As you can imagine, producing a podcast each week is a major undertaking, and I have been producing one weekly now for 14 months, with a short break over Christmas last year.
As I write this, I am preparing to move my office, with a total of 10 staff to new premises down the road in Penzance, and at the same time taking on clients at a faster rate than ever before. Adding the office move into an already busy schedule means that I have been physically unable to prepare a new podcast this week. I should be back up and running next week, but over the next six weeks or so, I may need to resort to producing some encore sessions, delving back into the back catalogue to repeat some great sessions from the past year and a bit – I hope you don't mind. I have updated the top and the tail of the show, as you'll hear…
This week I am reviving one of the most popular sessions ever, a chat with Rob Bence and Rob Dix from the massively popular Property Podcast. The notes are below as always: thanks for being patient with me!
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Session Introduction
If I had a pound for everyone who has told me: “My property is my pension” I wouldn't need to work. Well, maybe. Property has a unique place in our hearts, and feels less like an investment than the ‘paper' assets I talked about in Session 10, like shares and gilts etc. Over the last 25 years or so, house prices have sky-rocketed. It's fair to say that this was an anomaly in the history of house prices, but there is a generation of investors who want to invest in property, but might not know how to do so.
So Rob Bence and Rob Dix are here to help us, so let's get into the interview. Now, obviously you'll get more by listening to the interview, but here are the notes:
What you need to know
PM: So guys, I'm thinking about investing in property – what do I need to know?
1. It’s not get rich quick
- Be wary of people who say it is
- Watch out for the sharks
- If it sounds too good to be true…
- To benefit from leverage (mortgage borrowing), you have to consider how comfortable you are taking on a long-term debt
PM: OK, so what are the different ways I can invest in property?
2. There are many different strategies to choose from – no right or wrong
- Buy-to-Let
- House with Multiple Occupancy – HMO
- Student lets
- Funds
- Refurbs
- Many many more
PM: Sounds straightforward enough. What's the catch?
3. There are risks
- Property prices can fall
- It’s not a liquid asset – can be difficult to sell property if you need to
- Tenants pay stop paying
You can outsource a lot, but it can never be 100% hands-off. You at least need to educate yourself enough to know if your team is doing a good job – it’s not like buying an index fund and sitting back. But, you can make a lot of money in the long term.
What you need to know
PM: OK, you've piqued my interest, what are my first steps?
1. Set a goal and create a plan
- Set a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed)
- Create a plan to hit that goal
- Work with someone to put that plan together
- Make sure your partner is on board with it
PM: But my goals need to be informed; how can I find out if my goals are SMART?
2. Educate yourself
- Books (Amazon affiliate links)
- Blogs
- Forums
- Social Media
- Experts
- Ignore acquaintances who have opinions even though they’ve never invested!
PM: Can I do everything myself, once I know what I'm doing?
3. Work with Experts
- Get referrals – solicitor, broker, agent, accountant
- Value your time
PM: I'm ready to crack on with building my property portfolio; any last thoughts?
4. Take action
- Don’t rush in, take your time and think it through
- It’s always going to be scary, but at some point you have to take the plunge and learn by doing
- You won’t get everything 100% right first time, but mistakes get sorted over the long-term, and you’ll be further ahead than if you’d never invested at all
PM: That's fantastic, thanks so much guys. How can people find out more about you and what you do?
Rob Dix:
Rob Bence:
The Property Podcast:
Summary
I hope you enjoyed that session from the archives! Rob and Rob are doing great work over on the Property Podcast and at their membership site, The Property Hub. Do check them out.
This week's reviews
[This is where I read out the reviews from the week]
If you like what you hear on this podcast, please leave a rating or review on iTunes by going to meaningfulmoney.tv/iTunes just like WrayRat, RoversFan, Speartackler and Godbod20 did this last week. This helps others to hear about the show and to subscribe, because it keeps me near the top of the rankings. You can just click the big red button below too:
News
We're cooking on gas on the weight loss now. Down another 3.5lbs this week down to 16st 7.5lbs. I'm two and a half weeks into the whole primal diet thing and it's going well. I've eaten more salad in the last 20 days than in the previous 20 years I think. Worth it though. Short term goal is to get below 16 stone in the next 7 weeks, when I go on holiday. Beach body here I come!
To date I have had 63 responses to the inaugural MeaningfulMoney listener survey. Thank you to all those who have responded. I'll keep it open for another week, so if you haven't yet taken the five minutes – no longer – that it will take to do it, here's the link: http://mful.tv/MMtv2014. The findings will likely be the subject of an imminent session.
One of the questions on the survey was about which financial issues you are struggling with, and the second highest answer was about setting up and sticking to a budget. I am in the progress of setting up a course on budgeting over at learnhowtobudget.com. There is only a holding page there at the moment, but I am hoping to launch in September. If you're interested in being kept informed then sign up with your name and email address on the site.
I'm planning that it will be a series of live webinars where I will take you through the steps you need to take to set up the budget and then refine it as you get better at it. You'll be able to ask questions live on the webinars and they will be recorded for you to go back over. There'll be a workbook and a Q&A section on the site and lots more besides. The first course will be limited availability and at a low cost as the early adopters will help me shape the thing for the future. Watch this space for more on that, but head over to learnhowtobudget.com and signup to be kept informed.
Next Session Announcement
Next time I'm going to be talking to Martin Bamford, a friend of mine who lost 70lbs on the same diet that I am now on. While this isn't a weight loss/fitness podcast, Martin can teach us all something about sticking with our goals, so let's call this a mid-year goals update. For the session on goal setting at the beginning of the year, you need to listen back to Session 42.
If you have a question for Martin or me on goal setting and fighting your way through when motivation is lacking, or any other financial query that you want answering here on the show, then the best way to do that is to leave me a voicemail at meaningfulmoney.tv/askpete
Outro
That's it for this session of the MM podcast, I hope it was helpful. If I missed anything or if you have any questions, please leave them comments section below.
I hope you enjoyed this session. Thanks for listening – I'll talk to you next time.
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