The Decision-Making Framework Behind Every Property Deal I Do

Most property investors don't struggle because they can't analyse deals. They struggle because they don't know how to make a decision once the analysis is done.

Should you buy it? Are you paying too much? Have you missed something important? Or are you simply stuck in analysis paralysis?

In this episode, I share the exact 9-step decision-making framework I use to assess property opportunities, manage risk, and make confident investment decisions. After reviewing thousands of deals over the years, I've learned that successful investing isn't about finding perfect opportunities - it's about consistently making good decisions with the information available.

🎯 What You'll Learn

• How to build and apply a clear investment template
• The dangers of emotional decision-making and investor FOMO
• How to identify and challenge the assumptions in your deals
• Why evidence matters more than opinions
• Practical ways to control downside risk before committing
• How to avoid analysis paralysis and make decisions with confidence

If you've ever spent weeks analysing deals, second-guessing yourself, or struggling to know when to move forward, this episode will give you a practical framework to help you make better investment decisions with greater clarity, confidence, and consistency.

Download your copy of The HMO Investors Guide to The Renters’ Rights Act here: https://thehmoroadmap.co.uk/

💻 Resources & Mentions

• Join my Accelerator Programme: If you’d like my direct input on your current or next project, you can watch this video or book a complimentary strategy call with me here.
• 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.
• The HMO Community: Got questions or need support? Come and connect with 10,000+ investors inside our Free Facebook Group here.
• Social: Follow me on Instagram for daily HMO tips, advice, and behind-the-scenes updates here.

Transcript

Andy Graham (00:02.67)

Hey, I'm Andy, and you're listening to the HMO podcast. Over ten 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 have managed thousands of tenants. Join me and some very special guests to discover the tips, tricks, and hacks, the ups the downs, the best practice and everything else you need to know to start, scale and systemize your very own HMO portfolio now.

Andy Graham (00:40.546)

Over the years, I've looked at literally thousands of property deals, not just for myself, but for my investment agency, for mentoring clients, for mastermind members, for the HMO community, for friends and family who've just asked me to look at deals that they're considering buying themselves. And one thing that I've noticed is that most investors don't get stuck because they can't analyze a property deal. They actually get stuck because they don't know how to make a decision based on that analysis.

Should I buy it? Am I paying too much? Should I wait? Have I missed anything? The reality is, every significant decision in property does come with a degree of uncertainty. You never quite have all the information that you'd like to have. You never know exactly what's around the corner, and there are always risks. But some investors do seem more capable of making decisions confidently and quickly and consistently, while some other investors do find that difficult and can often find themselves stuck in analysis paralysis. Perhaps this is something that you've experienced yourself. 

So in today's episode, I want to share a framework that I use when I'm making decisions on properties that I want to buy. Because I think having a framework can help you make better decisions. It can help you avoid making expensive mistakes. And it can help you do it all more confidently, especially when the answer isn't obvious. This is an essential skill set as a property investor. It helps you make go-no-go decisions, which quite frankly, you need to be able to do if you want to be competitive in this market. 

So today I'm going to share my framework with you, and you can go and put it to work in your business immediately. Let's get into it.

Hey guys, it's Andy here. We're gonna 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.

Andy Graham (02:40.364)

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 (03:31.254)

Okay, welcome back. So, today we're talking about what I believe is one of the most important skills that any investor should develop. Today is all about decision making because property, as we know, isn't just about property, it's about making decisions, lots of decisions. Decisions about strategy, decisions about deals, decisions about when to walk away, about who to work with, about when to take a risk and when to sit on our hands. You see, the interesting thing is that two investors can look at exactly the same opportunity and arrive at completely different conclusions. 

One might buy, one won't. One will see an opportunity, one will just see too much risk. Neither is necessarily right or wrong. So the question has to be: how do we know that we've made the right decision for us? And that is exactly what we're going to unpack today. So the way we're going to do this is I am going to walk you through my nine-step system. 

This is going to be really easy to get your head around. And it'll just give you a good guide, a real useful, hands-on, practical template to get you from assessing a deal, kind of seeing an opportunity to making a decision as to whether or not you're going to buy it. So it might be a good idea to grab yourself a pad and a pen and make a few notes on today's episode, or perhaps save it and make sure that you can come back to it easily enough when you are looking at a deal. 

So we're gonna start at the very beginning, of course, and it is all about strategy. Now, this is essential, and I'm not starting here because I want you to devise your strategy. I'm hoping if you're looking at deals, you have absolutely already nailed down your strategy. But let's just presume for a second that we've seen a deal, we like it. What I want you to do before you do anything else is just revert back to your strategy. What is the strategy? What are you trying to achieve? Is it cash flow? Is it growth? Is it lifestyle? Are you doing it to build a business? Is it wealth creation? Is it short-term, long-term gains? Is it a combination of all of these features? And it probably is for most of us. Without a strategy, it is quite simply impossible to look at an opportunity and know whether or not it is going to be good or bad for you. You're essentially buying blind. Student HMO might be a fantastic opportunity. A commercial opportunity might have fantastic.

Andy Graham (05:53.002)

value hidden in it somewhere. A rent-to-rent deal could be an incredible deal. An opportunity to source something on could be a fantastic opportunity. But if it doesn't move you closer to your goals, it's a distraction. And that makes it a very bad decision. One of the biggest mistakes that investors often make is confusing activity with progress. I see this all the time. People who think they're really busy, they've got no time. They're looking at all sorts of deals, spending lots of time, having conversations, meeting people, viewing properties, putting the numbers together, and not making a decision to buy anything. And a big part of that reason is because they don't have this strategy nailed. They simply do not know what it is that they are shopping for. They don't have a North Star. They just haven't got that flag in the ground, so to speak. And that makes it very, very difficult. 

Now, when I start working with a client on my mentorship program, the first thing we do, and this will for some people take a few weeks, for some people it can take longer, but we will nail the strategy. It is all about strategy. Where do you want to invest? Why do you want to invest there? What are we trying to achieve here? What's more important? What sort of risk are we happy to take? What are we not happy to do? Everything and a whole lot more. So we need that really acute understanding so that we can benchmark any opportunity, any property deal against our objective in terms of strategy. So that is the first thing that I want you to think about. If you see something that looks good, question it. Ask yourself: does this potentially take me closer to my goal? Does it fit with the strategy? 

If it doesn't, it is quite simply a distraction. And whilst there may well be money to be made in there, I'm not saying there isn't. There probably is. It isn't what you've told yourself you're setting out to do. So you need to put it down. And the only reason that you would actually look at that opportunity is if you were to first change your strategy. But your strategy shouldn't just be an idea floating around in your head, it should be written.

Andy Graham (08:10.008)

Down, committed to paper. It should be something that's really, really, really, really, really kind of inked onto the page. Okay. So before I look at any deals, I am always thinking about my strategy. I've talked to you guys on the podcast quite openly about my strategy and my big target and how I combine high-yielding assets with capital creation projects, bigger deals that are higher risk but create more capital value. And I've talked to you about the importance of things like location and logistics to me. I don't want to sacrifice too much in the way of time or operational headache. 

But it's okay if you want to do that and you're prepared to do that for a better yield or return. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it has to be your strategy. So the very first thing you need to be super acutely aware of is your strategy. If you see a deal, ask yourself: does this fit within my strategy? Then moving on to the second step.

This is a bit more deal specific. So once you've looked at the deal, you've kind of done your numbers and all of that stuff, you need to ask yourself whether or not this fits into your investment template. So what do I mean here? Well, you've got a clear understanding of your strategy. You certainly should have, and an objective there. So you need to now know whether the deal fits within your investment criteria within your strategy. Every investor should have an investment template. Mine has evolved over the years, and it's fine if yours does two, but you need to be regularly checking in on that and understanding why that investment criteria might change. 

And just to very quickly give you a bit of a guide. If you're coming into the market with a limited amount of capital and you're happy to take quite a lot of risk on and maybe travel further to try and find those yields, then you're probably going to be looking for a 30, 40% return on capital employed, maybe even more. 

You probably want 250 pounds plus maybe even 300 pounds net cash flow per month per room. So these are the sorts of numbers that we're talking about within your investment template. But there is a bit more to it as well. It should also be about location. Is it within the location quite specifically? Is the asset class, the type of asset, the tenant demographic, the end user, does that fit into your investment template? The deal size, is it about the right size in terms of?

Andy Graham (10:35.65)

The amount of capital you need to deploy or raise against to buy it and develop it? Does it fit your risk profile? Is it the right amount of risk, perhaps from a planning perspective or a development perspective or whatever else it might be? Do those expected returns that I just very briefly mentioned, do they fit within your investment template quite specifically? Is that value add opportunity there? Are the timescales of this sort of a deal within your template? 

Have you said to yourself, I'm gonna do these deals in and out within nine months. If it fits in that, great green light, or at least that component is a green light. If it's gonna take 18 months because it's gonna need planning and it's probably gonna take at least 12 months in development, and then you're gonna take three to four months on the exit finance to complete. 

Well, it's probably not fitting into your template. Management intensity. You know, what does that management at the back end look like? Different assets and the combination of the location, tenant demographic, type of asset, all of this stuff can Have a bearing on management intensity. 

Question I ask isn't is this a good deal? The question I ask is, is this a good deal for me? Does this fit into my template? Am I ticking all of these boxes? Because there are lots and lots of good deals, but many of them I just wouldn't touch because they don't suit me. I am looking for something slightly different. And lots of people wouldn't touch the stuff that I buy. And that's fine. And on the most part, it's because the stuff I buy probably isn't high yielding it up for me? 

I’m in my older age, hopefully I'm not too old yet, but as I get a bit older, I'm prepared to compromise more and more on my return from each deal and less and less on the type of deal, the location of the deal, my tenant demographic, the standard of accommodation that I produce, the ease of the project, the development, and the timelines. That's more important to me these days than the investment returns.

But it's not right and it's not wrong. It's just me. So the objective certainly isn't to do every deal that you see. The objective is to do the right deals that fit in with your investment template. So first and foremost, you need your North Star. So that strategy's got to be there. That kind of big picture. Does this deal fit into my big picture? And then secondly, okay, does it fit into your investment template? Do the parameters and the output of this deal fit within that framework that you've built? 

Andy Graham (12:59.788)

Now, if the answer to that is quite simply yes, we can move on. And there's a really important sense check at this point that I think a lot of people overlook, and we shouldn't, and even experienced investors, it's worth doing this. The third step is to ask yourself whether you are looking at the deal rationally or emotionally. This is one of the most important questions of the entire framework because emotions are so powerful and they often masquerade as logic.

Ask yourself, have I got FOMO? Am I trying to do this deal because I don't want anybody else to do it? Or because my friend or somebody else is doing a deal, a really good thing, and I'm just scared of missing out. So I need to do this, I need to keep up. Are you frustrated because you've missed out on several deals recently? I have absolutely been there and pursued bad deals because I missed out on some good deals. That is a terrible thing to do. Are you trying to prove something to somebody? It could even be to yourself, by the way. It doesn't have to be somebody else, but are you trying to prove a point?

It is not a good way to buy real estate. Ask yourself, are you getting overly excited about the potential upside? Are getting a bit carried away with the potential returns? Equally, are you scared of making a mistake here? Sometimes that can be an emotional mistake to make. It's okay to be scared, but is the reason you're not doing the deal simply because you're scared? Sometimes we can fix that. What can we do to actually resolve that? Are you just simply being impatient?

There's lots of reasons that we might not be thinking about a deal rationally. And at some point, you are almost certainly in your investment career going to experience something here. So be really honest with yourself. And if the answer to any of those questions is yes, you probably are being a bit emotional, you need to take a sense check. You need to step back, maybe even put the deal down entirely, but you need to address it because you have to remove the emotion from a deal. 

A good idea that I kind of live by. I'll die on this hell when it comes to investing in real estate, but you have to be prepared to walk away if you want a good deal. The idea here is that if you are too invested in the idea of doing a deal, you will almost certainly never do a good deal because you will pay too much. You will rush to do something that you shouldn't. It has to be an unemotional decision. You have to not care if you don't get it.

Andy Graham (15:24.93)

And one of the interesting things is that I have found as I've got a bit older, as I have needed the output of my deals less than I did perhaps when I was younger, because I needed them to work so I could generate the income or recycle the capital. Because I don't need it now, the deals do matter a lot less. I still want to do them, but they're not as important. And I can see now that I was often very emotional about this stuff. So just think about that. If you're prepared to walk away from a deal.

You are in the best possible position you can be in. And sometimes you do need to make sure you're busy and you're looking at lots of different deals because if you are only looking at one deal and you've got all of your eggs in that basket, I can guarantee it'll be really hard to walk away and not feel emotional about it. But if you're looking at a number of different things and a really good example just to highlight this point is if you're looking at several deals and they're all pretty good, you're not going to be that emotional about any of them because if one of them fails, you'll be quite happy to go and take another one. 

You need to have that sort of an attitude, no matter what you're looking at. Some of the worst decisions in property absolutely just happen when emotions are running high. People overpay, they compromise on their criteria, they ignore the red flags, they rush to get things done. Wherever possible, I try to create some distance between the opportunity and the decision. 

Simple question I ask myself is am I thinking rationally or am I being emotional about that? And I would urge you to do exactly the same. Ask yourself, would I make the same decision next week? Would I have made the same decision last week? You know, if the answer to any of this is no, then emotion is probably influencing the way that you're thinking. Another good tactic to employ here is if you're honestly not sure.

Ask somebody else. This is why, or one of the reasons at least, having a mentor, coach is so powerful because they are often not emotionally invested in these sorts of deals. And as they're somewhat removed from the process, they can be honest with you and they can look at it on the facts, very black and white, and just tell you whether you are likely to be making an emotional decision or not. Of course, if you're not, green light, let's progress.

Andy Graham (17:41.644)

And we can move on to step four. So, step four is where things start to get a bit more granular. We need to ask ourselves now, what assumptions am I making? Every deal that we ever do will be built on assumptions about the purchase price. We don't know that until the day we complete.

About the refurbishment costs, about the planning outcome, about the time scales, about the rental demand, about the occupancy we're going to achieve, about the refinance valuation, about how long the exit will take. You see, the problem is that many investors treat assumptions as facts. And this is where the problems begin. Whenever I'm assessing an opportunity, I want to identify all of these assumptions, every assumption I'm making, and then I want to try and separate them into different categories, facts, assumptions, and speculation. The more assumptions a deal is relying on, quite simply, the more risk it carries. 

And if several assumptions need to be correct simultaneously, that risk starts to increase significantly. So let me give you a little example there. If I'm making an assumption on planning, so I'm gonna buy unconditionally and hope that I get planning, let's say to turn it into an eight-bed HMO, big assumption there.

Depending on the work that we may or may not have done beforehand. Then we might be doing a project of a particular size that we've never done before, and we don't have a builder that we know can do this. So we're going out to market pretty cold. There's a very big assumption there about what this is all going to cost. And then there's also an assumption about how long all of this is going to take. How long is that planning going to take? How long is that refurbishment going to take. You've got three very big assumptions, and that can move the dial significantly when it comes to the output of your deals. And that quite simply means that your risk has increased significantly. 

Now again, it doesn't mean that it's a bad deal. It doesn't mean that it will go wrong, but it does mean that we need to take that into consideration. Now, at this point, we are going to move on to step five and we're going to talk about

Andy Graham (19:57.206)

Or ask ourselves, what evidence supports or challenges my view? So once you've identified those assumptions, we now need to test them. And we need to test them heavily. What evidence supports your view on any of these things? But just as importantly, what evidence challenges those assumptions? This is where so many investors fall into the trap of what we call confirmation bias. They look for reasons to do the deal. They look for evidence that supports what they already want to believe, what they should be actively looking for are reasons not to do it. Think about playing devil's advocate for your own deal. Again, this is another great reason to have a mentor, because your mentor will naturally do this for you. They will challenge your assumptions. But there are lots of different things to think about here.

Let's start with the obvious one, market data. So, in our appraisal and our analysis, and ultimately our assumptions in terms of what we're going to pay for an asset and the conditions under which we're going to buy it, you know, the sort of information that we're basing that on is stuff like market data, property values, rental data, all that sort of stuff. So, how much data have you actually got? How much time have you actually spent extracting that data? Where have you got that data from? I often see appraisals put together by investors. And when I ask them for this, they don't really know. They can't confidently tell me. I can't see a data set because they haven't put one together. It's really an aspirational opinion of what a value or the rent could be. And again, that is an example of confirmation bias. What we want is the data that actually says yes, this is what it's likely to be. 

Now that might be a range, but even so, within a range. It gives us something to hang our hat on. It helps us confirm our assumptions. Or perhaps it doesn't confirm our assumptions. And that then forces us to change the model. Professional opinions. Very rarely do I see people coming to me with a deal that's been stacked up backed by some sort of a professional opinion. For example, from a planning consultant, if it needs planning permission. One of the first things I will do if I'm looking at anything that needs planning is

Andy Graham (22:17.568)

I will go and get an initial opinion from my planning consultant as to the likelihood of getting the planning that I want. Now, this is not a deep dive. This is not a full planning consultancy report. This is just sort of a very high level. Here are the constraints. Here's the opportunity. Here's a very rough indication of how a planning application on this site, based on what I'm trying to do, might go. Now, it will cost a few quid. It might take a little bit of time. You do need someone good.

That can do this for you, but very rarely do I see investors who are doing this sort of thing. Another example would be getting an opinion from a valuer. So few people are prepared to pick up the phone and just have a call with valuers who are ultimately the people that will come and value these assets at the end when we are looking to refinance. Now, this might be a conversation that is very much off record, but that in itself can be gold dust and just asking a valuer based on some very indicative numbers that you're hoping to achieve, how they might derive a value from that, if they get you to that same figure or nearer, again, that's just gonna help support your assumption. If they're a mile out or you're a mile out from then, obviously there's something amiss here and we need to investigate it and we need to challenge that assumption. There are other professional opinions that we can get from people like architects as well. Can we actually do what we want with this property?

We want to turn this current three-bed, semi-detached house with 900 square feet into a seven-bed, all-singing, all-dancing, fully tricked out HMO. Can we do it? Is it going to be possible? 

Well, probably not unless we are able to access the loft and maybe convert the garage or maybe do an extension at the rear. But sometimes we can find there are opportunities within footprints that we can't necessarily see.

And I've seen on many, many occasions an extra room be found by a specialist like an architect, someone like Andrew and Mary, because they can find ways of changing the flow of a property and creating spaces in ways that we just, as people who are not architects, can't quite see. So that expert advice, that professional opinion that we can get at this early stage of a deal is so incredibly important. You can also seek some

Andy Graham (24:42.35)

Previous experience, do you know anybody who has done similar sorts of deals? What sort of results have they had in this location with these sorts of deals? Again, it might be anecdotal, but if you can find stuff there that supports your assumptions, great. Find stuff there that challenges your assumptions, then you need to put the brakes on. You need to dig deeper and you need to potentially change your model. So there are a few things here, but ultimately, I hope the point is loud and clear. 

We need to start by challenging our assumptions through the process of trying to find evidence that actually support what we're trying to do. This is probably the single most important part of the entire process. And this is ultimately where you shave things down, you narrow the deal a little bit, you take it from sort of a 10-15% margin of error to a five percent margin of error. Again, you'll not get it to zero, but the closer to zero you can get it, the better in terms of risk.

And this is hard. If you've never done a deal like this before, if it's your first deal or your first deal in this location, or your first type of deal, it will be hard. So naturally, your risk is higher. Now, again, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but it does mean you have to think a little bit differently to somebody that maybe has done that sort of deal many, many, many, many times. And that brings us on to the sixth point in the framework. How can I control the downside? So at this point, we have identified the assumptions that we've made in the model, and then we have challenged those assumptions and we've looked for evidence to support them. We've identified that some of them are still risks that we can no longer control any further. There's nothing else that we could do at this stage to reduce that risk. So we have to think about how we address that risk. 

So I'm not thinking about how much damage I can necessarily prevent from happening. This is where investors or experienced investors really start to think differently. Think about maybe restructuring the way that you do the deal. So if you need to get planning permission on it and you see that as a risk for various reasons, ask yourself: can I secure planning permission before buying the deal, before committing to the purchase? So, quite simply here, we're talking about buying subject to planning or buying under an option agreement. That is one of the best ways to get your planning risks from.

Andy Graham (27:08.064)

Something that could be relatively high or even very high down to zero. If you can agree, subject to planning, your offer, you can practically eliminate your planning risk. If you don't get the planning you don't want, you can walk away from the deal. Yes, you'll spend a few quid on it. That's a cost of business, but you can significantly alter that risk. Ask yourself, can I negotiate better terms for any reason that you might see in the deal? Can you negotiate better terms? 

So can you negotiate a longer period of time before you complete so that you can get lots more done in terms of consultancy advice. Can you buy it at a better price? Can you do something like that? In commercial real estate, and I don't mean necessarily commercial property, but I mean when you're looking at perhaps potentially larger deals, different types of buildings, especially commercial builds that you might convert to residential, there are different ways that you constructed a deal. You might be able to do it under an option. You might be able to even do some work under the option

And complete a little bit later. Sometimes you can buy something with an overage. Sometimes you can get the vendor to finance the deal. There's lots of different ways of restructuring the deal. Now I'm not saying that that's necessarily easy to do, but it is certainly not impossible that you might be able to negotiate better terms from the vendor. Ask yourself, can you structure the finance differently? So is there a way to take out a lot of risk or a lot of cost by structuring your finance in the deal differently?

Ask yourself whether you can reduce the leverage somehow. Can you increase the contingency funds that you've got available? So you might need to borrow a little bit more from the bank or from your private investor. Hopefully you won't need it, but it's probably better to have it if you can see a risk here. For example, you're not quite sure how long the refurbishment will actually take or exactly how much it will cost. So it would be a good idea to have some additional cash on hand in that event. Well, the time to agree that.

And build it into your deal is at the very beginning. Ask yourself whether you can create an alternative exit strategy if you are developing commercial to residential property, maybe something into flats. It might be that you could do a deal with a landowner and sell some of the finished units back to them. That can reduce your debt balance. That can make it easier to exit the deal. That's just one example. Can you identify different lenders, people or institutions that might be more flexible to whatever it is that you're trying to do, that might make your life easier, that might be able to work

Andy Graham (29:34.488)

Quicker for you, that might even be able to do it on better terms. There's lots and lots of different ways to eliminate the risk in your deals. But controlling that downside once you've identified it is such an important thing to do. And often you can reduce the risk significantly. The goal isn't to avoid the risk entirely, the goal is just to manage it sensibly. The best investors that I've met aren't fearless at all. They are just very acutely aware of risk.

And very, very, very good at controlling that downside. So at this point, when we've done what we can on the risk piece, we now need to just go back and reassess everything against our original template. Inevitably, through this process, some things will have changed. We will have tweaked our numbers and our expectations of the deal. Does the deal still fit now with all of these changes made, with all of these considerations in play? Does the deal still fit your template? Has anything changed? Does it still align with your strategy? Does it fit with your investment criteria? Is there honestly a better use of your time? Is there a better use of your capital? What is the opportunity cost? 

These are the really important and often hard questions to answer. Be honest with yourself and ask, if you commit to the opportunity, this deal, what are you giving up? And quite often this final review makes the answer quite obvious.

It should be at this point pretty black and white. Either the deal works or it doesn't. And that brings us on to the eighth step in the framework making the decision. Eventually there comes a point where there's no more analysis that you can do. You have got all of the information that you can possibly get at this stage. You understand the risks, you've tested the assumptions, you've challenged your thinking. Now you just simply need to make the decision, take the action on that decision. 

And at this point, there are only really three things to do. You either proceed, you proceed subject to different conditions, or you just walk away from the deal. What you can't do is just stay stuck forever and go around and round and round in circles, revising it, thinking about it, testing it, asking more and more people about it. That is analysis by paralysis. You have to be able to make the decision. And honestly,

Andy Graham (31:57.748)

It is an uncomfortable place to be, especially if you don't have the experience of doing it before. And especially if you don't have anybody with you by your side, looking over your shoulder, holding your hand, whatever you want to call it, because there are big decisions. We are investing an awful lot of money and there are inherent risks. We know that. But don't worry if you feel uncomfortable. If you've done all of that work and you got to this point and it still fits, you're doing the right thing. You followed the process, and that's the important thing. Again.

Another good reason to have someone in your corner, coach, a mentor, someone just to be there to help you make those big decisions, that that bit of reassurance that you need when you haven't done it before, because you can't stay stuck forever. And unfortunately, some people do stay stuck forever. And they convince themselves at this point that it isn't a good deal. And their bias moves in the opposite direction. And they go through this process again and again and again and again, spending months and months and months assessing deals, eventually to get nowhere. 

And it's really, really sad to see. And it can happen really quite easily. So you have to make the decision, you have to take the plunge, you have to take that leap of faith. And there is a leap of faith because it isn't an absolute guarantee. And that brings us on to point nine in this framework. And this is so important. You've done everything that you can, you've put your offer forward, you've made that decision to commit to the deal.

Let's assume that you've had that deal agreed and you've gone ahead and done the deal. And by the way, that's an incredible thing to have done. But at the end of the day, don't judge your decision based on the outcome. This is probably the most important lesson that I've learned. And this is point nine. Don't judge your decisions by your outcomes. A good decision can still produce a bad outcome. A bad decision can produce a good outcome. Sometimes that is just the way it goes in business and in life.

COVID is a perfect example. Interest rate rises are another example. Planning decisions, you can do everything that you think you possibly can at the front end of a deal, and planning can still not go your way because there is a human element to it. You know, valuations can sometimes not go your way. It doesn't mean that you did anything wrong. It is just life sometimes. It's disappointing. It's frustrating. I get it. But sometimes that does happen.

Andy Graham (34:21.038)

Contractors can let you down. Things can just go wrong. Unexpected events happen all the time. And of course, they happen in business and in property investing as well. And if you were to judge every decision based purely on the outcome, you'll just learn the wrong lessons in business and in life. The better question to ask is given the information available at the time, was the decision making process sound? If you take anything from today's episode, please take that away. I'm just gonna give you that again. 

Given the information available at the time, was the decision making process sound? If you can confidently say yes, it was, you have done what you were supposed to do, irrespective of how that deal turned out, you have done exactly what you were supposed to do. And if it doesn't go the way that you wanted, or if it goes a different way than you expected, that is where the lesson is. And you will learn those lessons. We all do. And it still happens to me. And I'm nearly 20 years into all of this. But it isn't about the outcome. It is about the process. 

So there we go. That is my nine-step framework. I hope that has been helpful. I'm just going to summarize it again for you very quickly. So first and foremost, what is your strategy? What is that North Star? Secondly, what is your investment template? Ask yourself, does the deal fit into my very specific investment template?

Step three, ask yourself whether you're thinking rationally about this deal or are you being emotional about it and be honest. Step four, ask what assumptions you are making in the deal. Then step five, ask yourself what evidence supports the assumptions you're making and challenge your view. Number six, how can you then control the downside that you have identified? Step seven, go back and reassess.

All of these modifications against your original template and ask yourself, does it still fit against the template? Does this still fit within your investment criteria? Finally, number eight, man up, make the decision. You're either going to buy or you're not going to buy, or you're going to buy on some different conditions. And then finally, number nine, when it's all said and done, don't judge your decisions by your outcomes. Given the information available at the time.

Andy Graham (36:44.396)

If the decision-making process was sound, you have done your job. The longer I spend in property and business, guys, the more convinced I become that success isn't about finding the perfect deals. It's just about making consistently good decisions. And it's about making good decisions when things are not going well, when things are not going to plan. Because in all honesty, perfect deals don't exist. Perfect information doesn't exist.

And certainly, certainly does not exist in this game. There are always going to be risks. There will always be unknowns. There will always be reasons not to take action. The goal isn't to predict the future. The goal is quite simply to make the best possible decision you can with the information available to you at the time. So understand your strategy, challenge your assumptions, pressure test your thinking, control the downside, do what you can to manage that risk, and then just have the confidence to move forwards. 

Some decisions will work out brilliantly, if you do enough of them at least. And some won't. And that's investing, that's business, that is quite simply life. But if you can develop a framework for making decisions rather than relying on instincts and emotion or look, you'll put yourself in a much stronger position over the long term. And that is quite honestly the difference between good investors and bad investors.

That's about it for today's episode, guys. Thank you for tuning in. I do hope that this has helped you. Like I said, if you didn't take any notes today, make sure you save this episode so that you can come back to it when you're doing a deal because you really should go through this process every time you do a deal. I think this is just a good framework to keep you honest. If you are looking for some more support and guidance, first of all, head over to thehmoroadmap.co.uk, get yourself signed up as a member and take advantage of everything that we've got inside.

The membership platform. It's an incredible vault of information and education, experience and advice, tools, resources, and a whole lot more. But if listening to today's episode, it has kind of maybe highlighted the fact that you are missing some real hands-on support in your business. Maybe you do need that person in your corner to support you with these big decisions to stress test your thinking, then just head to the show notes.

Andy Graham (39:05.176)

There's a link at the top of the show notes and you can watch a video and that video will tell you a little bit more about what working with me is like and whether or not that would be suitable for you. And if it sounds good and you want to have a chat, you could just put yourself a free strategy call. We can jump on a call. We can have a chat. You can tell me a bit more about yourself and about your business and what it is that you want to achieve. And I can tell you a bit more about my program and how it all works. And if it's good and you want to join and you want work with me, then we can discuss that. And if not, I'll just give you whatever advice I can to keep doing your thing independently. 

But as always, guys, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for your continued support. If you've got 30 seconds to leave a quick review of the show, please, please, please do it. It's hard to get reviews, but we know thousands of you tune in every single week. So if you've got a few seconds to do that, we'd be really grateful. It helps us continue to spread the message about the podcast, to reach a bigger and bigger audience, and to continue bringing great guests onto the show as well.

I hope you found it useful. And of course, as always, don't forget that I'll be right back here in the very same place next week. So please join me then for another instalment of the HMO podcast.