How Jon Fish Leveraged 15 Years in Development to Build a Property Business

Property development can be an incredible way to build wealth, but it's also one of the toughest paths in real estate. The challenge isn't just finding great opportunities, it's building a business that can consistently create capital, generate cash flow, and give you the freedom to scale.

In this episode, I sit down with one of my mentees, property developer and investor Jon Fish, to unpack his remarkable journey from rescuing a struggling family manufacturing business to building a successful property company focused on luxury new-build developments and high-performing HMOs.

With more than 15 years of hands-on experience, Jon shares the lessons he's learned about resilience, construction, business growth, raising finance, and creating a long-term property strategy that balances wealth creation with wealth preservation.

🎯 What You'll Learn

• How Jon turned a family crisis into a property development career
• Lessons learned from restoring a 10,000 sq ft factory with almost no budget
• Why Jon combines luxury new-build developments with HMOs
• How to identify and appraise profitable HMO opportunities
• The role private finance has played in accelerating growth
• Why systems, delegation, and business structure are critical for scaling
• The mindset shifts required to stop playing small and start thinking bigger

If you're building a property business, looking to scale your portfolio, or trying to balance development projects with long-term cash-flow investments, this episode is packed with practical lessons, honest insights, and real-world experience from a developer who's spent more than a decade in the trenches and is now building an impressive portfolio with a clear vision for the future.

💻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.
• 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.

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Transcript

Andy Graham (00:02)

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 and the downs, the best practice and everything else you need to know to start, scale and systemize your very own HMO portfolio now.

Today I'm joined by Jon Fish. Now, Jon is one of my mentees. We've been working together for about 18 months, and Jon is an absolute veteran of property development and investment. And today I'm gonna pick his brain so that you can take all of his experience and knowledge and wisdom and insight away to employ into your own business. Now, as you're about to find out, Jon is first and foremost a new homes developer. He builds from the ground up luxury homes, but he's also an investor in HMOs.

We're gonna find out why Jon has this dual strategy, this parallel strategy. We're gonna find out how Jon has got from where it all began many years ago to where he is now. We're gonna touch on a couple of deals that Jon has recently done, some really incredible HMO deals that I think will give you some really good context if you're currently out there shopping for your own deals. And we're gonna talk about a lot of stuff from raising private finance to dealing with challenges and problems to thinking bigger. 

For anybody building their own property business, today's episode will be an absolute vault of advice and experience that you can deploy into 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 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.

Jon, knowing you and the business that you operate today, people might assume that you've been a developer for a long time, but your journey started with a struggling family manufacturing business. Can you take us back and explain how you ended up taking such an unconventional path to get where you are today?

Jon Fish (03:18)

Yeah, well what happened with us is in two thousand and eight my grandad suddenly passed away while I was at university. I was finishing my degree in real estate management to become a chartered surveyor, having done my one year placement with McDonald's restaurants in acquisitions, which was really good fun and brilliant. It kind of got to two thousand and ten. I realized very quickly that to kind of it was now or never to help the family. The business was deteriorating, the property was in really bad nick.

And it was kind of dive in, sink or swim. Kind of the aim was to obviously try and get an exit of the family business owning the asset. I thought that would take about eighteen months. It actually took four years. So in twenty fourteen, we finally sold the factory to Chinese investors who were going to use it for their own investment, which is kind of a full circle when we'd actually probably lost the business due to competition from them, the foundry. Yes, that's kind of how we started.

Andy Graham (04:18)

I mean, eighteen months to four years, there's a big gap there. So I'm interested to know what happened, but perhaps more interested to know what you learnt about it and what it was that kind of pushed you to do it, Jon. Was it a sentimental thing? Was it something that you just felt you had to do for your granddad as a family thing? Or was there some sort of interest in property getting hands-on? Because at that point you were already somewhere down that academic route. You had a pretty obvious path and sort of it in the professional field of surveying set out. So I guess what was it that kind of pushed you into it or pulled you into it? And what did you learn from that process and those kind of years developing out that project?

Jon Fish (04:59)

Well yeah, well I think the where where it all kind of went wrong is I realized very quickly that I didn't have the budget to do the factory, which is why it went on so long. We had to effectively set up a construction company where I did extensions, patios, drives, anything we could kind of get. And the money from that is what was pumped into the factory to complete. It was obviously a big factory, three units altogether, ten thousand square foot. And I would effectively work the week doing the construction work and then weekends, nights and evenings doing the factory. I think the roof alone took nine months. 

But I think the thing that it really kind of taught me was resilience, willpower and code. Never ever give up of and construction. There was every element of construction you could possibly ask for in that factory, from flat roofs to pitch roofs to masonry work, windows, everything you could think of and in between.

I don't think it was just completely that loyalty for the family either. I think ⁓ that I'd be lying to say that. Though though it came in to it, I think I fundamentally knew that if I had that money I thought I could build a property company and I had a vision of what that could look like. Flips, new builds and kind of used our private residential relief to build the asset value really.

Andy Graham (06:13)

So, I mean, it sounds like you learned some pretty hard and fast lessons on that project. And I've seen pictures of the factory. That is not a small building. This was a big scheme to, I suppose, earn your stripes on. And then the other thing that I find really interesting about this story, Jon, but perhaps not surprising given that I know you so well and that we work together, is how resourceful you obviously had to be to deliver this project. You said that you had to actually set up a construction firm to essentially pay the bills on the manufacturing plant so that you could get that developed. 

Let's just talk about that for a moment because this is a really interesting concept. And this has become quite an important part of, I would say, your business. And we're going to talk about that more. And I've talked quite openly on the podcast about the benefits of having a trading company, irrespective of almost what field that is in. But I think there's a huge advantage if that field is construction. However, big caveat.

It's certainly not one for the faint hearted. And you really have to be sort of pretty aware of what you're taking on if you start a construction firm. So just talk me through what those early years looked like, what you grew that construction firm into and over what time period. And also what you learned in the process of doing that as well.

Jon Fish (07:31)

Yeah, I'd always looked at the construction company as the by product. It's not something I'd actively ever wanted to do, unfortunately. But yeah, we've we did well. We did extensions, a lot of groundwork, drives, patios, awful lot of steels is what we ended up really kind of niching into steel work, which ironically is one of the main things in HMOs now. You obviously have to beat these buildings around to get that extra square foot and it's a lot of steel work so it's all added the kind of end product where we're at now. We obviously started WJF to fix the factory up and I've haven't sold the factory, we ended up with ninety eight thousand. That's what I ended up with by the time I'd paid everything off, I'd sent some away from my dad's retirement, etcetera. I we grew up to six hundred and fifty thousand by about two thousand and nineteen. I did that through flips using our private residential relief, which is something a lot of people don't often talk about, but you know, moving a house in your own name and the the tax benefits of that can really help to give you some momentum very quickly. And obviously the new builds, which are capital intensive but really do come with a chunky amount of capital at the end to kind of build the pot.

Andy Graham (08:41)

So what you did was you had some client projects like extensions and renovations and things like that. But then you also did your own projects and some of those were your own sort of primary residence, which you took advantage of the release that you mentioned there. Just remind me, Jon, because you told me this before, but I can't recall off the top of my head. But I do recall being surprised when you told me how many times have you moved house? How many times have you done that?

Jon Fish (09:04)

Ten times now, yeah. So I've moved an awful lot. And to be fair, we've just squeezed the move in about eighteen months ago. So we've moved again recently as well. I think it's something to never be underestimated, yeah.

Andy Graham (09:16)

Well, for those of you who are listening on audio and aren't watching this on YouTube, Jon is only a similar age to I. So I would say that's quite a lot of moves. But again, very interestingly, I think that this speaks a lot about you, Jon, and I suppose your drive, that sort of personal ambition that you've got. And we've focused very heavily on this as we've been working to build your business out, which we we'll come on to in today's episode. But that's obviously something that's been with you for a long, long time, Jon, perhaps even since you were a child. I don't know many people that would take on that sort of work, build a construction firm, be prepared to flip that many houses and have to suffer the consequences of our families and the frustrations that it might bear on them as well. But obviously you have done that. And not only have you got to where you are now by doing that, but you've gathered a huge amount of experience. And one thing that, that I really take from you is just how much construction knowledge you have now. You are a fountain of the sort of construction knowledge. 

Let's talk a little bit more then about what the businesses look like today. And I suppose what that has all blossomed into. Tell us what the current sort of enterprise looks like, Jon.

Jon Fish (10:30)

Yeah, well in two thousand and eighteen we incorporated WJF Developments, which carried my granddad's initials, Wilfred John Fish. That company is a boutique housing new build developer where we build one or two homes a year by design. We build luxury housing. That is our standard, our go to. Really means something to us to say that it's built excellent and we really put our heart and soul into it. Then we finally set up Hestia property holdings in twenty twenty-three. The Greek goddess of the home was Hestia. I'm a bit of a history geek, so I thought that sat nicely. And that was set up to create a portfolio of HMOs and Buy to Lets for longer term growth and generational wealth.

Andy Graham (11:17)

So what we've really got just stepping back is you've got a vehicle to build your capital wealth, which is your new homes, that kind of development side of your business. And then you've also got more of a short to medium term wealth creation strategy, which is those higher yielding assets, in like in your case, now our case HMOs, but you're combining all of those construction skills and the team and the operations.

To basically help you deliver both of those, which is a pretty perfect combination. But it's a good example of, and I've talked about this on the podcast and have done some lessons and videos inside the HMO roadmap on this, having a parallel strategy. Because let's just talk about this for a moment, Jon. Developing is hard, is it not? Yes. You and I often talk about this, just developing in its own right. They're fantastic buildings. They look great. They can be trophy looking assets, but I don't know about you.

It often feels to me when I'm developing like I am just out in the desert and there is just no water whatsoever and anything that you do find just has to sort of be given away. It's really, really tough, isn't it, developing?

Jon Fish (12:25)

Yeah, but I think there's two good days to every development, isn't it? The day you start and the day you finish. And I think everything in between is where you find out just if you've got it basically, if you can actually have the resolve, the discipline and the effort to kind of put in to actually get it over the line. And these are not easy things. I don't think anybody's ever dared called development passive to be fair, like the other side, but it definitely isn't. Do not get involved unless you're willing to give your heart and soul. I think you've got to be genuinely passionate on the development side.

Andy Graham (12:56)

I was going to ask you that actually. I was going to say, do you feel like to develop, you really have to have that innate passion, that real desire to want to develop, almost that genuine interest to do it? And clearly, you do, you touched on it briefly, but the types of homes that you build, you're very proud of them. They're bespokely designed. They are very much a reflection of you and the way that you approach all of your work. And I can guarantee that if I was to lift a floorboard or a floor covering in one of your developments, it would be pristine under that because that's just the way that you work and operate. Thank you. I mean, just sort of stepping back then from your business structure, Jon. Yeah. I suppose when we started working together, one thing I noticed was that you are incredibly good at at putting deals together. You're incredibly astute when it comes to construction and knowledge, programs, material selection, all of that stuff. But would it be fair to say that perhaps the biggest challenge that you have experienced isn't necessarily that of building development itself, but possibly actually building the business.

Jon Fish (14:01)

Hundred percent. I think the kind of a bit of a lack of business acumen. Obviously I'd started at so young, twenty one years old, only ever had a job for one year, which was technically a placement at university, to be fair. It's not even a full time contract with McDonald's. So I like systems, I like processes. I'd always heard the phrase work in the business, not on the business. And you kinda used to drive me crazy, like, what does that even mean?

Andy Graham (14:26)

Jon, I think the phrase is meant to be work on the business, not in the business. We've clearly still got some work to do. I mean, let's talk about this. Because when we first started working together, there were some gaps and some blind spots, I think, that you perhaps couldn't see. You were doing some really incredible projects, but you were finding it difficult to really sort of step out and scale things up, weren't you? Talk to us about some of

Andy Graham (14:52)

those challenges that you were experiencing, perhaps in reflection of our initial work, the things that you identified as perhaps areas of weakness, things that you needed to improve on, think differently about.

Jon Fish (15:04)

Yeah, I think it all come down to delegation and not trying to do everything myself. I'd become a control freak. I've been watched how things can go wrong so fastly with the demise of the manufacturing company. And I just like to be completely on top and know every single intricate detail. You have to often let people in and you have to trust people to do jobs for you. I think obviously working with yourself, we've kind of built that list out. I think day one, actually working with yourself, we introduced our non negotiable list, which is, you know, I'll only work certain hours and certain times I won't do certain jobs under a certain value to make sure that, you know, I was pushing the business forward from a kind of entrepreneurial route, rather than kind of always getting stuck in the actual work. Yeah, so I think that was it really. Kind of that structure, systems and processes. We've obviously you can buy a lot of them in. You can there's ready made apps these days, which are fantastic if you're not fantastic at IT like myself to build them out for yourself and just stick to them, follow the process to the cliche and you do over time really start to see the added effect and the compounding of that.

Andy Graham (16:14)

And then I suppose extracting you from the day-to-day of your business, that then opened up a number of other opportunities or possibilities to use your time and deploy your efforts and experiences in slightly different ways to focus on your growth strategy. I want to come back round to that because I think there's a really interesting conversation there about that growth trajectory that you've now found yourself on. But before we do, let's just sort of pause on Hestia for a minute.

And the HMO side of your business. So obviously at some point, and this was before we started to work together, you had made an active decision to deploy some of your resource into a higher yielding cash flow strategy, but still obviously in real estate. I guess I'm interested to know why you decided to do that, John. What was the prompt? And I also want to get into a couple of your projects. You've done one for the Community already. You're doing another one at the minute, which is fantastic, but we'll come round to them in a second. So I guess first of all, what was it that prompted that change?

Jon Fish (17:17)

Twenty twenty two my eldest daughter Felicity was born and obviously one thing you've realised very quickly is you cannot pay for your shopping or the nursery fees with equity. So how was I gonna produce cash over and over again, repeatedly, to pay for all these things, the children's clothes, new shoes every month? Everyone goes through the same thing. I actively didn't want to open up the construction company again, which is now over. I do think that just took far too much time.

And always distracted from the development side. So we started looking down the road of holding assets. So 2023, Hestia was formed and we obviously went out buying the buy to let's it became very, very apparent, very quick that your three and four hundred pounds a month from the average buy to let in today's market and profit on day one was probably just not going to cut it. So HMOs is where we ended up, professional HMOs. We could see the kind of cash flow.

I thought I could keep the build cost down, obviously using our same build teams and thought we had the expertise to kind of really crack on with the renovations of these houses. So buy the distressed asset, add the value, kind of go from there. And yeah, that's where Hestia was born and that's how we kind of ended up where we were.

Andy Graham (18:34)

And how do you think that that part of your business is going so far in terms of the plan that you initially had or your expectations of how it would go? I suppose identifying and acquiring assets to turn into HMOs, delivering those sorts of projects. How do you feel like that's gone? How do you feel like that's going for you, Jon? Yeah.

Jon Fish (18:53)

It's been from a standing start in 2023, we're quite proud yeah, it's gone really well. I think that in today's market there's an awful lot of opportunity. Yeah, there's a lot of old tired stock coming to market, which kind of just naturally leads its way to HMOs. I think that that extra high yield at the moment is nobody can really look past it. I think in the higher interest rates as we've kind of evolved over the past five or six years, single buy to lets are going to become more and more difficult, although I think that it’s still worth buying personally. I think HMOs for the extra cash flow is kind of where we've really ended up from my personal circumstance.

Andy Graham (19:30)

I would say that you haven't found it particularly difficult to find some good projects. And I know that the projects that you have found haven't necessarily been hiding under a rock that nobody else could have accessed. I think you've just had that eye to see a good footprint, the potential, and with your experience of construction and time programs, just been able to piece together really good and sensible deals. And I think.

The couple that I just want to touch on today are really great examples of that. But in a way, you've always been quite nonchalant about these projects, Jon. We'd sit down and I've found another deal and yeah, I've offered on it and the next thing it's agreed and it's all happening. It hasn't ever felt stressful with working with you and your approach to HMOs. And my, I suppose, interpretation of that would be you are just really confident, you know what you're looking for, you know what needs to be done, but you also you're not too rigid about it.

It's okay if it doesn't quite work like this. There's a plan B, there's a plan C. It's okay if you spend a little bit more than you hope, or it takes a little bit longer, or maybe if that space can't quite work the way that you want and hope. You're quite happy to be, I think, to some extent flexible with your projects, Jon, which I think means it never seems that stressful, but also it's quite easy to hit your expectations on your deals because you're happy to sort of land somewhere between that spectrum of results. Do you think that's a fair observation?

Jon Fish (20:57)

Yeah I think that's fair. I think obviously the surveying background helps as well. I think always starting with that NGDV. It's all I'm ever immediately looking at is what do I think that property's gonna be worth at the end. And then from there, everything's reverse engineered, but the construction side helps me very quickly build a model of well that's gonna cost me X minus the two. And like I say, if we have to leave a few extra quid in day one, it's not something we're overly bothered about because we know that we can create more money with our development side. 

Capital's not dependent on pulling every single penny out with the HMO or any buy to let's we do not mind leaving a bit in for a bit longer if we have to, like I say we're not as rigid. Yeah. I think the other thing is that that construction background of looking at the floor plan and straight away being like, yeah, we're definitely gonna get six in there is what we're aiming for, six bed professional HMOs. And just training, training the eye to know exactly what you're looking for and we've done enough deals to not panic once the offer's accepted and it has just become non-emotional now, which is really useful when you finally hit that phase. I don't know about yourself, but I think that takes multiple years where the panic doesn't kick in anymore when an offer's accepted and you just it is what it is.

Andy Graham (22:09)

I think it does. And I think also it requires most investors to have already got to a certain point where they're not being driven entirely by the next, let's say, thousand pounds per month coming in from an asset. It's nice to have it, but it's not absolutely essential. I think when it's essential, because for example, we're under pressure to maybe leave a job or do something different or free up time, we can be more inclined to make emotional decisions.

I've certainly seen that and have had the experience of working with people who've been experiencing that. It's a strange irony as well, because when you are emotional, you tend to do deals that are simply just not as good. And when you are unemotional about it because you don't need it, you tend to do the better deals because you're prepared. And I honestly think that this is is one of the most important rules of investing, but you're prepared to walk away from the deal to make sure that you get a good deal in the first place.

If fundamentally those numbers don't work or you don't think that that asset represents the right value, happy to walk away. Leave an offer on the table. And that's something that I employ a lot. And something I try and really drill into everybody that I work with. Look, just offer what you think is fair, offer what you think works, and be prepared to leave them with an offer and and it not get accepted. And to some extent, you just gotta play a numbers game. Someone might be prepared to pay more or might have a different use in mind, which might make it worth a little bit more to them. But it is definitely, I think, an important way to approach investing in HMOs. 

Let's talk briefly about a couple of your projects. Let's talk about the Broadway project. This is such a great scheme. I love it. So for everybody listening, you can check this full case study out of Jon's Inside the HMO roadmap. It was, well, it's a six-bed HMO now, but Jon, tell us about what it was and what you paid for it.

Jon Fish (23:55)

Yeah, that was a three bed detached property in Pell Switch and area of Warsaw. We paid a hundred and eighty-one thousand pounds for that. That had been on the market quite a while. We'd watched it at two hundred and fifty thousand. Was probably slightly interested then because I knew the footprint was so good. They then sent it to auction, one of the modern auctions, and had a survey done themselves to prove that there was no damp proof membrane in the floors. Meaning all the concrete floors and the ground floor had to come up.

Not something which bothered us because we had so many obviously waste to go in to fund all these ensuites that we could kind of do those works at the same time as our programmer works anyway. So we carried on watching it and we actually offered them two hundred thousand and they refused. They wanted to send it all the way through the auction cycle. But they then come back to us at the end of the auction having received no offers and said, We'll take the hundred two hundred now, if you will. And we said no, we'd like to lower our offer to a hundred and eighty, 'cause the market's obviously told us no now.

They come back and they said that we're not quite there at a hundred and eighty, so can you offer the vendor anymore? I said one eight one, actually thinking was it gonna enter a negotiation, end up at one ninety if I'm honest. And next minute they came back and it was a deal. So yeah, fantastic.

Andy Graham (25:05)

And tell us what you did to this property, Jon. And because looking at it, and it's an interesting one actually, just from the street scene to look at it, it doesn't look like a particularly big property. And I think it would be one that you could easily glance over thinking that I can't see actually the scope for a six bed there. So tell us about what you did to get that six bed, and I suppose what you spent on that project in its entirety.

Jon Fish (25:26)

Yeah. Well we did a PD extension of three meters by four meters at the rear, which the kitchen extended into. We converted the garage into one of the bedrooms, obviously living room into the other. And the existing kitchen became a bedroom downstairs. It's three downstairs, three up. We built an extension over the garage then off steels to keep the cost down rather than demolishing the current garage. And that was bedroom six. So yeah, we managed to get it all in.

Andy Graham (25:53)

And am I right in thinking recalling that this cost about a hundred and forty grand, Jon.

Jon Fish (25:58)

Yeah, slightly over that. I think it's a hundred and fifty three. And then I think a few other invoices squeaked in after. So it's twenty one fifties. Yeah. Okay. That was furniture all in, yeah.

Andy Graham (26:08)

I think to be fair, you obviously put your construction experience to very good use here, both internally and externally. You did quite a bit of new build. And interestingly, that's quite different to another project that I just want to pick your brains on at a minute. Yeah. But possibly not the sort of project that you or I would recommend anyone doing this for the first time starts with, but a really great example of how to genuinely add value through the creation of new space. You converted the garage, you went out back, you went up at the side, and then obviously reconfigured.

Internally. It's a really superb project. I mean, just at the very highest level for the benefit of everybody listening today, the gross rent was or is rather, I should say, about forty, just under fifty thousand, isn't it?

Jon Fish (26:52)

That's correct, yeah. That's four thousand one hundred and thirty a month that gross is, yeah. Yeah.

Andy Graham (26:56)

Yeah, your mortgage repayment? Well, actually, Jon, tell us what it got revalued at.

Jon Fish (27:00)

Yeah, well the revaluation of that was four hundred and twenty five thousand and that is a bricks and mortar valuation. We didn't use commercial val. So yeah, I was really happy to have created some genuine equity and the six bed working HMO.

Andy Graham (27:12)

So you bought it for 181. You had about 10 grand of cost. You spent 150 on it. So you were all in for about 345 ish thousand quid, something like that. And you got it revalued at 425,000 on a brick and mortar valuation. I know that this is something that you're sort of really sort of keen to stick to as opposed to commercial valuations. Correct. And your mortgage is about thirteen hundred quid a month. You've got gross four thousand quid a month coming in. That is a really, really fantastic deal. It nets best part of a couple of grand every single month, doesn't it? So a really, really good example. Let's just talk very briefly about your latest project then, because it's a little bit different, but equally as good at the back end. Tell us what it is, Jon.

Jon Fish (27:46)

Yeah, that was a five-bed detached property and that one's in Tamworth. Purchase price that was two hundred and eighty-two thousand. And GDV at the back end should be about four fifty on that one and again on a bricks and mortar. With about a hundred grand spend. But that one's already got the bare bones of the house. It doesn't need any extensions. We've had to rebuild the conservatory and put off a new roof on that, which will kind of make it more of a solid built extension rather than conservatory for the communal area we'll go into.

But yeah, no extra square foot needed, apart from the garage conversion, no major works. It's been a really really good buy. Solid area, big drive for other cars. Really, really happy with that one, yeah. No, it's not Article 4 area, so no planning on that one. Probably slightly further away than the town centre than you'd probably hope. That's the one negative, probably an extra five minute walk to probably ten, fifteen minutes walk rather than right there. But I think the added benefit of the so much car parking that's there, and it is a

Jon Fish (28:55)

quite a location in what's like genuine suburbia really. So it's a nicer place to live and will hopefully add value to the tenants and probably give us more of the tenant dynamic that we're actually looking for anyway, really.

Andy Graham (29:07)

Fantastic building. It's a sort of a rectangular, like you said, detached building, good aspects of light all around it, lots of parking at the front on a nice plot. And it's one of those deals that I just think it represents exactly what we should all really be trying to get from a HMO. Not overcomplicated in terms of planning or development requirement. A good existing footprint, really easy to adjust and reconfigure, obviously keeping the cost fairly low, but also a good value add opportunity because of the current and general condition. 

And you've got that quantum of units, you've got six in there. So you've got that scale of economies working in your favor as well. Because though the costs are a little bit lower and it's not going to take that long for you to deliver this project. It's just one of those great projects that I would say is pretty low risk and it's going to be quite profitable at the back end just for all of these different reasons. I mean, I know that you're well underway with this scheme now. So we can't quite talk about what the performance looks like, but just the highest level. I think you said to me, Jon, GDV, sort of about four fifty on this one. Yeah.

Jon Fish (30:14)

Yeah, correct. Yeah, about four fifty. I think the rent's gonna again be around the kind of fifty K mark gross per annum. Very similar. We might be able to slightly push that on day one rents with the property being brand new and for the paneling and looking beautiful, nicely designed by our architect.

Andy Graham (30:30)

And this was just an open market deal, Jon.

Jon Fish (30:32)

To be fair, that yet again was another online auction, that one. Again. So both of those are the online auctions. I think a lot of people are heavily put off by the buyer's fees. Yeah, the buyer premium fee, which can often be a kind of eight thousand pounds, ten thousand pounds, etc. But as long as you've figured that into your costs, I really don't see the problem. And a lot of them do well if you allow them to you have the kind of courage to allow them to run the cycle. You can see who's bidding and once you realise that actually there's very little interest in it.

If you would like to run the cycle as the auction finishes, pick up the fire and say, No, we're quite interested in this, what can we do? 'Cause again that one was I think they was looking for three hundred on that one and we got them down after auction against the two eight two.

Andy Graham (31:14)

Yeah. Yeah. And John, can you just tell us how you structured the finance for this project? Yep. Because that was an interesting piece as well.

Jon Fish (31:22)

Yeah, that one was on a bridge. The latest one's on a bridge. We took seventy five percent of build day one and purchase price. And we'll obviously fund the rest and build cost ourselves on that one.

Andy Graham (31:35)

Okay. And that lender was easy enough to sort of do it all within the time frames of the sort of the auction requirements, or did you negotiate some slightly different exchange and completion terms?

Jon Fish (31:47)

No, no, we got it all done quite easy. Yeah, big shout out to Lona for Financial on that one, who kind of dealt with us on that. Andy Rawlins, I know he's friend of yourself as well. Yeah, he got it all done very quick.

Andy Graham (31:58)

I think a lot of people think that getting finance in place for auction purchases is really difficult and can't be done. I think it can, and this is a great example. The caveat is you just have to have your ducks in a row. You have to be sort of ready to move quite quickly, know who, have everything, make sure obviously you've checked all the legal pack and everything's looking good, because in the absence of that, it will be difficult. And I see some people trying to rush in, seeing something for the very first time 24 hours before the auction and trying to get everything in place.

And that can be difficult then. But I think if you see something and you do want to buy it, it is easy to get the finance that you require from a bridge lender. But just make sure that you've got everything that you need all ready to go and all reviewed and you're happy with everything and your solicitors checked it all. Well, I'm certainly looking forward to seeing more of that project, Jon, as it develops. And I'm sure if we twist your arm enough, we could get you to share another case study, which I'm sure again will be absolutely fantastic. I mean, let's sort of step back out.

Or these specific HMO projects and and talk more about your overall business strategy and the growth plan. I think it'd be fair to say that one of the things that we identified quite early on was perhaps the necessity to use and understand how to use private finance to sort of build your business. Just sort of I think that where you were when we first started to work together, Jon, on private finance was a little bit different to I think how where a a lot of people currently sit and how they feel about private finance. So just tell us about just sort of take us back there when we first started to work together and sort of I suppose what your feeling was towards finance, using private finance.

Jon Fish (33:37)

Yeah, well, I think finance in general is something that which has always been probably different for myself than every other developer I think I've ever heard of. Obviously up until two thousand eighteen we'd never used finance. We'd only ever used our own capital to continually recycle back into the business. We used nothing. It just our own cash would continue to do the goods and that definitely limited us. And I think I wish going back that we'd started using finance, bridges, all these multitude of of ways far earlier.

But I I think the big thing for me with private finance was the this kind of self belief and that, you know, you could convince people to obviously give you their their money. I think a lot of it was I didn't realise it's a two way thing. I probably coming from more of a humble background, didn't realise just how many people have so much money excess per month sitting in their wages and want to kind of only yield on it themselves and are far too busy with their jobs and just enjoying life to get involved with all this stuff for themselves.

Yeah. So I think you have to give me the confidence and really push me to one thing we went at for a long time, didn't we? And kind of private finance strategy and kind of pulling my head out the sand and raising a profile, showing people I existed. I had a limited Instagram profile before that, where I hid behind the logo. I've recently changed it to a photograph of myself now and we're trying to show people what we do. I use my face to obviously know like and trust and to hopefully bring investors in and people to follow our journey.

Andy Graham (35:06)

Well, I mean, that's already happening, isn't it? I mean, you the last raise you did was a quarter of a million and you've got that on, if I remember rightly, eight percent, which is an incredible sort of term and rate to be paying against. But yeah, I think for a lot of people, where their passion is property, networking and social media and building profile and authority is not necessarily the first thing that they think about. And I think developers tend to be risk conscious doesn't necessarily mean they always sort of try to actively reduce or mitigate their risks. 

But yeah, I think that sort of that combination of just your skill and expertise was w in the construction. It was within the sites. It wasn't necessarily in building your network and doing all of these other things. And I think combined with your, yeah, I suppose your reluctance to take on perhaps more risk than you felt comfortable with, we were at a bit of a sort of standing start with this, weren't we? But I think you've done an incredible job actually

You've done a number of sort of pieces in various publications and magazines now, showcasing your work, what you do on social media, the networking that you do, the network that you're building. It's all really incredible. And of course, that stuff compounds over time. And this is we're still talking about just 18 months here. One thing though that also stuck with me from one of our early conversations, Jon, was I think by your own admission, you were perhaps thinking just too small. You were playing too small. And I think the word that you may have used other phrase was, was even hiding in the shadows. Tell us what you meant by this, because I don't think that you're alone with this actually. I think a lot of people, and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this episode, will feel or will have felt similar at some point.

Jon Fish (36:44)

Yeah, well I think the hiding away thing I didn't kind of want to look like we showboating our Instagram, which it's a very fine line, isn't it? It's for the algorithms to work you have to obviously give value and kind of a have a hook, et cetera. And I was very conscious that if we was going to do social media it had to be kind of just genuinely reflecting our day to day life. We was in no way gonna be on there trying to show boat and sell false dreams of prosperity. We just it

Just isn't that kind of industry, it won't happen that fast. I and I wouldn't want to ever entertain that. And I think until you'd you just get on with it, basically, and find your own groove and your own lane and find your own way to do it, really. we're we're still obviously in an early stage of that, but we're trying. And in terms of the keep it small, my business model was always keep it small, keep it all. That was literally what we went by. I thought that by controlling everything and controlling every single variable, we'd actively taken the risk out.

I think the cost of doing business in this country is so incredibly expensive now and only going in one direction and that's more, that you kind of have to scale and have to look bigger, or it's just not going to be worth it anymore. With even the extra stamp duties and stuff you pay these days, you're kind of what you're left with after these developments just gets less and less if you're not careful. So look bigger. Like I say, don't hide in the shadows and just show people what I do. Trusted set of hands that's been doing it over a decade and I think the private finance develops such a privilege to have people give you their money that you must never forget that. 

And I think a lot of people want to start with other people's money and kind of prove that their system works and then put their own in. And we're completely the other way around. And you know, I long past the point of proving that this all works and it's time to offer returns to other people, hopefully, to grow with us and build full blown relationships, not just one off investments, hopefully.

Andy Graham (38:38)

I think one of the things that you've done really well is just be super authentic about it all, Jon. And I know when you started to sort of be a bit more active on social media and get out to networking events and just start to expand your network, build your black book of contacts. You were concerned about the perception that you've already spoken to us about, but what to share. And I said, look, just be you. And what I think is great about the stuff that you do share is how just you it is. You don't try and pretend to be something that you're not, an expert on topics that you're not.

You know what you're good at, you know what your strengths and skills are. And you also just throw in like social media, it doesn't work if it's all just education based and it has to ultimately be engaging and entertaining. And I think you've done a really good job of kind of mixing that in and just the right balance. We had a bit of a laugh when we were away skiing earlier in the year with some memes and stuff that you put on, but like getting to know you, it's very much you. And I love that about it. When I'm following people, I'm always looking for that kind of window into who they really are.

It's easy, isn't it, to sort of look through the glossy brochure that anybody wants to give you, but who are they really? Because at the end of the day, people invest in people. And I think if you give them that opportunity to get to know who you really are, and this podcast is such a good example of that. I've sat here on for 350 odd episodes. I think it's pretty difficult to pretend to be something else for that long. And it's an extreme example, but I see it so often when I sit with people and they feel really comfortable talking to me. It doesn't mean everybody likes me. And certainly there'll be some people I'll probably never speak to because they've listened to the show or seen other stuff and they've decided I'm not for them. And that's fine, but it's also a great way of gatekeeping. 

So I guess just there's some really useful tips there, I think, for our listeners to take that are themselves trying to raise some private finance, maybe expand their network and look for opportunities. Just be yourself. I think one of the other things that we've really worked on.

And to give you credit on Jon is just the consistency piece. It is hard, isn't it? Sort of doing it regularly, planning and posting and going to network events when we perhaps would rather be doing other things, even though we would ultimately prefer to sort of get the result that we want, maybe raise some finance or something like that. But you've done a great job of that. And it is hard, isn't it, John, alongside everything else, to find the motivation, the enthusiasm and just I think the discipline just to do it consistently enough.

If you compare Jon, the Jon of five years ago with the Jon sitting here today, I suppose zooming out from all of this, everything that you've been doing, what would you say the biggest sort of mindset shifts have been that have helped you move to these next levels?

Jon Fish (41:14)

I think having my children, I think that's a big, big thing. Obviously 2022. That's my eldest and my youngest just twenty twenty-four. I think it kind of clarifies that kind of sense of purpose. I think it gives you the kind of a fresh reason why to go again and knowing that you're trying to build something for them, not just for yourself. Like I was always gonna do property, whether it was for kids or not, this was always gonna be my why. I think I just absolutely adore everything there is to do with the industry, good and bad at times.

But I think the kids give me the kind of ignition to go again, try and think bigger, build a kind of a life where it wasn't all on me so I could spend more time with them, more of a lifestyle. And yeah, it really that simple. I think having children probably yeah, give me the impetus to

Andy Graham (42:00)

I resonate with that entirely. My listeners will know that. But when we had Isla, my sort of perception on everything changed entirely. Like you loved property, loved investing, loved developing, loved doing the deal, loved the kind of the buzz. I loved in some sort of peculiar way the the stress and the difficulty of it. I liked the challenge. I didn't used to get that from my professional career, but the privilege of being able to spend time with Isla. And I can decide when that time is. I don't have to ask to go on a holiday.

And also doing it for a much greater purpose. It's for a long time not a bit about having more money to spend at the end of every single month to go and buy fancy things with. It's not been that for a long, long, long time. But having a child, yeah, it really kind of underlined that. And I love it. I just think the whole thing is just this big, fascinating game. And you've got to enjoy the game. It's not just about winning the game. You've got to enjoy the game. But yeah, I can really resonate with that what you just said. Looking ahead then, Jon.

What's the vision? What are you trying to build over the next decade? And I suppose not just in terms of property but impact, your legacy, I suppose the life that you're trying to create.

Jon Fish (43:10)

Well I think we've kind of come up with this dual strategy now, which we've obviously talked about of wealth creation and wealth preservation. Wealth preservation through Hestia, wealth creation through WJF developments our development arm. And I think more of the same, we wanna grow our pipeline of development projects, probably hit multi unit sites now rather than just the more bespoke stuff. Keep growing or every kind of profit from there pumped into Hestia and really gonna grow that portfolio and

And to a point where WJF will start paying down the debts of Hestia. So that we really start to legacy plan earlier rather than just rely on market appreciation to kind of eat away at the debt. We want to actively eat away at some of that debt. Obviously that will in turn give more income anyway, because of you've got less mortgages to pay, so it's more in your pocket every month. And just build a life with my family on six weeks minimum holiday a year is kind of the aim. Big bucket kind of list holiday per year as well. Safaris, all your big fancy, nicer things like this. And really just spend as much time with the ones you love and friends as possible. And yeah. Very very, very simple lifestyles. No Lamborghinis for me. Just time. I think that that's the thing. Time.

Andy Graham (44:20)

You and I both, Jon. I love it. And I've got absolutely no doubt that you're gonna achieve all of this and a whole lot more. Finally, then, Jon, before we wrap up, for anybody listening today that would like to follow your journey, maybe learn a bit more about you, your business, and potentially connect with you, maybe even work with you, invest with you, what is the best way that they can do that?

Jon Fish (44:40)

Yeah, well we recently set up a LinkedIn. So I'm on there as Jonathan Fish. Alternatively, our Instagram handle is at WJF Developments. That's Whiskey Juliet Fox Shruck Developments, which should now be bought up by John Fish, J O N Fish as well. So yeah. Thanks for having me today. A bit of a full circle moment for me. Before I started working with you, Andy, I said to you before it started, I really binged on this podcast thinking was this the kind of fella to help me kind of grow my businesses and to end up as a guest on here probably like twelve eighteen months later, it was a bit of a full circle moment. So thank you very much for your time.

Andy Graham (45:13)

Well, that's very kind. It's a huge pleasure, John. It's great fun working with you as well. Because you are a developer, you are an investor, you're a property guy, you know, it's just in your veins. And you apply, you do the work, you do the hard stuff. It's not all fun. And most importantly, have been getting the results, which is the whole point of all this. And I love to sort of see all of that unravel in real time. But thanks for coming on and sharing all of your experience, Jon, your insights, your wisdom, all the good stuff, all the bad stuff. I would highly recommend everyone goes and follows you because there's so much to sort of pick up from you on all of this experience you've got. Jon, it's been a huge pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much.

Jon Fish (45:51)

Thank you, Andy.

Andy Graham (45:59)

That is it for today's episode, guys? Thank you for tuning in as always. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Go and follow Jon. He's a top guy doing great stuff, and you can learn so much from everything that he's doing. Now, if you are building your own property business but you need a little bit of support doing it, you've got a couple of options. Head to theHMORoadmap.co.uk now. Get yourself subscribed as a member and take advantage of everything that we've got to offer inside the platform. It is an absolute vault of information that'll help you build your HMO business. 

But if, like Jon, you feel like you need someone by your side, someone in your business with you, someone in the trenches, someone who's got that experience to help push you towards your goals, then just head to the show notes. You'll find a link to a video. You can watch that video and you can find out a little bit more about what working with me looks like. If that sounds good, if it sounds like it's the sort of thing you want and need, you can book yourself a free strategy call and we can go from there.

Now, before you go, I've got one very small request. I do ask occasionally, but it does mean the world to us when you guys can do this. If you could leave a very quick review of the show. If you listen, if you find it useful, if you enjoy the HMO podcast, please, please, please let us know and leave a quick review. It takes no more than about 10 seconds, but it gives us that warm, fuzzy feeling. It helps us understand what's working and what's not. It helps us.

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Thank you so much for tuning in. Again, that is it for today's episode. But 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.