Hub Extra's that have stood the test of time

0:00Hi listeners, it's Sam here from Property Hub Invest. We love sharing our take on the market with you each week, but we're just as curious to hear about yours. What are you seeing out there? What's working for you right now? And what's got you worried? We've put together a quick survey to find out. It'll only take a couple of minutes, but it will generally help shape what we talk about on future episodes. Head to propertyhub.net forward slash survey to have your say. Hey everyone, it's Robby here with Rob D and this is a really fun episode. This is one that you're going to be opening Amazon to buy things.

0:37You're going to be suddenly finding you've got a lot less free time because we've given you the best TV shows. This is the best of Hub Extra. All our favourite resources over the last few years condensed into one episode. We know this is going to be a very popular one.

0:57Welcome to the Property Podcast. In case you don't know, we run a business that arranges more than£100 million worth of property transactions every year. You can find out about that at propertyhub.net slash invest. But we do have interests outside property and since 2014 we've been bringing you some of our favourites on this show. But which ones have stood the test of time? Which ones do we still stand behind today? That is the question we're answering. We're bringing you the best of the best on this week's show. Lots of exciting stuff coming up in this episode but before we begin let's start off with our new story of the week.

1:27It comes courtesy of Landlord Today and the headline reads, massive growth of landlord companies still accelerating. And this news story covers that landlord companies, limited companies, is on the up. So last year was a record year with 34 ,000 or just over 34 ,000 new companies formed for buy-to-let purposes and this year it's on track to exceed that number again. Which is interesting right because last year wasn't exactly a stellar year for property and this year arguably sentiment is even worse so why is this happening well you could go well smart money's moving in which is partly true i think that is part of the reason people can see the yields available they can see that there's deals to be done and that's amazing but i actually also think that it's just the path forward for the vast majority of investors now.

2:22This is not tax advice and you shouldn't go ahead and form a limited company without speaking to a tax advisor but the chances are it is going to be the way forward for you and with a new prime minister and rumours of different tax changes coming in I think the argument for going down this route is only going to become stronger so I wouldn't be surprised that even if the market wasn't as attractive next year, and it's pretty attractive at the moment in terms of investment opportunities, I'd still expect that number to carry on increasing and going up because for the vast majority of people, it is the way forward.

3:01But do remember, this is not tax advice. It's a trend that we're reporting on. It's a trend that doesn't surprise us. But just because you've heard somebody read out a news story, I want to build your whole tax strategy around that. So be warned, do get tax advice, but it's an interesting trend to follow. Right, Rob, so let's get into it. We've been making recommendations every week for more than a decade, which is crazy. Shockingly, not all of them have turned out to be amazing in retrospect. Some have had more staying power than others. So this week, we are looking at the best of the best, the recommendations for books, TV shows, podcasts, tech, and more that have stood the test of time that we're either still using today or that we would still fully stand behind and recommend today.

3:41So we've broken this up into categories. Why don't we start with books? Because there are books that are a little bit disappointing. There are books that you read, oh yeah, that was good, but it doesn't really stick with you. But then there are books that you're still talking about years later. What are some of those for you? Yeah, these are the type of books that when my friends come to me and say, Rob, give me a book, which happens quite regularly, actually. These are the books that I'm like, have you read these? These are like the go-tos because there's just nobody that I've recommended these books to that's gone, oh, it was only average.

4:09Like, everyone's loved them. I'm going to give you some summer reads because we're in summertime. Some summer reads. Maybe you get to spend a bit of time by the pool this year or whatever you like to do on your holidays. But here are a few summer reads that I know you will enjoy. So first, I'm going to pick Bad Blood. That's a great book. It's actually a true story. There's been a TV series created off the back of this book now. If you've not watched the TV series and you've not read the book, well, then you are in great luck. that is absolutely brilliant another one i can highly recommend is american kingpin oh yeah so where bad blood is a true story based on a medical scam i don't want to say too much because it's such a great story but that's a medical scam american kingpin rob it's all about drugs it's a great book it's an incredible true story and it's one of those books that i just didn't want to end it's unbelievable i think it's still it's one of my favorites of all time you still can't believe it's a true story and the way it's told is just phenomenal.

5:07I'd say if I'm making my like pure enjoyment recommendation that would be top of my list. If I were making a has the potential to change your life recommendation then it would be Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. You think you get the concept from the title but actually going through and fully absorbing what he says has the potential to bring about real changes in the decisions that you make about your life and I've spoken to countless people who have made important changes based on this book so that's a big one for me a couple of autobiographies for you that again I know you're going to enjoy at first is Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger I promise you if you're not an Arnie fan you will still enjoy this book and you might even become you will be by the end of it yeah I really believe that you will be what this man has achieved is unbelievable do not think it's a muscle guy that went into movies.

6:00I promise you, you have no idea if that's what you think. And I can understand why a lot of people would think that, because why would you study his life? But this book is an inspiration story. It really is. I promise you. Contact me. If you read this and you're not inspired, I'll refund you. Honestly, it's that good. And then another autobiography, which is just so entertaining and beautifully written, is Green Lights by Matthew McConaughey. What a book, rob like i just i love his voice like the fact that he narrated it is just amazing like his voice is incredible and i think because his voice is beautiful like it makes the story even more beautiful as well i don't know it's like a chicken soup autobiography you just feel good listening to it and really funny as well yeah it's a really really great recording i definitely listen to that on audio and the final one for me because my reading does tend to be more kind of i suppose self-help than anything else.

6:53So on the fitness side, Outlive by Peter Attia. Now, it does turn out that he was in the Epstein files, Peter Attia. It might be slightly compromised as an individual, but as a Burke, the great thing about this is it cuts through so much of the nonsense that you see around health and what are the few things that you need to do to really focus on to have what most of us really want, which is to be in great shape in our 70s, 80s and beyond. So sometimes you have to make a distinction between the author and the work and this is one of those times i still stand behind outlive and i'll give you a couple of business books if you are into business or want to start one rockefeller habits such a great book for how to structure your business as it grows once you start a business going from idea that's proven to growing it out it's like how do you do that where's the map this book does a great job of helping you we've absolutely used a lot of what's in that book that still exists today in the business but even the stuff that we've just done for a while and then moved on to other things it was still really useful to do that so definitely check that book out and i also really enjoyed zero to one as like a business four piece by peter teal yes if he sounds familiar he's a bit of a controversial character as well but he was part of the paypal mafia one of the founders he also invested very early into facebook book and he has done a great job with that book as well rob i think that's a lot of books but they are all worthy of a mention and all worthy of a purchase i don't think there's a single person who'll pick one of those books up and be disappointed no they are all very very strong recommendations something else we've recommended a lot of over the year is tv and youtube stuff to watch and and a big change over the years has been the move of our consumption habits from tv to YouTube and even within YouTube you used to subscribe to channels and now once you've got the algorithm trained it kind of throws things at you so it's quite hard to make recommendations because it all becomes so specific and personal.

8:54Yeah my algorithms got laser focused and wait for it you're gonna know how fun I am. Most of my videos seem to be chess related, paddle related or AI related. Yeah it's a fun weekend when you spend it with rugby and they are the videos that I tend to get more than any other oh and some liverpool videos but they've been a bit depressing over the last season they are the videos i tend to get i can give you as quickly some of the channels we're not going to go into great depth but if you are interested in any of those subjects then for chess i'd recommend anna cramling gotham chess and also alex banzia i think i've said his name correctly they are really good chess youtubers all very different and all will help you at different stages of your chess journey and the paddle i would go padalatico what a great youtuber he is everything paddle that's another great paddle channel and a small one a niche one and hasn't got that many subscribers yet but i just really like him because he's just really real precision paddle i mean that's another great youtube channel and then finally ai i actually hop between a lot but the next new thing and it's by andrew warner that's very good nate her kgrk again very good lots of good stuff from him and if you want a more accessible one with ai futurepedia has a lot of like intro stuff which i think most people are at the other two are quite advanced but if you're looking for getting into ai and understand it a bit further his youtube channel is really good as well yeah the beauty of youtube is it gets to know you and it delivers you what you want which does make it hard to give general recommendations i think if i were to pick one that I've talked about in the past that I would still highlight for pretty much anyone.

10:32It would be Coffeezilla. So here's the internet's private detective is how he brands himself. He does investigations into crypto scams, online influencers, and he's really gone from strength to strength over the years. He's got millions of subscribers now, which means he can do bigger and better investigations. So I definitely recommend that one. On the traditional TV side, if I were to pick one recommendation from all our past, it's got to be Succession. Succession is still absolute peak TV for me. In fact, now I mention it, I'm going to watch it again. It's so good. I'm going to go for a different one.

11:02And having children of different ages, trying to find something that everybody wants to watch is really difficult. But Race Across the World delivers time and time again. Doesn't matter what season, whether it's celebrities or not. My kids don't know the celebrities. A lot of people watching probably don't know the celebrities as well. But this show is just so well done. It's just really well done. And it's always given me a bit of a travel book and wants to explore new places but also and more importantly it's landed with every family member who's watching it no matter what their age or interests so it's a really good family show i'm gonna pick one tv show that i'd still recommend strongly today it's gonna be race across the world let's talk podcasts rob and again podcasts are tricky because they can be so personal and i listen to various about macroeconomics and stuff which are probably not gonna be big favorites for many people but there are a couple of more general ones i've talked about in the past which i still strongly rate one is if books could kill which is basically just tearing apart the classic self-help books in a really really funny way and the other would be my first million which i know you're a fan of as well it is businessy but you probably call it business entertainment so i think loads of people could enjoy that yeah mine are all very niche as well but two broader ones that others might enjoy is the missing crypto queen we've recommended that i think maybe a couple of times on hub extra over the years because it's been updated but if you've not listened to that yet oh you're so lucky that you get to start it and listen through that for the first time that's a really good podcast series it's just a series so it does end so you're not committed to going week after week it's very good though and a really useful one and i really like how it's done is nothing much happens which is a podcast to help you relax and sleep i listen to it occasionally my daughter also likes it just as a bedtime story sometimes to listen to it's really nice it's just a really good podcast and if you have trouble falling asleep then that could be a good one to check out so normally on home extra another category that we cover is tech but it's a bit of a weird world with tech at the moment because ai is taking well i hope not but taking over it's so transformational and you can build your own apps now some stuff we would have recommended in the past like a scanner app for example well you could do that now yourself you don't need dedicated apps the world is being disrupted apps are being disrupted so our strong recommendation around tech now in this best of hub extra is to immerse yourself within this world because you can be a front runner it's still very early it doesn't feel like it's sometimes if you start getting into this you can feel like you're getting left behind but then when you just talk to normal people they're just not doing this type of stuff so we've recommended some youtube channels but Rob let's give some real life examples of some of the stuff we've done.

13:47Yes a fun one which I talked about on the show before which I'll link to again is a tax receipt. I saw someone say wouldn't it be great if you actually got a receipt when you paid your tax bill showing where your money's really gone. So I thought huh that would be fun let's build it and they're literally minutes between calls while I was doing this in the background put together a website where you can put in your salary and it'll give you an exact breakdown of everything that you paid for. That was a fun one and a useful one I did just the other day was something very familiar to property investors you'll see something on your credit file and it'll turn out that an electricity supplier from years ago reckons that you missed some payments on one of your rental properties you didn't it was actually the tenant's responsibility but proving that is a giant pain it doesn't have to be though because i had claude hooked up to my gmail and my google drive so i got it to go and find all the statements all the documentary evidence everything put it all together and write the letter that i needed it took a couple of minutes where previously it would have been loads of annoying searching through and rob one of the questions people will have from that is well well how how do you hook claude up to your emails well the answer is ask ai and that's what it all comes back to anything you don't know how to do you can just ask and if you don't understand the answer it gives you ask it to explain again more simply and from that starting point you can get literally anywhere you can imagine you can if you've got an idea in your head that will help you in your life, you can probably build it.

15:04I built a chess coach. That's quite complex when you think about it, a chess coach, to be able to analyze games. I did it in between tasks in the morning. I built dashboards that extract data across the entire business in minutes. It doesn't take long at all to build these things now. Open up Claude, open up CoWork, and you've got to download Claude on your desktop to do that, so you can't use it in a browser, and tell it what you want to build, and then say, help me. What do I need to do? What do I need to hook up? Give me all the steps. It will do that for you. So let's say you want to build an app for your property portfolio and it does X, Y, and Z.

15:43You know what? You'll be able to do it. And you may feel like you can't, but you really can. You just need to ask for it to help you and guide you and it will do it. It even gives you like prompts to put into your terminal if needed. So it might say, all right, you need to open your terminal, copy and paste this. If that doesn't even make sense to you where I've said, don't worry. The point is, I'd never opened a terminal on a computer until a few months ago. And I've done it multiple times since. And now it feels really easy. It's a great tutor. It will guide you through. You need the idea and then the confidence to work with it to create the idea.

16:18You do not need technical expertise. And I think that's what a lot of people are missing. They think, well, I can't do that because I've never been able to do that. But you really can now. So that was the best of Hub Extra. Some recommendations to make you something more entertaining, more useful, and a call to action to build your own Hub Extras. If you do build anything cool, send it in. We'd love to see it. We love this stuff. Oh, definitely. That is our start for this week, though. Thank you for listening. Enjoy your week, and we'll see you soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

16:45Hi, listeners. It's Sam here from Property Hub Invest. We love sharing our take on the market with you each week, but we're just as curious to hear about yours. What are you seeing out there? what's working for you right now and what's got you worried we've put together a quick survey to find out it'll only take a couple of minutes but it will generally help shape what we talk about on future episodes head to propertyhub.net forward slash survey to have your say