Start With The End In Mind: Designing Your HMO Business For Long-Term Success

In this episode, we’ll talk about why it’s so important to start with the end in mind when building a property business.

Here’s what I do with every mentee: we sit down together to plan out their business and then work backward from that plan. I’m interested in what they want their business to look and feel like in the future, not just in terms of money but also in the freedom and flexibility it provides.

Too often, people begin building their property business without a clear vision. As a result, they might reach some financial goals but end up with a business that doesn’t give them the lifestyle they wanted.

I’ll explain why it’s crucial to design your business around your future goals. We’ll cover important factors like location, tenant types, cash flow and equity management, risk tolerance, legacy plans, and realistic timeframes—all while making sure you enjoy the process and keep a good work-life balance.

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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 (00:40.75)
In today's episode, we're going to be talking about starting with the end in mind and why this is so fundamental to the success of your property business. For context, one of the first things that I do with every single one of my mentees is sit down and design the business and then we reverse engineer it. What I'm really interested in is what does somebody want their business to look, function and feel like at a point in time in the future? Alongside financial goals, so few people ever do this and what that means is that they end up starting to build a property business and ultimately drift off course and at some point in the future while they may have hit some financial targets that business is not the business that's given them the freedom, the flexibility and the choice that they want. In today's episode I'm going to explain why this is so important, why so many people get it wrong, more importantly how you can think about things differently to actually build and ensure that you design the business that you really want for the future. 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 (02:58.104)
Okay, welcome back. So today we're talking about starting with the end in mind. I think that this is so incredibly important, yet so few people are actually doing it. Now most of us, most people that I meet, members of our community, have some sort of an objective with their property business, and usually that is some sort of a financial objective. And usually that is tethered to some idea of having freedom of time and choice. But very few people, in my experience, have really gone into the detail and actually looked at what that means. What does our business actually need to look and function and feel like to provide you with the time and freedom of choice that also delivers the financial returns? When I sit down with mentees, the first part of our program is the strategy session. It's the most important part. It's an exercise of tipping you upside down and seeing what comes out. What resources do we have to work with? What strengths do we have? What are the limitations and the weaknesses that challenges that we need to find solutions to overcome.

What are we good at? What have we already got to utilise and leverage? What do need to find? And in the context of that, we also think about where we want to be at a point in time. Now, I like doing vision board exercises. I like to get my mentees to really think about what they want out of life in the future, because property business is only a part of it. And it should be a vehicle to giving some of that freedom time and choice that people often want.

But if we're not careful, we can actually design the complete opposite thing because we are led by the belief that that freedom choice and time is delivered by the financial returns exclusively. And quite simply, that is not the case. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The freedom and time and choice is actually delivered by the type of business, the type of tenant, the location, the logistics, the operations and the systems, the scalability, all of this stuff actually before the financial returns.

The financial returns is something that we need as well. But as you're about to find out in today's episode, there are various compromises and sacrifices that we might want to think about making as early on as possible in fact, to help ensure that that business at some point in the future is actually what we want to give us the life and the lifestyle that we really, really want. The truth is most people

Andy Graham (05:19.072)
set out with the idea of building property business to make some money and they don't really think about any of this stuff. And they make some sacrifices for the first couple of years, they put a lot of work in and then actually as they start to build on top of that with the second and the third and the fourth property, it becomes really, really hard work. And for so many people, it becomes another job.

It's not actually what they set out to achieve. They don't enjoy the process. Everything slows down. Ultimately, they never really get where they want to be. And this is a big, big problem, but there's an easy way to solve this. And it's by starting with the end in mind. So that is why I spend so much time and really emphasize this point and spend a lot of work and do a lot of time and work on designing the business so that we can start with the end in mind. So today, what I want to do is talk to you about some of the things that you should be thinking about to do this when you are thinking about this. Now, maybe you've already started your property business, maybe you're some way down the road. Well, I think that this is still a good time. Now is better than never. And if you're at the beginning of your property business journey, then this is a great time to start thinking about this stuff. But I've got about six or seven different ideas that I want to talk to you about. And these different things will influence and shape the design of your property business. And that will ultimately determine what your business is. And most importantly, what you need to do next, what you need to do over the next year, the next two years, the next three years to get you where you want to be over the longer term.

So let's not waste any time. Let's get straight into this. The first idea that I want to talk to you about today is location and the logistics and the considerations that come with picking a location. So one of the conversations I often have with members of our community and mentees that I work with is where to invest. Now, in an ideal world, we would invest as close as possible to where we live in that location would also offer us the very best possible returns because we'd be able to buy really cheap. We'd be able to revalue for loads of money and we'd get the highest rents possible. So we'd get the unicorn deal every single time. But of course that is just unrealistic isn't it? And there's always sacrifice and compromise that we need to make. And the big compromise that we have to consider is usually how important is the finance?

Andy Graham (07:39.242)
when taking into consideration logistics. So let me give you a really simple example. A London based investor, they've got a million pounds to invest. Where do they invest that money? Well, ideally they want to get the very best possible return. So that may well be in the Northwest or the Northeast. Just keep it simple, hypothetically. And if they invested their money there, they'd get the best cash return and they generate the most income and they'd get to their financial target as quickly as possible by doing that. But if they're personal objective was also to retire on a beach, put their feet up, and spend as little time as possible in the business after the next three years. Then is this really going to work? Well, it depends. If actually building that property business is going to require continuous travel up and down the motorway to an area, maybe not. Could that be a hindrance on that plan? That idea of having as much freedom and time, the ability to choose to go away and live out of the country for long periods at a time.

Logistically, that could be a real challenge. Now, not necessarily impossible, but there are other considerations that might need to be taken into account. For example, that's not the sort of venture that you would want to think about managing yourself. You're going to spend a lot of time out of the country and it was a long way from where you live. It's going to make sense to have somebody involved in the management. So then that of course needs to be factored in. Maybe not early on.

And actually, let's imagine that this individual didn't want to retire for 10 to 15 years. They might be prepared to self-manage for 10 years. Great. They actually build a big, big business like 20 or 30 properties that they've been managing. What do they do at that time when they do eventually want to retire or go and spend time overseas or relocate? Will it be easy to just hand it all over to a property manager? It depends. It depends on whether or not there are property managers around. It depends on the location. It depends on all sorts of things, but you can see why this is actually a really, really important decision because it would be very easy to go and start buying up in the Northwest or the Northeast, traveling up and down from London while the energy there and that motivation and enthusiasm is there. But if that's likely to wax and wane over time, if say that's likely to disappear over time, is it actually serving the longer term objective? Would it be better to compromise and say, actually, I'm prepared to take a slightly reduced return?

Andy Graham (10:01.966)
buy somewhere closer to home that doesn't yield as well, that maybe costs more and, I can't create as much uplift on the revaluation, but actually would just be much easier from a logistic point of view. It's 30 minutes up the road. That'd make my life so much easier. Actually, I could do that. I could stop at mum's on the way. I could drop in there for a cup of tea. Actually, I know people there. I actually know that location well because it's pretty close to home. Would that be a better option? Now, it's not my job to say whether it would or wouldn't be better, but it's my job to help make sure that you understand just how important the implications of that decision are.

And you can see why if you're not thinking about the end, if you haven't got the end in mind, it would probably be easy to make a decision that means over time you end up drifting well off course. If actually you don't want to have all of that hassle of traveling lots in the future and thinking about who might manage it and all those anxieties that remote investing can bring.

Then actually doing that now, even though will give you the financial returns that you want in the short term, it's going to mean that you drift a long way off course. And you can imagine in five to 10 years time, how far off course, how far away from your ultimate vision you could end up. And what do you do at that point? You start selling, do you start having to redesign your business? That in itself is a huge consideration and not necessarily what you want to be doing.

So starting with the end in mind and particularly thinking about logistically what you want this business to look, function and feel like, how involved you want to be, is really, really, really important. The second thing that I think we all need to be considering when we're designing our business is thinking about our tenant demographic, our ideal tenant, the type of business that we actually want to build, the brand, the profile, the type of housing, the overall strategy.

Keeping it simple, let's just think about three different tenant demographics, social demographic, professional demographic, and then student demographic. Well, they all behave quite differently as tenant demographics, as a strategy, they're all quite different. Quick example, and I've talked about this on the show before, and there's loads of information about all of this inside the HMO roadmap, but there was some real pros to student letting that I love, which is why it has always been my favorite and will continue to be so. Part of it is because

Andy Graham (12:25.004)
the letting cycle is periodic. It's repeatable. So we advertise the properties at about the same time every year. We then do the viewings at about the same time every year. We then do the changeovers at the same time every year. It's very cyclical. And the great thing about that, the thing that I really enjoy about that is that my workload is very predictable. The busy and quiet times through the year are incredibly predictable and there are more benefits. lot of that is about the strength of the tenure.

You often got guarantors on student tenancy agreements. So typically you have very few voids, you have very few non -payments of rent. It makes a very scalable business model. It makes it quite easy to put systems and operations and processes in place and then take a step back. And for me, that step back is the time of the freedom and the choice and the flexibility. And that is part of my design. That's the business that I've designed for the future that I want to continue growing into. But there are huge compromises for that.

First of all, it means I've got to invest somewhere where there is a big student demographic. Well, there's only so many places in the country where that's actually feasible. That significantly reduces the net that you can cast in terms of properties that you can consider buying. What it also means is that typically in areas where there's an existing article 4 direction, and then that typically means that there's usually a premium placed on buying that sort of a property. Of course, what that ultimately means is the financial return is generally

not as attractive as it might be on other types of housing that we can invest in, such as professional or social housing. So the real compromise at the end of the day of investing in students' stock is that the financial performance isn't going to be as good. And that is inevitably going to perhaps slow down the growth. It's going to change the trajectory of my business. It's going to mean that I end up with less cash back in my pocket and more of it probably left in the properties. Now for me, that was a decision that I gave a lot of thought to.

And actually I weighed up all of the pros and cons and I thought that that was the one that best suited me. Actually what I decided to do was split my strategy so that actually the cash flow and the steady stable income and the scalability and the operational performance was all in my student business. But I was doing other things outside of my student business to make my capital work very, very hard. And that's the development projects that I do, which

Andy Graham (14:47.404)
I probably won't be doing into my seventies and eighties. I think by then I'll have probably decided to put my feet up, but it means I can condense and consolidate my efforts in a very different way. means I can package up part of my business that I can eventually guarantee will give me the time of freedom and choice and the flexibility. And I can do something else with it now to keep making my capital work really, really hard. So I can still invest in these other types of projects alongside it. But that has been a very strategic decision that is me designing my business with the end in mind.

You might not feel the same. It might be more important to you to get that financial performance from deals. You might need that higher yield, that better return on capital employed, in which case that might pull you away from student properties. That then might give you more flexibility about where you can invest and the types of properties that you can invest. But that will inevitably change the way that your business in the future looks and functions and feels because student letting is quite different to professional letting.

Professional letting as an example is not cyclical. The typical tenant is fairly transient. The average tenancy is about 18 months. So every 18 months or so, a room will be coming up, vacant, going on the market and there'll be a period of viewings. And with that, there is inspections and checkouts and check-ins and lots of processing and deposit protections and lots of admin and new tenants, you're to see. Guarantors, tenant vetting and all of that stuff. Now, if you just extrapolate the idea and let's say you've built a portfolio of 100 rooms, modest portfolio, if they're all professional tenants, at any one time, you're going to have a number of rooms that are vacant and on the market.

And you can see how that can generate quite a lot of work. Now you might say, well, I'll just get someone else to do it. That's fine. If there is somebody else to do it, it's not the case that you can just go and set up a professional portfolio anywhere you like in the country and there'll be someone capable of managing it for you, particularly at a size of hundred rooms.

That's quite a big operation and you need someone who's really, really capable. The other thing about professional letting is that professional tenants typically need to do viewings at weekends and evenings. There's often a lot more admin involved because you're doing all of this work per tenant as opposed to per tenancy in students where the administrative workload is greatly reduced. That can mean operationally there is quite a large and heavy burden on this type of a business. That will inevitably

Andy Graham (17:11.98)
be different in the future. That will be a business that looks and functions and feels different at some point in the future. So the question to ask yourself is what's more important? Is it ultimately that financial return and making my capital work harder, in which case professional tenants may well be the better option for you? Or actually would you prefer a business where it's a bit more cyclical, the workload's a bit more condensed, and you'd be prepared to sacrifice some of that financial return by going with the student demographic?

Let's bring social tenants into it. Social tenants can be more work still, but actually the financial returns can be even greater if you get it right. Interestingly, there's ways to scale that that are quite different to methods that you can scale in their professional and student demographic. Block management, handing over to charities and other charitable type of organisations related to social housing. There's some really interesting sub -strategies to that strategy that you could dive into.

But it is inevitably going to look, function and feel very, very different to a professional or a student business model. And think about where you want to be in 10 to 15 years time. What type of business do you actually want to be running? Might find it actually a bit easier to get social housing managed. There are some maybe companies that are leased properties from you. So look, everything's a little bit different and there's a lot to take into consideration. And really what I want to do here is just highlight how

When you're designing with the end in mind, thinking about the tenant demographic, your ideal tenant market is really, really important. So many people dive straight into professional HMOs because they've seen it on Instagram or in our community, other people doing it. But actually the nature of that type of business isn't given as much thought. What does that really mean? Who's going to look after it all? What about all this administrative burden? Is that going to be conducive to you putting your feet up, retiring, leaving the country for long periods of time? Maybe.

can be and maybe you can design it that way. And there are things and operations and people that you can put in place, but of course it all comes at a cost and it all needs to be designed. So thinking about this is really, really important from the outset. And just to feed into this as well and to add a couple of layers, your overall brand, the idea, the concept behind your business, the message that you're putting out. If you're trying to raise private finance, can you communicate this message? No point having the most glamorous looking

Andy Graham (19:34.882)
brand with flashy properties if actually your end product and then user is social housing, which is quite a different business that probably needs a different wrapper to it. It's fine. It's not that one is better than the other or one is good and one is bad. It just means it all needs a different method of design. And that needs to be thought about very early on, because if you don't, what will inevitably happen, give you the example of professional lets, if you start investing in professional let's and you build a portfolio, gradually over time, you'll have more and more tenants, more and more managerial responsibilities.

Think about how much work it might involve to continually and periodically improve and update those properties very hard just to empty the properties and do a full refurbishment. Think about what that looks like in your 60s and 70s. Is that the sort of business that you want to run? It's not the sort of business that I want to run. I think it would be hard. Do I think combining different strategies is wrong. No, I don't. I think that that could also be part of a sensible design, having some student and some professional, but thinking about then combining the logistics and the location into that design becomes really, really important as well.

So you can just see how these thoughts are actually quite important. And there's a lot of depth that you can go into on these ideas, which is what I do on my strategy session with my mentees until we eventually get to the bottom. We find that perfect intersection between

what we want and what we're willing to compromise on. Okay, the real desirable elements and actually the essential elements and finding that perfect intersection. The third idea I want to talk to you about is cash flow and equity management.I think designing a business with this in mind is really, really important. We've all got different objective. For some of us, it's quite simply cash flow. We want cash, cash, cash, cash, cash. For some of us actually, it's putting large amounts of capital that we've already accrued maybe through our corporate careers, businesses that we've sold or inheritance.

We just want to put it to work in a stable and safe environment, lower risk. For some of us, we want a good balance. For some of us, we want it all. We want to recycle as much capital as we possibly can and keep the party going. And we want the absolute maximum amount of cash returned every single month in terms of rental income that we can. Now, of course they are the unicorn deals, but if we build our business around that idea,

Andy Graham (21:54.006)
inevitably we're going to find it very difficult to actually grow that business. There are going to be limitations to how many deals we can actually do. So inevitably, you'll only ever get so far with it. Usually there's going to be a degree of compromise and that compromise is what's most important to you. Is it cash flow or is it capital? Combining this idea with my own strategy and thinking about student lets, when I invest in student lets, I do end up leaving quite a lot of capital in the deal. It's not uncommon to leave a hundred thousand pounds in the student property.

It's very difficult to find the deals where there is that much scope to add value that it can be refinanced out. I could probably be a bit more aggressive. I could probably do more extensions and do more work, but actually for me, that is not my priority when I'm building my HMO portfolio. I prioritise my capital creation and uplift in the other developments where actually I can add a nought and another nought on because the numbers are bigger. Equally, the risk is a lot bigger as well.

And part of the design of that business, my commercial to residential business is doing it with people who have alternative skill sets and experience, meaning that we can work together to achieve much greater results than I could do independently or they could do independently. So again, there's a very intentional design to not just how I built my HMO portfolio, but how I've actually split my interest and where I invest my capital. For you, that may be quite different, but

if you don't think about it and plan it from the outset, it's very easy to drift entirely off course. You could end up building a really, really well -yielding portfolio, but actually you might find that it's really difficult to manage your capital. You might find lots of deals that you can recycle lots of capital through, but they might be the sorts of projects that are in a location that mean it's further away from you and it gives you those logistic headaches and you almost have to do it with social housing. So again.

there's lots of moving parts here and lots of considerations. And now what you're probably starting to gather is that actually the way that these impact each other, the way that the location and then the tenant type, and then maybe actually the priority between cashflow and capital, you can see how actually they all produce a different result depending on how much of that ingredient you add into each one. So you might prioritise logistics.

Andy Graham (24:13.138)
and deprioritise tenant demographics. So you might say, well, actually I am going to be investing really close because long -term I think that is absolutely going to be better for me. But what that means is it has to be this particular tenant demographic or vice versa. Okay. Another factor that we need to consider when we're designing with the end in mind is your risk for appetite. It's different for all of us. There's nothing right. There's nothing wrong. It's what is right for us. Now, let me give you the example.

Perhaps somebody who has just retired, they've been paid a lump sum and actually they're sort of in their twilight years. And do they really want to be taking all that risk to buy properties that have problems where you can spend a lot of money to add a lot of value, but that risk is relatively high? Well, actually for that individual, it's perhaps not the right thing. But if you're younger and you don't have much in the way of dependencies on you, perhaps you've got the attitude and the motivation and the enthusiasm for it.

Perhaps you're prepared to take that risk. There may be a strategy that leads you to take more risks where you can potentially create more value and equity uplift if it goes right. Maybe that is more akin with the sort of business that you want. So thinking about that is really, really important. If your appetite for risk is low, then setting out to build the biggest portfolio in the world as quickly as possible, that's going to require you to buy some quite speculative properties in terms of what the potential revaluations could be.

And that will require lots of work, particularly structural and a new extension and things. Perhaps that isn't actually the best strategy for you. So thinking about this when you're designing the business is also really, really important. And finally, there's one more thing that I want to share and it's legacy. Now, as I get a little bit older, I'm starting to think more and more about what I want to do with my assets in the future and I started to restructure things with that in mind and I've also started to buy and do things differently with that in mind.

We're all going to have a legacy plan whether that's to pass it on to somebody else or kids or maybe just liquidise it and spend it whatever it is it doesn't matter but thinking about that is really important because if you don't design this business in the right way you could hinder your abilities to deliver on your legacy plan in the future. So for example, if

Andy Graham (26:35.298)
getting to where you want from a financial point of view as quickly as possible leads you to perhaps doing lots of joint ventures with lots of different people in lots of SPVs in lots of different locations, which is a perfectly viable strategy is what you want to achieve long term. If that's the type of business that you're happy with, it's fine. But actually, if your plan is to pass your portfolio to children one day, can you imagine the hassle of this?

Those children may have to pick up partnerships with other people that they don't know, have nothing in common with. It would be quite complicated to maybe exit those sorts of partnerships. Lots of SPVs means lots of sets of accounts. It means lots of different relationships to manage. It could mean lots of different people in terms of tradesmen and all sorts of stuff if they're in different locations to manage. That would be an absolute nightmare. And I can tell you right now, that is not the sort of business that I would want to hand to my kids.

The type of business that I would want to one day maybe hand to my children would be a nice consolidated portfolio, all in one place, all wrapped up within one company, all managed by one outfit, all straightforward, predictable, a business where it requires very little effort to deliver on the results. Whereas the alternative example I just shared with you would be quite the opposite.

Now again, it might not be your plan, that might not be part of the type of business that you foresee in the future, but if you don't design that now, you won't be given the choice. You will ultimately be lumped with whatever that looks like in the future, and so few people actually give this that sort of thought. They simply chase the yield around the country, build a business that can be quite complicated, yes, it's delivering good financial results, but actually is problematic in the future for a number of reasons.

So designing with your legacy in mind is also something really, really important that you should be thinking about. The very last thing I want to talk to you about today is the timeline that you want to put on all of this. I'm sure you've heard the phrase, often overestimate what we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years. And I think that that is so true. I've learned this myself personally, as I've been doing this for nearly 20 years. Now I've got the hindsight, the ability to retrospectively look at.

Andy Graham (28:47.96)
how I thought when I first got started and what I thought was achievable and what I thought I could do. And actually, I realise now that so many of the decisions that I made were actually a hindrance. many of the things that I tried to do and the speed at which I tried to do it were actually a hindrance. I did things and built some businesses that actually didn't necessarily turn the dial in terms of getting me towards where I ultimately wanted to be. Maybe I created a little bit more money, but actually I created lots of problems as a result of that that distracted me and pulled me away from other things. But just being realistic about timeframes, it's really, really important.

If your objective is not to work really, really hard and slog it out for 10 years, then you need to design a business with that in mind. You need to be building the type of business that is going to ensure that that is the case. If you're not careful, you might set yourself the objective of let's just pick a round target. Let's say 30,000 pounds a month. And maybe you're starting with a hundred thousand pounds with a capital well.

There's a lot of properties that you're have to buy and a lot of equity that you're to have to create to get yourself there. But actually, if all of that work is really not what you're trying to do, then you shouldn't design the business in that way. Actually, maybe what you need to do is have a think about that long-term financial target. Actually, does it need to be 30,000 pounds? Is 30,000 pounds what you need a month to actually leave your job, to be able to spend more time with the kids, to be able to go on the nicer holidays? In all honesty, it's probably

not is it. actually you can fine tune everything that you do right from the get go to just make it easier. And there's no point spending lots of time and lots of effort to achieve something that you really don't need to do. And what you might also be able to do is condense that time limit. You might be able to work really hard for three or four years, as opposed to eight, nine or 10 years. And whilst the financial results might be different in both of those scenarios, actually in terms of your vision board and what you want from life that could look exactly as you want it.

And I think so few people overlook this. We think that the more properties we have, the better our life will be. And I promise you, I promise from experience, I promise from working with so many people in our community and helping so many thousands of people out there that that is absolutely not the case. In fact, the most unhappy people I know, the people who've got big portfolios that are an absolute mess.

Andy Graham (31:09.112)
that are running them ragged, they're traveling up and down the country, they're dealing with loads of tenants, loads of problems. They're working long days, evenings and weekends just to keep the whole thing moving. If that's not the sort of business that you want, then really think about the goals that you're setting yourself and the timelines that you're trying to achieve it all in. I think it's really important that whatever you do and whatever your goals and objectives are, and this is a caveat to everything I've said in today's episode,

You also make sure that you find the ability to enjoy the process, whether it's going to take you two years or three years or five years or 10 years to get where you ultimately want to be. And that's completely down to you. If you don't enjoy that period, in my opinion, it's not worth it. It is not worth even a year of working that hard and taking all those risks if you're going to hate every single second of it. And the other thing is, if you hate it that much, you're very unlikely to maintain the enthusiasm and motivation and self -discipline to continue on the route to achieving your goal. You'll probably put it all down before then. So, being realistic about all of this stuff, not killing yourself to travel up and down the motorway to get to your investment area and spending full weekends away from their kids, not giving yourself such a high workload that you're working really late every evening, not putting yourself under so much financial pressure that you can't go on any holidays, you can't do some of the nice stuff with your family. That is not worth it in my opinion.

And it certainly isn't conducive to getting you to where you want to be long, long term. I worked really, really hard, probably harder on this than anything else, but to maintain a good work life balance. Don't get me wrong. That's sometimes it's tipped the wrong way. It's sometimes now I'm having to do a little bit more than I want, and it's a bit more stressful than I want. And I've got a little bit too much out there invested than I would really like, but I try and pull it back and I generally speaking maintain a really good balance.

I get to spend a lot of time with Gemma. We've got a place in the Lake District. We go on nice holidays. We are able to eat nice food. We do nice things. I find my time to go to the gym every day and walk Hugo for an hour every day. I've got a good couple of hours out of every single day because I'm not putting myself under that much pressure. Some days are a little bit different, but on the whole, that's the balance that I maintain and that's really important to me.

Andy Graham (33:33.186)
So despite my long -term goals. And in fact, in a way, my long -term goals and objectives have been designed with that in mind. So there we go. I think six or seven, I've actually lost count of how many ideas I've shared with you, but let me just recap what we've been through today. Designing with the end in mind can be about thinking in terms of the logistics and the location of where you're going to invest. It can be about thinking about the type of tenant that you ultimately want to build a business around. It can be about how you want to balance cashflow versus equity and the creation of each.

Often there's compromise you need to make. It's about understanding and assessing your own appetite for risk. Be realistic about what this is and it should be conducive and it should speak to your personal circumstances as well. It should be about thinking about your legacy, what you want this business to look like and how you might be able to potentially package it up and pass it on one day or liquidise it, crystallise it, walk away and spend all the money in it. You want it to be tax efficient, right?

And then finally, I think it was about establishing a realistic timeframe to achieve all of this in and maintaining a good work balance while you do all of this so that you can enjoy the entire process. Because I promise you, no matter what it is and what it looks like one day in the future, it'll never be as good as you think it is. The goalpost, I promise, will continue to move. If you think it's 10 properties now or 10,000 pound a month now, I guarantee when you get there, it'll be 20 properties and it'll be 20,000 pound a month. That's fine. That's the nature of entrepreneurship. It's the nature of being a business owner but it's not worth it unless you can enjoy the process. That's it for today's episode, guys. I hope that you enjoyed that. I was really looking forward to recording this episode today because this is one of the things that I enjoy most about working with my mentees, really helping them understand and get to grips with what they want to achieve long-term. And I think for so many people, not doing this is where it all falls down. They don't do this and they aren't able to marry the financial targets that they set with the personal objectives.

And the whole process becomes problematic. It's not enjoyable. It's quite stressful. And eventually people lose motivation and enthusiasm and the self discipline to deliver on that plan. Whereas if you get this bit right, this is the flag in the ground. This is you making that plan so that you can set sail with everything that you need. You've got your map, you've got your compass, you've got your radio, you've got all your food on board, your water, you've got your fishing rod. It's everything that you need to get across this big wide

Andy Graham (36:00.36)
ocean between where we are now and where you want to be at some point in the future. Don't be that person that sets sail without thinking about where you want to go. Cause the chances are you're going to end up drifting off course, ended up on the other side of the world or worse still stranded in the middle and without the resources to survive. And I say that tongue in cheek, but there is a reality to this guys. And what I don't want is for you to be that person that three, four years into this.

realizes it's not what you wanted to do. Actually, you're not enjoying the process and you regret it. You've made mistakes. So there we go. Don't forget, if you want to learn more about investing in HMOs, everything you could possibly need is waiting for you inside the HMO roadmap. Just head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk. You can find the deal stack. You can find all of our expert master classes from planning consultants, architects, interior designers, our mortgage brokers, and a whole lot more. You'll find my 60 lesson roadmap on how to find, fund your deals, how to fix them and refurbish them, how to fill them with great tenants and how to get into flow with good management and operational systems.

You'll find all of my downloadable resources and templates. Everything you could possibly need to actually build a property business and then run and manage a property business is all waiting for you. You don't have to go and create these documents for yourself. You don't need to go and spend lots of money on loan agreements and rent to rent agreements is all there and waiting for you inside the HMO roadmap. I've done it all for you. It could not be any easier. So head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk now, check it all out.

I promise you won't be disappointed. And remember that as a member, you can benefit from a number of exclusive discounts from our power team. So on furniture, on legal resources, on architectural services, and a whole lot more. It's all there and waiting for you to take advantage of. And just a quick ask guys, before I disappear today, I know I ask you regularly, but we have many tens of thousands of listeners to the show.

And still so few reviews relative to the number of listeners we have. And it would be fantastic. It would mean the world to me. If you could spare just 30 seconds, if that to leave a really quick review of the show. If you've been listening since day dot and you're a regular, thank you so much. It'd be great to know what you think about the show. If you're new to the show and you've enjoyed today's episode, if you found value in it, if you found it enjoyable, then please, please, please leave a quick review. You can leave a review on both Spotify and Apple podcasts.

Andy Graham (38:23.874)
It would mean the world to me. It helps us continue to be able to spread the message about the podcast and all the great work that you guys out there in our community are doing. And we're slowly and steadily changing the narrative around HMOs, which I think is a wonderful thing. That's it guys. Thank you again for tuning in today. 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.