The best property deals are hiding in plain sight (4 ways to find them)

0:02Hey everyone, Rob B here with Rob D and you are listening to the Property Podcast. My word, the market is a very strange but super interesting place right now. And the headline of this episode is going to attract you, I know, because you're like, yes, show me the money. How can I get the best deal? But I actually think it's the market dynamics behind how to get this great deal. It's just as interesting as the deal itself. We'll see. But this week's episode, I'll promise to you is one, super interesting information and insights to the market. And two, different strategies you can deploy so you get yourself an incredible deal in property right now.

0:43Yes, welcome to the Property Podcast. Thank you for joining us. In case you don't know, we run a company that ranges over£100 million worth of deals every year for our clients. You can find out about that at propertyhub.net slash invest. and yesterday we're bringing you four ways you can take advantage of the current market and get yourself a great deal. Let's start as we always do with our news story of the week and a lot has been going on in the world of politics and you might forget that we actually had a king's speech to open a parliament this year and a lot was announced. Nothing new Rob but it's worth doing a quick roundup of all the things property related that was announced by the king.

1:19Yeah overshadowed is probably the word for the king's speech but it did happen and you don't expect anything new to be in there but there was some new information so the social housing bill was in there about increasing investment there there's a bill about cladding remediation which is still relevant to a lot of people but the big one was probably around leasehold reform so we all know leasehold reform is happening you probably know that a cap on ground rents is supposed to be happening loads of debate about this over the years of course there is no ground rent on any new leases but what about old leases the plan is to have a 250 pound cap and in the king's speech there was a bit more information about dates.

1:52So they say that they expect that cap to be in place by 2028 and a year later they plan for common hold, the new form of tenure that they want to replace leasehold. They expect that to be ready. So that would be in 2029. But the ground rent cap is the big one because of course there are a lot of people with older leases who've got ground rent that doubles every 10-15 years. It causes problems with mortgageability and with sale. So the sooner the better for a lot of people as i said expected to be 2028 that can very easily move that all of this is still being challenged by freeholders but if that really is only a couple of years away then a lot of people will be counting that as good news they will and anything around politics that's good news at the moment is very very welcome and from good news to really useful news or information at least i hope i messaged rob late last week and said i really want to do this podcast on what we're talking about today because it's such a fascinating market at the moment and I've been speaking to a lot of people as I always do and different groups of people so professional investors, developers and just really getting a sense of what is happening in the market right now because the market dynamics at play at the moment are really unique.

3:04I've not seen anything like this for a long long time and you have to adapt and you have to change when things are different and what do i mean by different well sentiment i think it's fair to say rob that sentiment is at record lows at the moment not just in property just in the uk everyone just seems a bit down a bit beaten up and not really feeling too optimistic so sentiment is on the floor sentiment is not even just on the floor is on the floor of the basement it's on the fit of as low as it can possibly be. It really is grim in the world at large, but particularly in property. You see it in the papers, but I know from the conversations that you've been having lately that you're seeing this in real life as well.

3:47Absolutely. And that's what I love about the podcast is that I feel like we see the trends early because we just have so much exposure. We speak to so many people and we're in that very lucky position. But then, of course, we just give it straight to you. And that's what we're going to do today. The purpose of this episode is one to give you really interesting information and I think at the very very least it's going to be super interesting but actually I want to give you this information so you can use it to your advantage as well because what I'm going to talk about may eventually seem obvious but sometimes the obvious stuff is really missed.

4:21It's sitting there in plain sight but yet you don't see it and what we're going to really focus on today is how to get a deal. I've been saying and Rob you've been saying that in this market for the last few months now if you're going to transact you must must do a deal it's a fantastic market for getting yourself a great deal in property take advantage of that negative sentiment and put yourself in an incredibly strong position but something occurred to me a penny dropped last week that while it can be easy it can also be difficult as well if you go about it the wrong way and i think that is what we'd missed when we talked about it on the podcast before we want to put right today so let's look at different ways that you can potentially get yourself a deal and let's start with the hardest rob and the hardest actually is the general market and i think it's worth explaining what do we mean by the general market yeah for the most part if you're looking in an estate agent's window as you walk past if anyone does that anymore or if you're more likely just browsing right move or zoopla on your phone and seeing what's being marketed, then you're probably in the general market.

5:31So you're going to be buying a property secondhand of somebody who already owns it as a homeowner or an investor. And this obviously is the bulk of the market. This is the biggest part. This is the mainstream property market. And this is where I think a lot of people who've been listening to the podcast over recent months might be going, where am I going wrong here? What's happening? Because you guys are saying how it's the easiest time ever to get a deal, but I'm not finding it easy to do deals at all. I'm going in there, I'm making my cheeky offers, and I'm just getting shut down. So if that is your experience, then you're not doing anything wrong.

6:02There is data to back up the fact that actually it is surprisingly difficult to do a deal in this market, at least if you look at this through the lens of the data that we've got around average discounts. So Zoopla publishes monthly data which includes the average discount to asking price. And that average discount has been falling over the last couple of years, which really surprised me when I saw this data. so the peak for getting a discount according to this data was November of 2023 that was its five year peak on average people were securing a 5.5 discount from asking price by March 24 that had fallen to 3.9 by the end of 2024 it fallen to 3.6 and now latest data we've got the first quarter of 2026 it fallen to three and a half percent like I say Rob that really shocks me because sentiment has got worse.

6:51The market feels like it's got worse. And yet the average discount that people are achieving has shrunk. It has. And the reason I think it took us so long to see this is because our average discount has been going up. So with PropertyUp Invest, we negotiate deals. And it's super fascinating to me that the data that we've just shared with you flies in the face of the reality that we're experiencing. But there is a reason for this. And this is the obvious point that I'd missed until very recently, which is that people are just sitting on their properties. They're not cutting their prices down. They're not going, okay, well, sentiment's bad, so I'm going to slash 10 % off.

7:31People are just sitting tight. And the market is slow. Transactions are down. So the market isn't moving because everyone just seems, well, the majority of people, not everyone, but the majority of people are happy to just wait, wait and see. Because while sentiment is really bad and people are feeling gloomy it's not horrific it's not like people are being forced to sell historically interest rates are really low so again a lot of people are not under financial pressures to move on it's just life choices for the majority again i'm talking in there'll always be exceptions right when i talk throughout this podcast but in general that is what's happening here.

8:11But for the discount levels to be falling and now be at the lowest they've been for a long time is crazy. Now, there are motivated sellers. So if you're thinking, oh, great, what am I going to do? You're telling me to get a good deal here. What am I going to do? Well, we're going to give you two other paths which are far more effective. So don't worry. But if you want to go down this path, then you need to really work hard to find those motivated sellers. Because while the majority are fine and are happy just to wait it out there are some people in that pool who are motivated and that's where good conversations with your local estate agents understanding like who's under pressure to sell who really wants to get a deal done put yourself in a position where you can move quickly so remember if they are motivated you need to show that you're going to be the best option for them it is still possible but this is what we've missed that actually if you're fishing in this pool a pool that we don't fish in then it is tricky and the data shows that which is again we said it it's even though we know it it still is bonkers to me that it's gone that way but that's the fact so that is one way you can do it by looking for motivated sellers showing you're in a really strong position working with your local agents to help them understand that you're the best choice for a motivated seller but just going out into the market seeing a property you like and then offering 10 % less probably isn't going to work if you go down this route but as alluded to there are two much easier ways to get yourself a deal in this market yeah exactly in the main market you're looking for those exceptions you have to really dig deep to find the ones that are motivated and they are there like you say rob and because the market is so slow the type of deal that you could be doing with those motivated few is drastically better than it would have been a few years ago but there is a whole separate market where that exception is the rule where you can be virtually guaranteed that every seller is motivated and that is auctions so you only put a property in auction if you need to get shot of it fast.

10:27Auction is not how you maximize your sale price. An auction is how you get shot of something quickly and with relative certainty. So that's why auctions can be a really good hunting ground if you do have this mindset of like, right, the market is not good. I want to take advantage. And previously we had some data that was very unexpected. Now we've got some data which is very expected, which is that the volume of stock coming to auction has been increasing. So there is a great number of people who are coming under pressure who do need to sell quickly and they are naturally turning to auction. So 2025 was a record year for the number of lots coming to auction and over£5.8 billion raised at auction and the figures for the early part of 2026 suggest that this is going to be another record setting year.

11:09Now the interesting thing about auctions is that not everything sells. This pattern's actually been pretty consistent across time. Roughly 68-72 % of properties at auction end up selling so that of course, means that about a third of what comes to auction doesn't sell. And there are even outliers among that. There's one particular London auction at the end of March where only 36 % of stock was sold. So two thirds didn't get a bid. Now that, of course, very particular because London, its own market, end of March, there are a couple of things going on at that point. But the point is, Rob, that this throws up opportunity.

11:42There's an opportunity in the room to get a deal done, but also for one and three that don't sell, anyone who's put their property into auction, then it didn't sell well it's hard to imagine someone who'd be more open to an offer at that point the opportunities with auction are really interesting and rob you mentioned london and i think london is probably the strongest opportunity because it's the weakest market right now i was at a site last week beautiful site it's a multi-phase site really really impressive two beds on this development were north of 400 000 they'd only completed in the last year or two so in really good condition but there was an auction property there for another two bet and the auction property showed that they had offers in so what happened with auction properties is that they'll invite offers before it goes to auction not all the time but a lot of the time that will happen and then if a number isn't achieved it then could end up going to a full auction and the offers that they were inviting were around the 290 level so you had owner occupiers in group one who were sitting on their properties waiting for it to be sold at over 400 ,000 pounds.

12:51This property wasn't on the lower basement looking at the bins. This was on the top floor. So the auction property was lovely, really, really nice. But they were inviting written offers in around the 290 level, but everyone else is trying to achieve over 400 ,000 pounds for that same property. Now, where's the market value with that property? It's hard to say. It probably isn't with current sentiment, that£400 ,000 to£450 ,000. But it also isn't as low as£290 ,000. That is a phenomenal, at least potentially, a phenomenal deal because it's a suppressed market. You've got lots of other sales in that development that have sold for much, much more.

13:33And it's this unique opportunity to get what is a lovely apartment, one of the better ones in the block, for potentially around£290 ,000. thousand pounds the yield at that level as you can imagine works really well also i'm not going to put the link into podcast because the bidder not go up probably to 400 thousand pounds for everybody listening but the point is it exists and more of these exist in the london market now you can absolutely deploy this strategy in other regions as well so if you're targeting the northwest yorkshire midlands which are at the moment stronger areas then you still will be able to do a deal maybe not the sort of phenomenal numbers i've just discussed but that is a huge disparity in pricing and potentially a huge opportunity for a switched on investor i think what people find tricky about auctions though is being able to tell an opportunity like that from a trap and it is really hard to know the difference so you've got to be careful if you're going into auction the absolute key thing to remember about an auction and the thing that will keep you safe if you embed this in your brain is that there is always a reason that a property has gone to auction.

14:41Like I said earlier, it's not where you go to maximise your sale price. So if it's there, there is a reason and it's your job to find the reason. Because it can be that the seller is just particularly motivated. They've got some personal circumstance that means they need to get rid and they need to do it quickly and that is how they get their certainty. But it can also be that there's something wrong with the property. There's some kind of problem, which means if they put it on the open market, maybe an owner-occupier gets interested in it, they start going through the conveyancing process and this issue emerges buyers are going to walk away they're either not going to be able to get finance or they're going to be put off because they just don't want to deal with this so if you haven't found out what the reason is then don't bid because that puts you in a very dangerous position so it's motivation great no problem it might be that there is a problem but it's a problem that you can deal with so you see this a lot with flats that have got cladding issues at the moment so i'm coming across all the time flats where i know the block pretty well i know what they'd normally go for but anything being sold now you could easily get 20 30 percent less because these are people who have to sell for some personal circumstance reason but because of the ongoing cladding issue they can't because a buyer is not going to be able to get a mortgage but if you understand the situation you look into it you know what the cladding remediation is going to cost you know how long it's going to take that you could buy that property at auction with cash wait for the problem to be solved you've priced in whatever you'll be charged for that to happen and then boom suddenly you've got a mortgageable property that's worth 20 30 percent more so just because there is a problem with a property at auction doesn't mean that it's a no-go but you need to know what the problem is you need to be able to finance it whether that's with cash or bridging or something else and it needs to be worth your while so all sounds great all sounds very exciting but it's also a bit risky and it's a lot of hard work so is it worth it by the end of that process all that being said though Rob if you are looking for a deal in this market you want to take advantage then at least with auctions you're not looking for a needle in a haystack like you are with the general market the auctions are a haystack made of needles or something I didn't think that through before I started saying it but you know what I mean I think the technical way of saying this is you can't half-arse it you can't just turn up to an auction start waving around your hand and picking up what you think is a great deal you need to be disciplined you need to be professional you need to treat it professionally and you can absolutely get yourself a great deal in this market using this method and people think that auctions are always a great place to get a great deal but that isn't true but at the moment you can but you cannot now get excited listening to this and go i'm gonna get myself a great deal off i go and turn up in an auction next week you're not ready if you've never done it before you will not be ready for an auction in a few weeks time highly unlikely anyway you need to really get your head around it but once you do it is absolutely possible but let's talk about the third method and it's the method that we've been using and that's why we have been saying on this podcast that you've got to be getting yourself a deal you've got to be working hard right now to make sure you maximize this opportunity because that's what we've been doing what we realized is that it's not as easy as we said because not everybody was going down the same path as us and that path being new build developers so why is it easy at the moment well they're under pressure nationwide and the data shows this all the house builders on the footsie are at 10 plus year lows remember we've had covid in the last 10 years also brexit the aftermath of that all the nervousness around it.

18:22Again, share prices were much higher than they are today. They are low for a reason though. And they're low because they are struggling and they need to make sales. FTSE developers can't say, oh, well, we'll take a year off. They still need to sell units. So they are under pressure. And we take full advantage of that in a way where we go in and say, right, it will take big amounts of units. So we've just done a big deal with a FTSE developer recently that was off plan and we were able to negotiate a 12 % discount off actual selling prices on that development plus a 5 % deposit. That's unheard of.

19:06If we'd asked for that just six months ago to say, can we put 5 % down on these? They would have laughed at us. Sometimes we have to really fight to get the 10%, which is what we normally do. But we're able to leverage our position where the market is right now and take full advantage of that. And it's not just massive developers who are in this position. Smaller or mid-sized developers, if they've started, they've got finance. So they're part of committed and finance, development finance is expensive. So they can't just wait it out. At least some of the sites they will need to sell, whether they've completed and they're just sitting on stock or they are in the build process and are nervous that they're not getting enough sales as they'd expected as they approach completion.

19:52So whatever way you look at it, whether you go small, medium, or big, anybody who's in the process of building a new development or has completed on a new development and still has stock left, there is a huge opportunity there for you. Now we take full advantage by doing volume. So we'll take 20 30 40 50 80 sometimes up to 200 units if it's right with property hub invest and one of the ways you could do this as well is to work with property hub invest but this isn't an advert you know property exists already actually it's an anti-advert because the market is the way it is right now you might be able to go in and get yourself a deal if you just buy a handful like if you can get a few people together buy four properties i think you'd be able to get yourself a good deal i really really do now you can just use us if you want you don't have to do it on hard mode but if you really just don't like the idea of working with a company you can do it yourself as well the opportunities are there i really think it's a fascinating market at the moment and our discount ranges are sort of 12 and these aren't our faster prices this is off actually what they're worth because we assess what it's worth and we look at sold prices and do our research and that's how we come to the discount levels.

21:06But the discount off true market value, we're seeing between 12 % and 17%. 18 months ago, it was 8%. It's moved so much. And remember, an extra 4 % or 5 % is a lot of money on property because we're not buying clothes. So an extra 5 % off on a jumper, yeah, it's nice, but it's not going to be meaningful. 5 % off a property is a lot of money. That's where we're at at the moment, where the discount levels are just much higher at the moment than we've ever had. Actually, the highest they've been in the last 10 years, because the market allows us. The developers aren't being generous to us. They need you, our investors, to keep investing because they need sales.

21:51And we've got lots of switched on investors who are working with us at Property of Invest. So that is how we're doing it. And that's, if you want, a way you could do it too. And what you were just saying, Rob, I think is why we get so passionate and start banging the table and going, you must get a deal because the numbers are big. So if you say that the average landlord purchase is what, around about£250 ,000, obviously a lot of people will be paying less in the South East, if it's up in premium, it's going to be more. But if you just take that as an average, then an extra 5%, which is what we said that we are doing over and above the discount that we were previously negotiating, is£12 ,500.

22:24£12 ,500. So yeah, it's really easy to, oh, I'm not so sure at the moment, oh, my mortgages are going to be a bit more expensive. But because of that, because people like you are having those doubts, that's why the opportunity exists. So by the time mortgage rates have come down a little bit more, by the time people are feeling more confident and you don't have to be so brave, well, that 12 and a half grand has just evaporated. It's being created by a moment in time. So we see this very clearly with what we do. So don't switch off to this part of the market, because as we just said, it's all about motivation and developers are motivated.

22:56they have to sell this is probably the easiest part of the market to do a deal in now this doesn't have to be flats if you're completely opposed to anything leasehold that's fine i don't agree but that's fine new builds are not just flats we did a deal on houses just last week they're out there but if that really isn't your thing then we've talked about auctions if auctions are a bit scary then you've still got the general market where you do have to work the hardest but the opportunities are there the point is through all these different parts of the market it is possible but it's not always going to be possible.

23:26So do it. The majority of people, this is this, won't be using property of invest. That's the truth. The majority won't. And we are super cool with that. What we want is you just to do it. If you are in a position to invest and you're just waiting it out, you are missing out. It's such a unique time. It's such an interesting market. if you think the market might dip 5 to 10 percent if you have that view of the market like let's just say you think it's so bad that it is going to fall by a bit well if you're getting 10 plus percent discount which you should be in this market then you're protecting against that fall anyway so even if the worst happened you're still protected you're okay you minimize that downside by getting yourself a great deal but by getting your great deal as well it's not just that the pound note saving you'll make you're enhancing your yield because the yield will be better as well because you bought at a lower price the rent's not going to be discounted so you get that as well there are so many reasons to do it but fear is not a reason not to take advantage of it use the open market use her auctions do a developer deal by yourself work with property investment you have four different ways of doing it just do it please please if you are in a position to move, don't miss the biggest discounts we're seeing in over 10 years.

24:49That is the message. There is lots of ways to approach it. All of them can be super effective. The worst approach is sitting out and waiting for a strong market because you will not be getting a great deal then. A few of these avenues we've discussed will be shut off. Now is the time if you are in a position to invest to get over your fears and see what is possible because there are some amazing deals out there right now and i just do not want you to miss out all right before we finish let's squeeze in hub extra that part of the show where we bring you a little bit more a resource a tip something to make your life a little bit better um rob i'm worried i'm worried because i've got to get the train up to manchester in a few days and the wi-fi on those trains is terrible it's not even worth trying in the past.

25:34I've just been at peace with that and had a bit of a nap. But that's a couple of hours when I can't be using AI. I don't know how I'm going to cope. Have you got anything that can help me? Well, I don't actually want you to be deprived of your nap, Rob, because I think it's important. It's a nice thing to do. But if you insist, I will try and help. I've recently, in the last week in AI, that's quite a long time, I've downloaded AI locally onto my phone. So what do I mean by that? Well, when it's on your phone directly, you do not need Wi-Fi. You do not need a signal. You have an AI engine on your phone.

26:09And the reason I've done it recently is a few months ago, this would not be possible. The models, the AI models that you use, so a model is Gemini, for example, or Claude. They are models. They are LLMs. They have been too big for it to go on your phone, but there are now more and more models that are built just for this purpose, just to sit on your phone. Google have one. It's called Gemma. Confusing because it sounds like Gemini, which is their main one. So you can use Gemma, but there are others there as well. There are different apps you can use to do this. Of course, if you want to view them all, ask your AI model of choice which apps are available.

26:45The one I've used, which is completely free, is called Locally AI. And I've used it recently. When I was offline, I was on a flight, worked perfectly well. So I have it a search engine on your phone or having a mini AI model on your phone. If you're working, going between places where Wi-Fi is a bit unpredictable, like a plane or a train, is really, really cool. This is only going to get better, but if you want to be one of the first movers on this to see what's possible, get yourself an app. Locally AI is one of them. There are others out there. You can do a search. But even if just to play around to see of what it can do right now, I think is worthwhile doing.

27:25I really do believe that it's in your interest to stay ahead with AI. And Rob and I are working very hard to achieve that. Things are moving very fast. But again, we want to share things with you to keep you ahead. And hopefully this will. From online on the internet to offline on your phone, it feels like a small leap from there to a chip embedded in your brain. And I'm there for it. Cut me open. I'm in. I'm semi-joking. It's very exciting how fast things are moving. That is us done. Thank you for listening. Go get yourself a deal. We told you how to do it. If you want our help doing it, go to propertyhub.net slash invest.

27:58You can book a call there. Otherwise, go off, do it yourself. Have a great week and we'll see you back here next Thursday. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.