
The HMO Podcast
The HMO Podcast
Business, Builds & Balancing It All #BizUpdate
In today’s episode, I’m sharing one of my honest, no-filter business updates. It’s been a while since the last one in February, and there’s a good reason I’ve waited until now.
I’ll be lifting the lid on what’s been happening in my world: from the latest in my development and HMO businesses, to everything I’ve been juggling outside of work. These updates are my way of keeping things real and transparent with you.
Yes, I’m a property investor and business owner, but like many of you, I’m also trying to balance other goals and challenges in life. And let’s face it, none of this is easy.
So if you’re curious to know what’s really been going on behind the scenes - good, bad, and everything in between, tune in and enjoy this catch-up episode.
-
Did you find this episode useful? Please leave us a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
Got any questions? Join The HMO Community on Facebook!
Connect with me on Instagram or Linkedin for daily HMO tips and advice!
If you want to join my 1-2-1 mentoring program, you can enquire here.
Feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start? Join The HMO Roadmap on a Premium plan and get all-access to our award-winning library of 400+ resources to help you start, scale and systemise your HMO business. Get instant access here.
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 (00:40.718)
Today's episode is one of my business updates. My last update was back in February earlier this year, and there's a good reason why I've waited until now to give you my next update. I'm going to bring you up to speed, let you know what's been happening across my development business, the HMO business, outside of business. And of course, these business updates are my way of keeping everything really transparent and honest with you guys.
Yes, I'm a property investor. Yes, I'm a business owner, but I'm also trying to achieve lots of things outside of business. And what I do in business and in property is a huge part of that. And I know it's not easy. I know more than anyone how tough it can be. And I'm sure if you're listening to the show, if you're investing in HMOs and other types of projects as well, you know just how tough it can be. Well, these episodes are here to just keep it real with you guys.
So if you want to lift the bonnet on my business, if you want to hear exactly what has been going on, don't go anywhere. Please sit back, relax and enjoy today's episode of the HMO Podcast.
Hey guys, it's Andy here and we're gonna be getting back to the podcast in just a moment. But before we do, I wanna 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 (02:45.775)
Okay, welcome back. So today is a business update. These are the episodes where I bring you up to speed, let you know what's been happening behind the scenes in my business, the good stuff, the bad stuff, and of course everything in between. And it's my way of keeping things really honest and really transparent with you guys. I never, ever, ever wanted the podcast to be a highlights reel. I wanted it to be an honest and true reflection of what building a property business is really like. And then of course, sharing my best practice advice and then all of the great advice and expertise and wisdom from our guests as well.
So hopefully you guys think that we are continuing to do that on the show for you. But I enjoy these episodes because it's also a good opportunity for me to reflect on what's been happening. And I said in the pre intro intro that it's been a little while actually since my last update. It was back in February earlier this year. And the reason why I've waited a little longer than usual to record another update is because it hasn't actually been a huge amount of especially exciting stuff happening.
You guys invest in property. So you know how slow the wheels can turn. And that's just been the case for me. Don't get me wrong, there's been a lot of stuff going on, but none of it's been especially exciting or interesting. Same projects, just a little bit further down the line, just a different phase of each individual project. So I've waited until now to make sure that I had a nice full bodied roundup of things, something that was a bit more interesting to give you guys with a few more lessons squeezed in.
So that's what we're going to do today. I'm going to bring you up to speed, let you know what's been happening in my HMO business, in my training and education business, part of my trading business, my development business, and then outside of business as well. Because of course, everything I do in business is because I want to do something outside of business. I'm not doing it just for the love of building businesses. Although I do enjoy that, I have lots of personal ambitions, which I've talked about many times on the show, especially the beginning of the year. I often like to share my goals with you guys.
We're in July now, so it's a great time to just check in on those goals as well and just make sure that I am actually keeping on top of things and pushing myself. In many ways, these episodes hold me to account as well. So thank you for tuning in and holding me to account guys. So where shall we start today? Well, how about we start with HMOs, my HMO business. So it's early to mid July now as I'm recording. And for me, that means that student changeover has just finished. It's done, dusted.
Andy Graham (05:07.983)
And everything is sorted. So for those of you not familiar with the student cycle, students live in a cyclical fashion in our HMOs. They tend to move in between July and September, live there for the best part of 12 months and then typically move out and the new cohort comes in. So my change over day is actually the 1st of July. My tenants depart actually on the 23rd of June. I have a week to change the houses over, get the cleaning teams in, get the maintenance done, do some whatever work we need. And then on the 1st of July, my new tenants move in. So that week is changeover week for me.
I've spoken about it many times on the podcast before. It's a huge part of running a student property business, but actually it's a great way of consolidating lots of work and effort and energy into a really short space of time. And if you do it well and you know what you're doing, it can help you achieve so much. Now, the key thing for me is making sure that our tenants depart in the best possible way. And for us, that means getting our properties back in the best possible condition, making sure that they're happy and they leave with good memories and everything's amicable. And also making sure that our inbound tenants move in on good terms.
It's so critical that on day one, especially because our student tenants are typically arriving with mum and dad to help them pack and move house and things like that. It's incredibly important that they're happy when they move in, that everything is as they expected and everything has been from customer service perspective, good. So the communication, access to the house, the standard and the cleanliness when they arrive, all the paperwork leading up to that, the payment schedules and setting up payments and things like that. Everything has to be right. And what I've found over the years after doing this for nearly 20 years now is that because there are so many moving parts to this part of the student model, it's really easy to drop the ball.
And if you drop the ball on just one of those things, it has this domino effect. So, for example, if you don't do a pre-inspection on a house, on a group that are about to move out, and actually you find that when you go to do the final inspection once they have moved out, that there are things in there that are going to take more than a few days that you've got to get sorted, that can then impact the inbound group. So a really good example here is that I had a tenant
Andy Graham (07:32.413)
with a ferret. I knew this tenant had a ferret. She wasn't allowed a ferret, but she had a ferret anywhere and it stinks ferrets absolutely stink. It's awful. And I was really concerned that that smell was not going to be an easy one to get rid of. So pre-inspections, we made sure to really document that and have those important conversations with the tenant to make sure that the appropriate cleaning and deep cleaning was done.
And then I put contingencies in place because I wasn't completely confident that the tenant, who was lovely by the way, but I wasn't completely confident that she was going to be able to resolve it despite the advice that me and the team gave her. Anyway, that was certainly the case. And we did our pre-inspection. The report back was that the room still absolutely hoached. And of course we needed to get our expert cleaners in to go and drop some smoke bombs in there and do a proper deep clean and a carpet clean and things like that, which they did.
And because we had done the pre-inspections, we anticipated this and we had things ready and that meant everything was done for the new tenant to move in and they moved in without any issue. Had that not have been the case, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that we would have had some very, very angry guarantors on the phone because it really was pretty awful. And that's one of many moving parts. So student changeover is done for another year.
I'm always glad to get it out of the way. It is one of those things that you feel. It feels a little bit like doing your exams. You remember, you used to study really hard and do your exams. And then once you finished your exams, you felt like, your feet up, enjoy summer with your friends. The student changeover is very much like that. Usually, actually, a lot of the students move in and then they go away for the summer as well. So they typically don't use the house that much over summer as well. The real use tends to ramp up from about mid September onwards and then into autumn and that's when the little teething problems, if there are any, start to sort of come out, I find.
But great to have student changeover done. We are pretty good at it now. I've been doing it for a long, long time, but it's all about processes. It's all about people. It's all about preparation. Moving on then to the rest of my HMO business. So let's sort of fold the HMO roadmap and the podcast and the community into all of that. Really, really important part of my
Andy Graham (09:53.895)
business group and something I really, really enjoy. Now, last year, for those of you who are regular listeners of the show, you will know that in advance of my daughter being born in January, there was a lot of work that I did to build additional processes and systems into pretty much everything. Because I really, really wanted to make sure that I was able to enjoy this period of time, these last six months, with Gemma and Isla and have all of that freedom and choice and flexibility that I had designed.
And there was some work that needed to be done to make sure that that was certainly going to be the case. And that was our priority last year as a business. That was what we focused on and we did a really great job of it. And what that meant was we didn't do anything new or different. We didn't push ourselves in other directions. I think it's really important as a business owner, you know, when to say no and when not to push and then when to say yes and when to push.
And the last six months has not been the time to push and do anything new. But now that Isla is six months old and Gemma and I and Isla have found our new balance and everything is pretty much back to normal from a work perspective for me. I'm looking for that next thing. And we've got some really, really exciting plans for the roadmap and the community and the podcast. This is something that's been brewing and it's been at the back of my mind for quite some time, but I needed to be in the right position to do it from a mindset perspective.
And we're calling this 5.0 and we're super excited. I'm not going to say too much about what it is now. It's not something that's going to happen immediately, but we've got some really big plans with some really, really exciting people to do some really incredible things for you guys, our community members, our listeners, our service users, our partners, everybody. But there's an awful lot of work going in into that.
So a huge amount of planning and preparation systems, people, deals being done. And all of that is starting to take shape. Now, what that means is that as a business, we are accelerating and we are going to be pushing ourselves and moving back into that uncomfortable zone. And I really enjoy being there and I'm really looking forward to this next phase of that business. I will keep you updated as that progresses, but the best way to think about it is that
Andy Graham (12:13.681)
we are going to take things to a whole new level and significantly expand the services that we offer and significantly expand our reach as well. I think there's so much more that we can do for our community. And I've got so many incredible contacts across the country, outside of the country as well, doing all sorts of projects, running all sorts of businesses. And we are working on some really exciting collaborations with lots of people. So loads more to come. And the good news for you guys is that it's all going to benefit you as well. So I'll keep you updated, but that's a new thing for me. And that's now starting to bubble away in the background. It's going to require reinvestment back into the company. It's going to require more people. It's going to require a hell of a lot of planning and preparation. We've got incredibly high standards. So the delivery has got to be on point and all the processes and systems and everything has got to kind of follow that, a huge amount that's going to be involved in doing that.
But I'm really, really, really excited about it because I love that phase of businesses, growing and scaling. That's the bit that I really, really enjoy. What I don't enjoy so much is getting things to a point where you're able to just coast and get comfortable. Yes, I've been really grateful for that over the last six months, but I'm itching on that next thing. So that's what we're planning there.
From a development perspective then, you guys know that I do a lot of development, commercial to residential development with my business partner, Mike and Mark, fantastic guys, incredibly skilled and incredibly talented individuals. And I'm really, really blessed to be able to work with such great people. And we've been cooking some fantastic projects over the last couple of years. The projects of this sort of scale, that sort of now we're into the region of 20,000 square feet, they do take a couple of years to fruition. They take time to buy and then go through planning and then time and development and then time to sort of refinance and exit. And we've got a big project called Albion Place. You may have seen that I've been sharing some of that on socials recently.
Phase one has just about finished now. It has finished behind schedule, to be honest with you guys, for a number of reasons. These are the sorts of challenges that you can face working with contractors and converting large commercial sites. But the good news is it's done and we've now part-tenanted the building. We've got 24 flats. It's quite a lot of tenants all at once to fill. That is something that we've been doing in what I would describe as being a softer market than we're used to. Actually, it's been a really kind of busy
Andy Graham (14:37.543)
buoyant market over the last couple of years and the last three to six months, that has been a little bit different. It's not to say that the market isn't there. It is there, but that same demand and I think that ability, that willingness to pay has changed a little bit. I know a lot of people are experiencing the same thing. A lot of top end rooms sitting empty, people having to work a little bit harder, incentivise, push a little bit more, keep on top of the marketing. And we've definitely felt that as well.
We're probably about 60, 70% lets on that now. So it's going really well. And we are now going into the phase of refinancing. That's a complicated process on a building of this sort of scale with 24 flats, high value. If you want to maximise the lending on sites like this, you have to be really quite creative about how you might divide the site up. So to keep it super simple, because we could do a whole episode on this and more, but there are a number of lenders out there on the market that will do.
They will lend on a multi-unit freehold block up to about 10 properties, call it 10 flats, 10 homes, and give you an aggregate value. So it'll give you sort of the full value of all of those 10 flats added up together, and then give you 75% loan to value on that. There aren't many, but there are a few. Once you get over that 10 unit number, that kind of falls off a cliff. And usually you're into sort of 70, 65% loan to value terms. And also the bank and valuers tend to want to see some sort of a block discount, applied block discount, or sometimes called a single investment value. It's a little different to the aggregate value of the flat. So it's more or less kind of taking the aggregate value, but then discounting it by a certain percentage, let's call it 10%, because that's what the bank would expect it to perhaps sell for if they had to intervene and repossess and sell it quickly.
And when you've got big buildings and large numbers that you're working with, a few percent here and there can be a big, big number. So we're working really hard with our lenders and we've got some really good relationships with lenders to kind of find the best way of refinancing that building that suits us to maximise what we can get out of the back end, but also make sure that we do it at a reasonable pace and we get reasonable terms. It's not the best market for lending at the minutes anyway, rates are still high. So there's a whole
Andy Graham (16:59.47)
juggle a real dance there to be done that we're working through. And it's inevitably going to take many weeks and months yet because lending as anyone who has done it, it can take ages. Your solicitors, their solicitors, so many moving parts. We've got leases to create and all sorts of things. So that body of work is in motion. I actually don't mind managing this part of the process, but it's slow. It's painful. It's one of those things that as a property investor, you just loathe because it takes so long.
So that's happening in the background. Now that's phase one looks absolutely incredible. Again, I've got to credit my business partner, Mark and Paola, his wife, both architects for designing an incredible scheme. It really is just beautiful. And we've had so many comments, really positive stuff locally, sort of from local residents and neighbors, but you know, much wider field as well. So that's been really, really lovely to see.
Phase two of the kind of the same Albion place that is underway as well. So this is a plot of adjacent land that we had, we bought it with the building, it was a car park. It had some planning on it, but not the right planning. We amended that planning and we have started that build. So as we came out of phase one, we then rolled onto phase two with the same contractor. We're now at a stage where we're coming up the ground really. We've piled the site, we've done the drainage, soak away. So we're sort of coming up out of the ground now. Not a straightforward site. It's a large plot.
There's retaining walls and stuff that needs to be built. There's a lot of party wall stuff that has had to be done and dealt with. And it's a big job. So it's a lot for the contractors as well. And while we've been finishing off the other building, they've been starting that. Everybody relies on subcontractors as well and balancing that and across the summer period, it can be difficult, but it's exciting to see phase two now coming out of the ground. And that is on about sort of a, well, it's on a 12 month program. So next sort of spring summer, we'll be finishing that one off as well.
So quite some way to go on on that one now as well. But you will see if you are following me on social media, you'll see updates of that site as well as it progresses. And that's a new build. So we don't do too much new build. We don't particularly like new build mainly because of the problems that you can find under the ground. Fortunately, we managed to escape too many issues under the ground. We did have one. We did find one huge cable, which was a was a problem and I did delay things, but we managed to resolve that.
Andy Graham (19:17.518)
But yeah, new builds are slightly different and certainly a project that I'm going to learn a lot from because I'm not as familiar with that kind of new build element. We've done some, but not a whole lot. So that's Albion place. Our scheme in Sheffield, the Sawmill, really exciting project. You'll have heard me talk about this before. We have now completed the tender on that. So I spent a long time tendering, building relationships with contractors because I knew it was going to be really difficult to get this bill at the price that made the scheme work for us.
And I'll be honest, when we got the prices in from the tender, there was a huge, huge range. Like the range was in the region of a million pounds. Anyway, we're really excited now to have kind of essentially selected a contractor and we're now sort of dotting the I's, crossing the T's and looking at finalizing things. There's a few more things to just fall in place before we absolutely commit to building the project out, but it has taken time. And a large reason as to why this has all taken quite some time is because it took a long time going through planning and I'll be honest with you, we still haven't got the planning. So let me explain.
We've got a really good relationship with the planning department and the planning officer. We've known for quite some time that we are getting planning. There's never been any doubt about that whatsoever. Very open and sort of transparent process with our planning officer. It's not going to commit you or anything like that, but it has been tricky with some of the design elements because Historic England were involved because of the listed building that we're attached to.
They were quite prescriptive in what they wanted from a design perspective and that really did slow things down, which was quite frustrating. But also if you've never experienced this sort of thing before, the section 106 agreement, this is basically the legal agreement that once you've determined or once it's been determined how much you're to pay, for example, in terms of affordable homes contribution, which by the way, I will tell you is sort of our combined affordable homes contribution and SIL, Community Infrastructure Levy is in the region of 70,000 quid.
That all then gets packaged up into a legal agreement called section 106. And it takes ages because you've got your solicitors and the council solicitors, and then you might want some things amending, which we did want to, so we could phase the site if we needed to. So anyway, that is still dragging on. It's being done, but summer holidays, one of the solicitors went off on matly. It’s just like all of that stuff just kind of gets in the way. But that scheme is just about there now. The party wall agreement sorted. We're, we're kind of really ready to just sort of.
Andy Graham (21:41.57)
agree the contract with our contractor and get started subject to a last few bits. So that's where that is, but that's why that's not started yet. The last project that I've spoken about recently on the podcast is Green Lane. And that is mine and Gemma's own project, our sort of primary personal residence, whatever you want to call it. This is a house we bought earlier in the year. It completed at the end of February. And actually we had agreed to buy it quite some time before it went to probate because the gentleman who was selling it was died. He'd moved into care home and he died.
We got the planning during that period of time. And I've been tenuring that one out now. So I've got to a point where I'm ready to select a contractor, but I'm not doing anything with it yet. And this is an interesting one. The property in about November time this year will have been vacant for two years. Now, interestingly, when a property, a residential property has been vacant, unoccupied for two years, it qualifies for a VAT exemption.
And in this case, that VAT exemption is to 5%. Now, if you're spending several hundred thousand, many hundreds of thousands of pounds on a refurbishment project and you can get a VAT exemption of essentially 15 % discount, that is a significant amount. So a lot of people don't actually know that this exists. So if you didn't know, now you do know, but that's a substantial amount of money. It makes far more sense for us to just keep renting where we are, wait and delay the project and start it a little bit later in a few months time.
So that is why I haven't forced that one to start yet. Everything's kind of ready, good to go. Essentially we've got some materials to choose and select. I've got a bit more detail to iron out, but that's what I'm waiting for. So hopefully that one gets underway later in the year. Other than that, it does look good. It looks like the house has been abandoned at the minute. I'll be honest, I'm ashamed to say I own it because it's just, everything's overgrown and things like that. But come October, November time, we'll start getting into that project. And then I think it'll be about 10 months to get that one turned into a really, really incredible home for us.
So from a development perspective, that's about where it is. But as you can see, not a huge amount of material progress, just lots of little things just happening. That guys is what developing is all about. Mostly dealing with problems. You're at the bottom of a funnel, lots of problems. We'll find a way into that funnel. You're at the bottom of that. So you see the worst you have to deal with that. And a lot of that stuff just seems to take ages as well. But that's what's going on from a development perspective.
Andy Graham (24:06.106)
giving you a bit of an update as to what's going on in the HMO business. just outside of business in general then. Big part of my last update was that I was taking some time off with Gemma and Isla. I wanted to spend that time with Isla as a baby. And I've absolutely done that. And I'm really, really pleased and never been more grateful. I said it earlier for that freedom and choice and that flexibility. My business was designed to give me exactly that. And not really until now did they appreciate just how well that has worked and how important it would be to me. And I hope anyone listening today who has got this sort of ambition and aspiration themselves, hears that because there are times when it will feel impossible or too difficult and out of reach. And on so many occasions, that was me.
On many occasions I was ready to walk away. On many occasions I thought I'd failed and things had gone wrong and persistence has absolutely paid off. And it's been really incredible experience to be able to spend that time with Gemma while she's been on mat leave, even Islay, being there and around all the time in the mornings, every evening, all through the day, because I work from home most of the time. And I feel really fortunate. And we've got some friends and NCT friends and they've had new babies themselves. And I know how different it can be for some people. Some of my dad pals having to go back to work after two weeks and all of a sudden the long days out at eight, back at six. And I'm really grateful that that isn't the case for us.
So I've been making the most of all of that and don't plan to change that whatsoever. But to my surprise, I've also been maintaining that balance of exercise and walk with Hugo every day and work. Now, of course it's been harder than usual. I've had to work a lot harder. I had to plan in advance a lot more stuff, but I have still managed to maintain it. And I'm really pleased and I'm really proud about that because the one thing that I would consider a failure is this, any of that stuff faltered.
I would much prefer that we didn't achieve quite as much in the business and our financial performance wasn't quite as good. So long as I was still getting all of that stuff outside of the business, that's really, really important to me. So exercise and getting to the gym and playing paddle and walking the dog, all of that stuff. I think I've managed to maintain that balance to the very best of my ability. And actually I feel one of my goals and objectives at the minute is just to keep my cardiovascular fitness up.
Andy Graham (26:31.566)
I read how important that is as you sort of get over 40, which by the way is next year for me. Next December I'm 40. I'm 38 now, but next December I will be 40. And I want to make sure that I stay as fit as I possibly can. So I've had to change some of my priorities a little bit and start doing some different types of fitness, but really proud and really, really pleased to have been finding that balance.
So interestingly, I looked at the four months for the first six months of this year. I always look at it year to date. I always look at it year on year as well. I go back and compare. So in terms of performance and targets for the year, we're absolutely bang on track. Now I'll be honest, I didn't set the wildest goals in the world for this year. There was some progress, but it was modest, I would say, but we have achieved it slightly surpassed it actually. We're 18% year on year up.
Now I don't include any capital uplift or capital growth or development value in that whatsoever. And I don't even include any rental income from our development projects that whatsoever. That is purely just performance enhancement in my current businesses, including the HMO portfolio and my trading businesses as well. I've also done some lending and stuff this year as well, just because one of my goals and objectives has been to be a bit more liquid. I didn't want to overcommit myself to anything more projects, more problems. So big part of what I wanted to do this year was just enjoy all of that time, but also get into a good liquid position. That liquidity means just easier to then maybe deliver some of the projects later in the year or go on a bit of an acquisition spree later this year, which is exactly what I am hoping to do. So that growth has really helped enable that, but my priority now isn't cash flow. My priority is capital uplift.
What I've realized as I've got a little bit older and my businesses have matured little bit, cash flow used to be my ultimate objective, as it is for many people. And yes, it's important. And yes, I'm happy if that continues to grow, but actually it's very hard to get cash out of businesses without paying extortionate amounts of tax. So my objective for the long term is to continue reinvesting as much as possible in the business with the exception of what I might do for our own primary residence.
Andy Graham (28:53.346)
So my objective continues to be capital growth. I'll take the cashflow that comes with some of that, acquisition of assets as well. But I'm really looking forward to rolling this year's progress to date forwards into what should be some more development projects later in the year. And then 5.0, the roadmap and the community and the podcast, all of that stuff as well, take everything there to a whole new level, which will take a good sort of six to 12 months to come to fruition as well.
But I'm really, really, really proud and please, like 18 % up year on year, that is substantial. And actually, on reflection, what I found was the reason we have been able to do that is not because we did more in sales, it's not because we increased rents, it's because we focused so heavily on systems and processes and people at the end of last year, that that significantly increased our efficiency. And off the back of that, that has then also increased revenues, it's reduced costs and it's significantly improved performance as well.
So I'm really pleased about that and we're still making some more changes as well and we're still making some additions to that because I see it as being such a valuable part of the business growth process. So that's where I am. That's what is going on at the minute guys. If I'm honest, nothing like I said, super exciting and nothing really terrible. It's been one of those sorts of quarters, actually been almost a couple of quarters since my last update, but on the whole really pleased and mostly pleased with the fact that I've just been able to enjoy life outside of business as much as I possibly could while still running businesses and while being a business owner and as a developer as well, which can be for anyone who's doing this, very, very difficult as you know.
So that's about it for today guys. I hope that that has in some way been helpful. I hope you may have found some motivation in there, some inspiration, some words of wisdom, some guidance, whatever it might be. If you're struggling, if you're having difficulties, challenges, whatever it might be, and you need a bit of support, bit of help, there's a couple of ways that we can help. First of all, come and check out the HMO Community. That's our free group in Facebook. It's a great place to just check in, let us know what's going on, ask for help. There are over 10,000 of us now that can offer you our guidance and support, and it's a really incredible place, really safe environment to find that advice that you might need.
Andy Graham (31:16.346)
Of course, check out thehmoroadmap.co.uk, the UK's most comprehensive library of resources for HMO property investors without any shadow of a doubt. It blows anything else out of the water. We have absolutely stacks of the highest level of content and learning you can possibly get your hands on. Go and check it out. If you're serious about investing in HMOs, you have to check it out for the price of less than a cup of coffee every single day. If you're spending hundreds of thousands on property, tens of thousands on refurbishments, it is an absolute no brainer because I guarantee there are pieces of information in there, little bits and pieces that alone will save you thousands, if not tens of thousands or possibly more. So please, please, go and check it out and look at some of the new case studies we've got. They are absolutely incredible. Some of the community case studies that have been dropped recently will blow you away.
And of course, if you're really serious about taking things to the next level, if you're already underway, perhaps you've got a portfolio, things are moving, perhaps you're an experienced business owner coming from a corporate background, perhaps you've got the capital to go, you want to push hard, then we can talk about mentorship. I've got a mentorship program. I work with a very small number of people. I keep it really bespoke, super tailored. I've helped about a hundred people over the last eight, nine years now, some of whom have gone on to win national awards, done incredible things, built highly successful businesses, retired themselves, done really unimaginable stuff. If you're serious about getting that time of freedom, choice and flexibility for yourself, building that recurring income stream, doing whatever it is that you want to do, living a different life, whatever it might be, if I can help, just reach out.
You can drop me a message on Instagram. You can drop an email to andy@thehmoroadmap.co.uk. You can contact us through the HMO roadmap as well. We've got an enquiry form on there. But if you want to talk about my mentorship program to see whether or not I can help you and whether we could work together, then please do feel free to reach out. Like I said, I work with a very small number of people. It is only application only available. I have to make sure I work with the right people, but if I can help you, I promise I will do my very, very best.
Andy Graham (33:35.63)
That is it for today's episode, guys. Thank you again for tuning in. I appreciate your time so, so much. And of course, 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.