Christmas Day Reflections – The Year That Was 2025

0:02Happy Christmas everybody. It's Rob B here with Rob D. A very special episode. We've been going for over 10 years now and we've never ever missed a week. And although it's Christmas Day, we don't want to miss a week. So we're here. I hope you've had an amazing Christmas. If you are listening to this on Christmas Day, wow, special thank you to you. You are super hardcore. But whenever you're picking this episode up, I hope you've had a great festive period. this week on the podcast we're going to reflect on the year for the market and for us and also a little look ahead to next year but as it's christmas we want to give you a few treats as well so we're going to run through some of our favorite resources of this year as well so if you haven't spent enough money or you haven't received enough gifts yet we've got a few more for you rob the market it's been a great year hasn't it well i don't think we were expecting this to be a banner year but i think it's fair to say that sentiment has been even worse than expected it's been shockingly bad it's hard to remember a time when everyone's felt this negative without there being like a clearly defined trigger for that negativity it's just gloop it really is and hopefully now it's christmas people will cheer up and we'll have some new year optimism going into next year to at least kick off the year with.

1:21But let's discuss the reality. The data shows that property prices were up this year. The economy hasn't done anything spectacular, but we're not in recession. The markets have had strong years overall. So it's not on paper, from an economic point of view, been a disastrous year. But you'd be forgiven for thinking it was if you just listen to people, because people are really negative and not exclusively with property, with pretty much everything this year. It's felt a very negative year and people will say, well, you know, it's not been a great year for the world. There's always something you could pick out that's pretty bad in the world that you could say, okay, well, that could be the cause.

2:01It's just been a really uh year and it's not just for the UK. There are other markets around the world that just haven't kicked on either where there isn't that we can do it attitude. It just feels like it's been a really flat year 2025 but the sentiment being far far worse than reality Rob when that occurs and I think this is the first for us and all the years we've been podcasting when that mismatch occurs where the reality isn't the same as the sentiment you could take advantage of it and many of our investors really have this year yeah it's been been helpful for us and we'll talk about our business in a minute but yeah it has been a great market to do deals in because you've got all the negative sentiment and the selling pressure that allows you to negotiate a deal of the type that you get after a crash when everyone's panicking it's a buyer's market and there's just no competition you've got all that but it's not after a crash which means you can still borrow and you don't have to be insanely brave it's not like you're trying to catch a falling knife and go has the market bottomed yet so it is a great market to do deals in it's great in our part of the world where we're mainly dealing with developers.

3:10But it's great across the board, whether you're just trying to buy something ready to rent from an owner-occupier who needs to sell because they're in a chain and there's no other buyers around, or if you're buying something that's a little bit tired that you want to do up, then there will be plenty of legacy landlords keen to get out. So whatever it is you're trying to do as an investor, 2025 has actually been a pretty good year to do it. And from the people who we speak to, the people who write in, we know that's what lots of people have been doing. They have. The smart money absolutely has taken advantage of that and we've seen that firsthand ourselves which we'll talk about in a minute but before we do I think it's important to acknowledge that this was the year where we finally got clarity on renters rights that bill has taken what feels like forever to make its way through and the uncertainty and the fear did not help the market either but now we've got certainty and clarity of how it's all going to work, a start date.

4:03I think people just will quickly get used to it. In a couple of years' time, we won't even talk about it. It will become just the norm. And that is what we need. We just need normal operations to resume. Having certainty allows that to happen. So while not everyone may have celebrated it coming in, Rob, I think it finally just happening is a thing to celebrate. Having that certainty massively helps. Yeah, it's like so many things like the actual thing happening is often less bad than the fear of the thing happening. And it's just so damaging to have all this uncertainty. Markets hate uncertainty, property investors hate uncertainty.

4:40So we'll still be hearing a lot about it this coming year as it beds in. I'm sure there'll still be fear in the market around exactly what's going to happen when this big bang moment happens on the 1st of May. But I completely agree, a year or two into the future, we just won't be thinking about it anymore. So that's what's been going on in the market let's talk briefly about what's been going on with us and our business i'd say that while 2025 has been a negative grindy sort of year for the market i definitely wouldn't characterize it as being like that for us but i would characterize it as uneventful which in a good way it's just been another year of focus paying off for us i'd say I love how measured you are, Rob.

5:24So uneventful means our best year we've ever had. So financially, on paper, the best year we've ever had at Property Hub. Because the smart money's been so active and because we've got focused and those two things working together, along with a very strong team, I might add, we've recruited a lot this year because we could see this growth train happening and we've wanted to keep that momentum. But not hiring quantity. Yes, the team has grown overall, but it's the quality that we've added and retained a lot of important people as well. And those two things, the experienced team who really gets the culture with some experienced people coming into the business to really help us level up as well because we're growing so quickly, has meant that, yes, I can understand why you say it's not been exciting because nothing's gone wrong for the business in that sense.

6:17It's been a good year. everything's happened as we wanted it to and when you don't have disasters and you don't have things burning down then you can deliver great results and that's what we've been able to do this year yeah don't get me wrong i love unexciting it's what i live for it's amazing in a business sense we have just be able to get on with it and do it and grow and hire and put together really a phenomenal run of opportunities the whole year's been good but then we just had this amazing few months where we were achieving insane discounts i think 16 and a half percent was the peak. It was something mad.

6:50And not on stuff that was a bit marginal, but on incredibly located prime stock. And a couple of years ago, you just never would have thought it was possible. As we've said on the podcast, we don't know how much longer it will be possible for. But I think we've been able to achieve that through a confluence of those two things that we've spoken about. One, the market being so slow and so negative. And two, us being prepared for it and having the team in place to go out and make these deals happen. Yeah, absolutely. And well done to all those clients that did invest this year, because you are the smart money.

7:22You're the ones who've taken advantage of those opportunities. So well done to you. Of course, if you want to find out more about what we do, then please contact Property Hub Invest. That's propertyhub.net forward slash invest. but moving into next year our gift to all of you is we've got a bumper january of content planned across all our platforms so check out our social platforms youtube is definitely a place you want to be in january and of course here we've got extra content going out on the podcast as well so we're going to hit 2026 hard we're not going to sleep our way into the new year we're giving you all the tools that you need to have a great year ahead of you and if you did not take advantage of the market in 2025 do not sleep on this opportunity it's still possible to do great deals you might not get the highs that Rob's just talked about but you still can get deals take advantage of it be the smart money not the people who sit by and watch and we'll give you all the tools to do that in January right Rob so beyond the tools that we're going to give people in January why not give some gifts out now some of our favorite things we've done this year from a hub extra point of view so a few podcasts some of the bits we've been up to as well you've put some really cool things down here so i'll let you kick off and we had to fight over this first one because this is one that we both become obsessed about this year yeah and i don't think it'll be a secret to anyone who's listened to the pod because we've talked about it a few times but paddle has been the big obsession of so many people this year pretty much everyone i know has got into paddle this year and so for a bit light on other recommendations it's because most of my watching and most of my brain capacity when i'm not working it's been going towards trying to improve at paddle that's been a really positive new hobby sport whatever you want to call it for me this year i'm pleased to say father christmas recognized my obsession with paddle as well and got me a new paddle bag so thank you santa for that i was very happy with that present i'm also very happy with the app that is used for paddle as well not for every paddle court but if you're thinking, all right, I'm going to give it a go, check out Playtomic.

9:27That's a recommendation. That's a brilliant app. It's a way just to set up games quickly, play people your level. It's such a good app, and I can see it being a big reason why Paddle has really taken off so much in the UK, because it makes you want to play more. So if you do want to get into Paddle, make sure you check out Playtomic. We normally talk about our favourite YouTube channels, but because all my favourite YouTube channels have been Paddle, the one that I'm going to mention is actually one that my kids have been obsessed with which is a channel called half asleep chris which is hard to describe he occupies this weird niche which is a combination of like cats lego and stop motion animation and unlike most of the american high energy cuts all the time youtubers that i discourage my kids from watching it's just really nice and slow and gentle so more one for your kids than anything that you want to sit down and watch but half asleep chris strongly rated and i know it's a really obvious one but if you're just not all over YouTube at the moment and I really do think you're missing out because wherever you're interested in you can just learn so paddle is an obvious one we both watch loads of paddle videos chess my game of chess has really improved by watching YouTubers over the years and I'll also watch videos beyond our own channel of course about the economy so there's just so much there it's not going to be classified as a resource this year YouTube because hopefully you've heard of that but if it's just not part of your consumption from a media point of view because you're all consuming media it's just choosing what type of media you want i think youtube if you're going to give time to media is one of the best places to go because it can be a platform for distraction or it can be a platform for education and the education side is just absolutely phenomenal podcast wise i've got back into an absolute classic this year and i've mentioned this podcast many many years ago as a hub extra and it's made my roundup at the end of the year as well but it's been a few years since i've mentioned it and that is hardcore history by dan carlin at the moment he's covering the story of alexander the great really loving that can't wait for the next episode to drop but if you just go back through his back catalogue the quality of what he puts out is incredible i just ask one thing of you if you do start one of his podcasts give it half an hour so they're really long you don't have to listen to it in one go i certainly don't but give it half an hour just to get into it once you're into it you're hooked you want to know what happens next he's a gifted storyteller so it's an absolute classic podcast been around a long time longer than our podcast i think but like a fine wine for me this podcast keeps getting better so that's been my favorite pod this year i've got to say for all these years you've been talking about hardcore history, I still haven't listened to it.

12:11So 2026 is going to be the year I'm finally going to get into hardcore history because I know it will be that good because you and many other people have been recommending it for so long. It's not been a big podcast year for me. I've not been listening to all that much. The only one that's been a regular for me, I listen every time a new episode comes out because there aren't that many. I'd say it's probably only one a month or so. It's been a podcast called If Books Could Kill, where basically it's two guys ripping apart personal development type books. So they've done Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

12:40They've done Rich Dad Poor Dad, of course. They've done loads. Thankfully, haven't done any of mine yet. It's a great combination of them actually doing the research and going and figuring out if the claims in these books actually stand up to scrutiny, but also just being really bloody funny. They are amazing presenters. All my favourite podcasts are my favourites because of the personality of the hosts. And I've got a particular thing for duo podcasts. And so My First Million is a businessy money sort of podcast we've talked about many times. I love that one. And for the same reasons, I love If Books Could Kill.

13:11And while we're on podcasts, I'll do my app, which again, I've spoken about before, but still using it, which is Snipt, S-N-I-P-D. And the cool thing about this is like, you know, some podcasts have got chapters where they actually put in chapter markers, but Snipt uses AI to put chapter markers into every podcast, whether they were otherwise there or not. And what that means is it's really easy to skip long intros, skip ads, or if you're only interested in one thing out of the four things they're talking about really easy to go and find that section so big fan of snipped and you know what i'm a big fan of you for listening to this thank you thank you for being with us in 2025 a year where a lot of noise has been around but hopefully we've been able to deliver some common sense and some good advice within that year and hopefully you've been able to take advantage of it but if not make 2026 your year and we will help you we've got loads and loads and loads of content going out at the start of the year so join us kick off your new year in style educate yourself make it your year go big on wherever you do but thank you for 2025 thank you for all your support for all your sharing of the content you letting other people know it's there whether it's the podcast youtube or beyond however you've engaged with us this year we appreciate you we really really do and we can't wait to give you more next year thanks everyone happy christmas and happy new year for when it comes bye