Your 2026 property success - Pt 1: Where are you now?

0:02Happy New Year everyone. Welcome to your 2026. We're going to make it your best ever year in property. And to start with, we're resharing a four-part series that we first heard a couple of years ago, which we've designed to set you up for maximum success.

0:23Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. If you're new here, this is your first episode. you've picked a great place to start. We've been presenting this podcast for over 10 years and behind the podcast we run a business called Property Hub Invest that's certainly not for everyone. We're not going to push it on you but it helps a select group of people build their property portfolios. So we spent all day every day for a very long time immersed in property and over that time we've seen a lot of people trying to get started. Some of them extremely successfully, some of them not quite so much so.

0:53So in this series we're putting together the steps that we believe you should follow if you're new to property, or even if you've been in it for a while, you've made a start, but you want to go further, this could be a reset for you. So we're going to start in this first part with looking at where you are now. Kind of makes sense, right? If you're going on a journey, you need to know where you're starting from. You do. And it's not as straightforward as it seems because you probably think, of course I know where I'm starting from. Well, let's see if you do. The first thing you have to explore is your situation.

1:25Take the time to have a think about this and go through this process. So what is your situation? And it starts with the financial. So the basic things are, how much do you have in savings? So how much have you got? What's the initial pot that you're working with? How much debt do you currently have? Because if you have bad debt, and there is a difference between good debt and bad debt, we'll come on to it, then you need to get rid of that bad debt. In most circumstances, the best financial decision you can make is to pay down your debt because debt is normally expensive. Now that does not include your mortgage.

2:01A mortgage, particularly on buy to let's, is classed as a good debt and that needs to be assessed as well which is the next thing you need to look at is what assets do you have? So do you have any properties already? You should know the answer to that. When you look at that, look at the equity in those properties. And this can be included for your own home as well. So look at the properties you own and look at the equity available. Now, how much equity do you have? Well, normally on a buy-to-let, you can get a mortgage of up to 75%. You can go beyond that, but the rates get expensive. So look at the value of your buy-to-lets and then look at how much mortgage you've got left to pay on them.

2:40And if the value of those buy-to-lets has gone up, then you may find that you've got more equity. That's equity that you might be able to use to expand your portfolio. You may also own your own home and if you own your own home you may have equity in that as well. Now it's a big decision whether you use equity from your own home to invest. It's not one you should take lightly, you should speak to an expert before doing so and have a very good plan in place. Now we're going to help you on the podcast to put that plan in place but even listening to the podcast is probably not enough. You want to speak to somebody who's been there, who's done it, who can guide you through that process.

3:15But it's still important to know if it's possible. So check out how much equity you have at your disposal in your own home as well. And then finally on the financial, if you have any big expenditures coming up, make note of that. So if you're getting married or somebody in your family is getting married and you're putting money towards it, then that's a cost you need to note down. But also if you're expecting any bonuses, make a note of that. So that's the finance side, and that's pretty easy to do. Hopefully, most of you will be able to rattle through that in a short space of time. The equity piece might take a little bit of time, but once you've done it, it's fine.

3:47The big mistake I see a lot of people making is that they stop with just the financial. It's really important that you understand your personal situation and your set of skills. Exactly, because the money is just one of three ingredients that you need to invest in property, or invest in anything, in fact. because you need cash, you need time, and you need skills or expertise. And depending on the balance that you have of those, that's going to guide you down different paths. So it's important to be really honest with yourself. And no one, by the way, is strong on all three. It just doesn't happen.

4:22So there will always be a limiting factor. And by knowing what that is, you can then set your strategy accordingly. So for example, what kind of skills and knowledge do you have? If you work in the trades and you've got loads of experience of being hands-on in property, well, that's great. it would probably make sense if you make use of that in some way when you're investing because that's a skill set that most people won't have. If you don't, that's fine. Most people don't. Rob and I absolutely don't and there are strategies where that's not necessary. So it's just important to be aware. Do you have that skill or not?

4:52If you don't, maybe you don't want to be going out and buying somewhere with a plan to rip it back to brick, not for your first project at least. But the big one, the one limit that everyone has to some degree or another is time. And this is where people make mistakes the most often. Because you might be complaining about how busy you are at work. You might be complaining about how little time you have for your hobbies, fitting it around the family and everything else. But then for some reason, you convince yourself that you can get involved in property, buy a student property, two hours drive away, manage it yourself, do a quick refurb on it before you get started.

5:24For some reason, the laws of time just go out the window. And I can see why it happens. Because if you're interested enough in property to listen to this, chances are you've been talking to people who are in property already and what they're doing. sounds great. Maybe you've even been seeing adverts in your social media feed and they'll be showing you all this stuff that looks fantastic. But you need to be honest with yourself. How much time do you have to commit to property? And this is something you need to ask yourself, even if you're not new, even if you've been in property for a while. Be honest with yourself.

5:51Are the plans that you set yourself back at the start really achievable knowing what you now know? Or maybe you've got more time than you thought and you can get more hands on. It works both ways. But like Rob said, it's not just about the financials, your skills and most importantly, your time also need to be part of this audit. Property Hub Invest is our business that sits behind the podcast and it's not for everyone. But if you're short of time and you want someone to help you build your portfolio using the same strategy that we talk about on this podcast, then it could just be for you. And it's how I've acquired all my properties for years now.

6:23The great news is you can find out if it's right for you by sitting down for a completely free one-on-one strategy meeting with a member of our team. So at the very least, you'll go away with way more knowledge and it would have cost you nothing at all. You can find out more and book that in by going to propertyhub.net slash invest.

6:41So hopefully after completing those steps, you feel that you're in a place that you can make a property investment this year. And if you can, fantastic, great use. But you are talking about having tens of thousands of pounds as a minimum to get going and will absolutely help you get going in this series. But what if you're listening to this and you're not in a fortunate position where you have that cash ready to go either through equity or through savings. Now while that's frustrating it doesn't mean that you should give up. No far from it you should put a plan in this year to get yourself into that position and that comes down to doing the finance basics and you need to be looking at budgeting, looking at how much you're spending each and every month and getting some basic financial systems in place.

7:28so start with the obvious stuff go through all your bills are you on the best phone bill internet bill sky bill if you've got sky do you need all those things that you have as well if you have netflix amazon prime apple tv do you have to have them all now just cutting one of them out isn't going to suddenly make you a property investor but it's these habits of being really careful with your spending that can help start to build that pot up once you've assessed all your bills and you know how much you make each month you should begin to see if you've got a surplus or a deficit hopefully it's a surplus that means you've got a bit left at the end of each month if you find that you run out a month when it comes to your money and you're going into further debt you need to find a way to cut your costs down even further to stop that trend you need to reverse that trend and get back in the positive each and every month.

8:25And when you then know what sort of positive amount you can get each month, pay yourself first. This is something that's talked about in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it's a really good habit to get into. But if you know that if you're disciplined, at the end of the month you should have£400 available, then brilliant. At the beginning of each month, take that, put it in direct debit, and send it off to another savings account that you can't touch. then you've got the rest of the month to live on the money that you have that you know is enough if you're disciplined that practice alone could mean that you become a property investor in the next few years it could make a huge change so it's just going through the finance basics now there are loads of blogs youtube videos podcasts out there that talk about personal finance and you can go into a wonderful world there and get even more tips but i think it's important to understand is that there's people out there who will try and sell you courses that say, oh, you can invest in property with little or no money.

9:27The reason they're selling courses is because it's either hard or impossible. Don't fall for it. You need capital to be able to invest. That's how it works, right? To invest, you need money. So get your finances in a really good place so you can become a property investor. So this first part was all about planning. And as you've then it's not as trivial as it might sound. It's not just a case of glancing at your bank account and thinking, well, am I good to go or not? There's more to be done on the financial side, as Rob's run through, but then you've also got to consider the skills that you're bringing to it and the time that you have to dedicate.

10:01And throughout this process, be honest with yourself. And it's hard to be honest with yourself. It's hard for all of us. So if you've got a friend who's either also looking to get started or, even better, has got some experience already, go through this exercise with each other, as much as your financials as you're willing to share anyway because they might be able to point out things that you've missed or say are you sure you'll be able to do that in a friendly way of course so once you know where you're starting from you then need to go where you're going so that's what we're going to be talking about in the second episode setting goals making a plan so if you haven't already make sure that you are subscribed to this podcast you can easily do that in apple podcast spotify or wherever you listen make sure that episode gets downloaded to your device automatically if you can't wait till then we've got a YouTube channel for you to explore as well.

10:43Just search Property Hub on YouTube and make sure you're signed up for our free weekly newsletter, Property Pulse. Because if you're going to make your best year yet, you need to know what's going on in the market. We bring that to you every Friday for free in a roundup you can read in just a few minutes. So you can sign up to that one at propertyhub.net slash pulse. So until we see you next, enjoy your planning and we'll see you soon.