If You’ve Got Less Than £50k… Here’s Exactly What To Do First

In today’s episode, I’m challenging the way most people think about a £50,000 pot of capital and why, for so many aspiring property investors, that thinking is the very thing keeping them stuck. £50k feels like a lot of money and it is, but in the context of property, it’s also not enough to do the job most people are asking it to do.

Rather than trying to force £50,000 into a single deal and hoping it changes your life, I break down what that money should actually be used for if your goal is real scale, momentum, and long-term freedom. This isn’t about saving more, working harder, or squeezing every last pound out of one deal. It’s about a fundamental shift in how you think about capital, leverage, and growth.

🎯 What You’ll Learn

• The biggest mistake investors make when trying to “make their money work harder”
• Why capital should be judged by what it enables, not what it buys
• The myth that you need deal experience before raising investor money
• Why investors don’t fund deals
• How to reposition yourself as a delivery partner rather than a cash-limited buyer
• The mindset shift required to turn £50,000 into something truly life-changing

If you’ve saved hard, stayed busy, done “all the right things” but still feel like progress is painfully slow, this episode will challenge your assumptions and give you a completely different way to think about using the money you have.

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💻 Resources & Mentions

• 1-2-1 Mentorship: Ready to take things to the next level? Email andy@thehmoroadmap.co.uk
• The HMO Roadmap: Feeling overwhelmed? Access 400+ tools, templates, and lessons to help you start, scale, and systemise your HMO business - all in one place. Join here.
• Facebook Community: Got questions or need support? Come and connect with 10,000+ investors inside The HMO Community here.
• Social: Follow me on Instagram for daily HMO tips, advice, and behind-the-scenes updates here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, I'm Andy. 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.

[00:00:20] 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 price. And everything else you need to know to start scale and systemize your very own HMO portfolio now.

In today's episode, I am going to challenge how I know a lot of people think about 50,000 pound or a pot of capital that they might have to invest of about that amount of money.

[00:00:51] Now look, 50 grand is a lot of money. Relative to price of property, it's also not a huge amount of money, and the truth is 50 grand just isn't enough to meaningfully invest into a property deal. If you genuinely want to change your life, and if hearing that makes you feel uncomfortable, maybe even makes you squirm, then that's probably a good thing.

[00:01:10] Look, today's episode isn't about trying to disappoint you, and it's certainly not about frustrating you or putting you off property. In fact. Completely the opposite, but if you do want to turn something like 50 grand into a meaningful amount of money, if you really do want to change your life, and that's where you are right now, then today's episode is definitely for you. Let's get into it.

[00:01:35] Hey guys, it's Andy here. We are 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 are 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.

[00:01:52] 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.

[00:02:06] 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.

[00:02:31] To find out more, head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk now and come and join our incredible community of HMO property investors.

[00:02:45] Okay, welcome back, gang. So today we are talking about why the way that most people think about using a pot of capital that they might have in the region of about 50 grand is almost always. The thing that is holding them back, the way that they think about how they should invest it is almost certainly the thing that is holding them back.

[00:03:07] 50 grand isn't a small amount of money. It's actually lots of money, but relative to the price of property and the cost of refurbishments and everything else involved in property, let's be honest, it's also not a significant amount of money and what most people are asking that 50,000 pounds to do in the context of what they want to achieve from it.

[00:03:27] Simply wrong. They're asking that 50 grand to do the wrong job. And I'm gonna explain exactly what I mean in today's episode. Look, this episode, like I said, it's not about trying to frustrate you or disappoint you or put you off property. In fact, this is the complete opposite. I'm gonna give you the solution, but it also isn't about working higher.

[00:03:46] It's not about saving more. It's not even about forcing 50,000 pounds to get more out of your deal so that you can recycle it and do more deals. And this is the important thing. It's about recognizing. That thinking this way is what is keeping you stuck and how that thinking needs to change. If you do genuinely want to turn 50,000 into something like 5 million.

[00:04:08] Now, look, the truth is, as I've said, 50 grand just isn't a meaningful amount if you want to invest it into a single property deal. Let's just think about it for a second. What would that actually buy us? Well, first of all, the maximum loan to value that we can probably actually get from a bank is 75, maybe even 80%.

[00:04:26] So let's just assume for a second our 50,000 pounds represented to 25% deposit. We got the remaining 75% at the purchase price from the bank. That gives us about 200 grand. That's how a firepower. But in reality, there's frictional costs, stamp duty, legal fees. Searches and all of that jazz. And then you've actually gotta think about what you've gotta spend on the refurb.

[00:04:50] Well, is a bank or a lender likely to give you all of the money for the refurbs? Probably not. Usually you're gonna have to contribute some element of that. In reality, and I don't wanna get into the nitty gritty of it, but in reality, you are almost certainly not even gonna be able to purchase a property of the value of about 200 grand now.

[00:05:08] If the idea that you have is to use that capital to buy a property, to then do some work on it, to add loads of value to then refinance that property and get all of your money back out, that is a huge ask of 50,000 pounds, if I'm honest. It is almost certainly not possible to do by the time you do it, and you might do the deal really successfully.

[00:05:29] You might have fantastic numbers. I'm not saying that that's not possible, but are you likely to get back your 50 grand plus a load more from a deal of that size of that caliber? Almost certainly not. And I'm not saying this to frustrate you. I'm saying it to be really honest, to be transparent. I want you to think very differently because there's a much better way to think about using your capital.

[00:05:48] You can see how doing those sorts of deals with your 50 grand is almost certainly not going to turn it into 5 million, not in a relatively short space of time anyway, like a matter of few years. That is a generational thing, and that's probably gonna happen only because of capital appreciation. And why have I chosen 50 grand to talk about today?

[00:06:08] Well, in my experience, that's an amount of money that a lot of people at some point do tend to find themselves in a position of having, maybe it's come through some savings, maybe some inheritance, maybe a refinance of maybe their principle resident, something like that. It's not nothing, but it's also not a serious amount of money.

[00:06:27] And I remember being here when I was younger. I remember I. In my twenties, having that amount of money in my bank, I felt like I could do anything, and the reality was I just couldn't. When you get into it and you realize how expensive and how much things really cost, unfortunately it isn't going to go very far, and I'm thinking back almost 15 years now.

[00:06:45] Well, obviously things have changed then Everything is inflated, 50 grand now. It's got a lot less firepower than it did 15 years ago. It's simply just not enough on its own to materially change your trajectory. That's the point I really want to get across. That's why it can be really frustrating because if this is you and you've got an amount of money in this sort of region, then you're probably finding that you're coming up against the same challenge.

[00:07:09] You know, how do I turn that 50 grand into something meaningful? How do I really change my life with this amount of money? What deals can I do and can I find to actually substantially change my life? And if you feel like. You've done the hard bit. You're trying to find this solution. If you're trying to find the deals or maybe even found the deals, and you've saved this money and you're really committed and you're really active and you're really serious about this, your progress still feels slow.

[00:07:34] You still feel like you're coming up against this brick wall and you just can't see how to double it and double it again. When you look at the deals that 50 Grand gives you access to, then this is exactly what today's episode is here. To resolve for you. Look, the truth is the biggest challenge that most people have at this point isn't actually the lack of money.

[00:07:53] And it's easy to think after what I've just said, that the lack of money is the challenge. It's really not. 50 grand just sits in that awkward middle space where it feels like you should have enough to move things forward. But in reality, it just isn't enough to change your circumstances, even if you do one really good deal with it.

[00:08:10] And if you don't recognize that, it's very easy to go around and around and around in circle, staying busy and still just pushing up against the same constraints. And today we are gonna put an end to that. Now, just to be clear, you can absolutely do a deal with 50 grand. That's not an issue. That's not what I'm saying at all.

[00:08:26] But the issue is what changes afterwards. Once you've done that deal, for most people, the deal will work fine, certainly if nothing goes wrong, but what about next time? They've still got the same access to capital, maybe even less. If an amount of that 50 grand has been sucked into the deal, they've still got the same limitations, whatever they may be.

[00:08:44] Operationally, experientially, they're not really able to change the pace that one deal's. Maybe making them a little bit of money, a bit of income every month. Maybe it's made their life a little bit better, but has it materially changed anything in any way? No. They've done something, but their options haven't really expanded and their life certainly hasn't changed.

[00:09:00] And if you don't have the options to change, it's very hard to build momentum. It's very hard to build that business that changes your life. Certainly not gonna build 5 million with a solution and a strategy like that. So that is why so many investors feel like they're moving, but just not actually getting anywhere.

[00:09:19] So here's the important bit. This is what I really want to tell you today. What should 50 grand actually be used for? Well, This is when your thinking really needs to shift. 50 grand shouldn't be judged by what you can buy with it. It should be judged by what it enables you to do with it. At this stage of your property, career capital isn't necessarily there to maximize your returns.

[00:09:39] I know it's easy. That's almost the thought process. When we've got money and we want to invest in in property, what return can we get on that money? But actually when you've got a pot of capital. In the region of about 50 grand. Its job should be to improve your decision making ability to reduce friction and to change the position that you are in so that different opportunities, more opportunities actually become available.

[00:10:02] Small amounts of capital you see are most powerful when they unlock access, not when they're tied up trying to do a job that they're simply too small for in a small residential property. That's the bit that most people just miss. Once you accept this 50 grand can't meaningfully scale on its own and change your life, then something becomes really, really, really, really obvious.

[00:10:24] And that is the external capital is simply unavoidable. Private finance that might be in the form of equity partners. It might be in the form of private debt. For most people, it ends up being a combination of the two. But this isn't necessarily clever or aggressive investing. When you start thinking like this, it's just how property investment works, and it has always been the case and it is at every single scaler and every level as you do bigger deals.

[00:10:51] And this is something that I have learned on reflection because I remember when I started this, this was not how I thought. It took me a while, took me several years before I really started to recognize that actually I should be focusing on how to put more resources and opportunities in front of me, not how to try and maximize the return, the investment return on every single penny that I had in the bank.

[00:11:10] As you grow and you build your business and you do bigger deals and they require more resource, it becomes increasingly important to think like that. If I focused solely on the amount of money that I had in the bank at any one point of time, I would never do any deals. There'd just be nothing there to buy.

[00:11:25] You've gotta think so far outta the box, and I get that. It's easy for me to say that with the experience that I now have, but actually. We can all adopt that mindset, we can all adopt that way of thinking doesn't necessarily mean that we all go and borrow millions of pounds to do deals on day one, but the approach, the methodology and the context to where we are and the types of deals that would suit us, that is all exactly the same.

[00:11:51] And I want you to really start thinking about how you could apply that to your strategy right now. And look, the real question isn't whether or not you need. Joint ventures, equity partners, or private money. That's a fact. It's just definitive. If you want to grow, the real question is how do you access it?

[00:12:11] And this is what your 50 grand can be used for. This is when things start to get really, really exciting. So what actually gets you access to joint ventures and. Private money. Well, I've talked about this in detail on the show before and it's covered in depth in the HMO roadmap, so I'm not gonna go into the minutia of how to raise private finance.

[00:12:30] That's not what today's episode is about. It's more so about getting you to think very differently, but access to joint ventures and private lending, it isn't actually the starting point. It's the outcome of doing a variety of different things. Capital. You see, it only shows up once someone has been able to demonstrate that they can deliver.

[00:12:48] That means having the skills, having the knowledge, having the confidence, having the time, just having the ability to package all of that up into something that makes sense for somebody else to potentially invest in. Investors, you see, they don't really fund deals. Yes, their funding might be tethered to a deal in the form of security or a plan, but in reality.

[00:13:09] They fund people. They fund people, and they invest in people who can reduce uncertainly and produce results. And that's you. Or at least it should be you. And once that capability exists, funding conversations stop being aspirational, and they genuinely start to be real, very, very practical. And this is why having that 50 grand can be so.

[00:13:30] Useful, but if you invest it in the wrong way and you plunk it into a deal that's not getting you a great return, it doesn't change. It doesn't materially change anything for you. It's stock if you use it instead as enabling capital to help you go and get the experience and the guidance and the advice, and put the method behind it and the plan and invest in your ability to actually get into networks and the right rooms with people and build systems and processes that drive efficiency, produce deals.

[00:14:00] Save time and drive efficiency, all of this stuff, and I get that. I'm summarizing. Like I said, we'd be here for hours if we wanted to go into the minutiae of all of that. It's just the idea and the concept that I want you to grasp, but investing your 50,000 and spending on that as opposed to a deal, that is how you 100 x your results.

[00:14:21] And I know it's really, really difficult to get your head around because we just want, we see 50 grand in the account and we think we should be getting more on it. We should be getting an interest rate. We should be earning. 500 or a thousand pounds, whatever it is, off the back of that, we should invest it into a property deal.

[00:14:35] 'cause that's what we want to do. We want to buy property, but that's just not the way to think about using an amount of money. Like 50 grand, use 50 grand to turn it into better decision making. Use it to turn you into a delivery partner, someone can, who can actually find and produce results. And if you share some of that benefit with private investors, that's fine.

[00:14:58] I'd much rather have 50% of something than a hundred percent of nothing. Sure, you might have a hundred percent of the first deal you do that you've spent your 50 grand on, but then what? Okay, and here's a big myth as well. A lot of people think, and I see this all the time with my clients, they think that just doing that first deal and having that experience under their belt, that's the difference between being able to.

[00:15:18] Go out and raise private finance and convince someone that they are worthy of it and not being able to do that. And that is a complete myth. Is it a nice tick in the box to have? Sure. But is that the definitive and the deciding factor for any investor? Almost certainly not. And I know and have dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of examples of people who have, without any experience of actually buying property, but with the right knowledge and guidance.

[00:15:45] Plan and methodology and attitude have gone and raised lots of money to do exactly this, and we also see it every single day in business. So many people go out and raise money for startup businesses when. Everybody knows, and they're very clear and transparent about the fact that it could all fall flat on its face.

[00:16:05] It could fail catastrophically. Yet people still invest. People take risks and that's fine. And then as long as we're transparent about everything, the fact that you don't necessarily have the experience of doing any or many deals yet, if you don't have the experience of maybe managing investor finance, you know, whatever it is, if we're transparent about it, and we can find investors who are happy taking on that risk, and yes, sure, we might pay for that risk.

[00:16:28] They might want a bit more equity, they might want a bit more control. We might pay a bit more for the debt. That's fine. If we can do that, then quite literally our options are almost limitless. If we can apply ourselves in that way and go and raise that sort of money, and we can have the firepower to go and buy whatever we want, then all we need to do is make sure that we can keep tying those deals.

[00:16:49] With the money. I put systems in place to make the whole thing work efficiently. It's really, really that simple, and I know that that's kind of crazy to hear, but that is honestly how it is. And I wish, I wish that I knew this when I was younger. I wish when I was getting started, I knew this, I've said for a long time.

[00:17:08] It took me years, many years before I really, truly understood. I think to some extent accepted that if I wanted to build my property business, it was not going to happen. Through simply saving money and waiting and trying to maximize what I could out of every single deal, I had to leapfrog. I had to accelerate the process.

[00:17:28] I really had to jumpstart it, and that meant going to find the right people, taking a plan, becoming a delivery partner. And by doing that I did lots more deals. And by doing lots more deals, I developed lots more credibility on authority and my, my network expanded. And of course then more opportunities came, and this is what I call actually the engineered deal algorithm.

[00:17:46] This is quite literally a three step framework that I teach my clients call it the engineered deal algorithm because it focuses on these three things. Your ability to raise and utilize finance, your ability to find deals consistently and have that infrastructure to continuously do that, and then also putting systems and having an operating system in your business that ties all of these pieces together.

[00:18:07] That drives efficiency, that drives results and performance, but doesn't suck up more and more and more of your time, which is usually the biggest bottleneck for everybody that is investing in property. That in a nutshell is how you scale, and that in a, in a nutshell is how to think about using 50,000 pounds if you genuinely want to turn it in to 5 million quid.

[00:18:30] I hope that today's episode has inspired you. Like I said at the beginning, this episode was certainly not about trying to put you off property or frustrate you or disappoint you because I get that a lot of people probably do have. Amounts of money, like 50 grand and hope and think that they can use that to make lots of money and change their life.

[00:18:46] But you can't if you do it that way. But if you do it the way that I've just told you, and I have worked with people countless times who've done exactly that. Just continue to grow and grow and grow and grow. You can see how if you just get that bit right, actually it doesn't matter how much money you have or have not got in the bank, as long as you can pay the bills and as long as everybody understands what's going on and you're transparent, and nobody's saying that any of this is guaranteed.

[00:19:12] So everybody should be fully aware of what they're getting involved with. But if you can do all of that, put all of that in place, then quite literally. Money and the amount of money that you have in the bank and the amount of money that you're able to save or not save has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to build and scale your property business.

[00:19:29] And that for me is so much more exciting. I mean, how much more exciting is that than the idea of going, buying a property that costs maybe 150, 200 grand and you do a light refurb? And that's it. This is so much more exciting. And look again, if that's what you want to do, there's nothing wrong with that.

[00:19:47] Just be aware that it's gonna be very difficult to ever scale up beyond that. But if your goals and aspirations are like mine, if you wanna build an empire, if you wanna build a multimillion pound property portfolio, if you genuinely want to change your life, if you wanna get your time back, if you want the freedom and the choice and the flexibility to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, however you want, wherever you want.

[00:20:07] Driving whatever you want, wearing whatever you want. You know what I mean? If you wanna do that, then this is how you have to think. And it starts now. It doesn't start after the first deal of the second deal of it starts now. It starts right now without any deal experience. Go and get the credibility. Go and learn.

[00:20:24] Go and find the right person to guide you and help you and support you and be there for you. Develop that base level of knowledge, have that strategy in place, all of that good stuff, all that stuff that we teach at the HMO Roadmap and that I teach on my consultancy programs. That is exactly what you need.

[00:20:40] If you genuinely want to turn 50 grand in to five million. That's it for today's episode. Guys. Thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed it. I hope you found it useful. I hope you found it inspiring and motivating and encouraging. I hope it hasn't put you off property. I hope it's done the exact opposite. And remember, if this is you, if you are in this position, if today's episode has resonated with you, and you do need that help and support with the knowledge, with the guidance, with the plan, with the strategy, with the implementation and the execution to go out and find investors.

[00:21:12] To do joint ventures and to raise debt and to find more deals and turn that vehicle onto autopilot, and then put all the systems in place to automate it and make it perform really well. Profitably, then keep an eye out because in the new year, I am launching a brand new coaching mentorship program. Now, as you are probably aware, I've run mentorship programs for years, award-winning.

[00:21:37] We've trained award winners. We've had incredible results, completely bespoke. Mentorship programs that have taught our clients exactly how to invest successfully in HMO properties. Well, next year we're tweaking things a little bit. We've got a few spaces to open up and I am so super excited because we're rolling a lot of other stuff into it.

[00:21:56] It is by far the most extensive training program that we have ever been able to offer, and I think it will completely blow your socks off. So keep an eye for that. The new year, you can't apply yet, but I'm really excited. So just keep an eye. That's all I'm gonna say for now. Of course in the meanwhile, head on over to the HMO community.

[00:22:13] If you haven't already joined 10,000 of us now, all investing in HMOs. It's a great place to share ideas, to find guidance and support, to have a little cry if you've got challenges, all of that stuff, it's there. Our community is an incredible place to come and discuss whatever it is that you need when it comes to investing in HMOs and building your property business.

[00:22:34] That's it guys. Thanks again, 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.