this point and it's so sad to see. So there we go. Five things, five ideas. The five reasons why I think so many people fail to actually get their property businesses off the ground. And I think the one thing here is that all of this is very manageable. All of this stuff is easy to overcome. So let's just recap. The first one was a lack of proper financial planning. That's both looking at deals and analyzing projects.

And also planning out the financial future of your property business. Actually understanding how you are going to fund deals and managing your expectations of your cash resources with deal performance and your target number of properties that you want to buy. How are you actually going to achieve that? You've got to align all of those expectations. Otherwise you will lose the motivation. You won't be able to see the wood for the trees.

The second one was an inadequate knowledge of legal and regulatory requirements. Really, really important, a little bit different depending on where you are in the country. Some of it's standard, no matter where you are in the country, but it's so important that you understand this. Don't let this piece overwhelm you. All the information you need is out there, and honestly, it's not actually as difficult as it seems. You've just got to get your head into it and understand it. Number three, failure to prioritize and make sacrifices. Probably the single biggest one. Look, this is on you. Only you can get yourself out of bed. Only you.

Andy Graham (35:01.592)
can put this to the top of the list. How much do you really want it? How much do you really want to change your life? The fourth reason is because so many people fail to build a strong support network. It's so easy to do. There are so many great people out there in our community who are there and willing to help you go and find that support network, go and find that guidance and support, motivation and encouragement that you need. And finally, number five is the fear of taking that first step. You've got to get there, got to find the must of the confidence up.

And you've got to take that last leap of faith. I promise if you've done all of the work and everything that we talk about on the show and teach inside the HMO roadmap, you are ready. So there we go, guys. That is what is holding back so many people from building the property businesses that they really want. I want you to ask yourself, is this you? Do you resonate with any of this stuff? And if you do, can you change it? Can you go away and change your behavior? Can you change your attitude today? Because I promise you, it is all worth it and you can actually find ways to enjoy it all as well. I love what I do. I love taking risks. I love the fact that it isn't an absolute guarantee. I think life would be really, really boring. I embrace that, but have an honest chat with yourself. If you're struggling to get your property business off the ground, what is it here? How many of these things today that we've talked about do resonate and what can you do to change it? All that advice is there.

That's it for today's episode guys. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you found it useful. I hope it has given you some ideas and I hope more than anything it helps change the path and the future of your business. I hope it helps you go and build the business that you really, really want. If you do want to learn more, remember everything you need is inside the HMO roadmap. Head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk. As a member, not sure if you're aware, but you can also benefit from access to my Power Team and not just that, you can access exclusive discounts to the services that our Power Team offer. So we've got everything from architectural services to furniture, that Landlord Furniture co -supply. We've got Ellie, who's our expert broker. We've got so much more, but almost everything and everybody you need to build this business is there and waiting for you. And of course, all the lessons, guidance, support, tools, resources, downloadable templates, masterclasses, the deal stacker itself, everything you need is inside the HMO roadmap.

Andy Graham (37:24.204)
It will cost you less than a price of a cup of coffee every single day. And if you think about the downside of getting this wrong, making a wrong decision, actually not getting something right, well, it's an absolute no brainer for the cost of either a starter or a premium membership at the HTML roadmap. If you're a regular listener to the show, I just want to say thank you so much for turning up week in, week out. You know how much I appreciate your time. I'm so grateful for it. If you're new to the show, then welcome, it's great to have you here. And if you haven't left a review of the show yet, please, please, please do leave a quick review for us. It means so much. It helps us continue to spread the message about all the great stuff that you guys out there in our community are doing. I think slowly but surely we are changing the narrative in the HMO space. We are doing great things. We are an important part of the private rental sector, but your show of support, a positive review from you guys either on Spotify or on Apple, helps more than you could possibly know. And it helps spread the message about the podcast to more and more investors which helps continue to grow our community. That's it guys. Thank you again for tuning in. And don't forget that I'll be right back here in the very same place next week. So please join me then for another installment of the HMO Podcast.