The Property Podcast

When we refer to a property super-geek you may think that we’re referring to the number one Property Geek, Rob D.  But it seems that there’s someone else who is just as excited by tech and property, and that’s Chris Ryder.  You may remember Chris from a few weeks ago when The Robs interviewed him about his serviced accommodation business and how it was coping during lockdown. Well, he’s joining Rob & Rob again this week to talk about all things tech in property.  Before getting involved in property Chris was in a good corporate career that centered around software development. Chris has since gone on to deploy different apps and systems into the day-to-day management of his business. So, naturally Rob & Rob couldn’t resist doubling down and getting unashamedly geeky about property and tech. Tune in to find out how these apps have changed the way in which Chris manages his portfolio. You may pick up a few tips for yourself if you self-manage your properties or you’re thinking about doing it.    Over the past few months we've shared a number of news stories around mortgage products and how much they’ve changed, particularly during lockdown. The long term trend with mortgages and rates was downward, and even with interest rates going up, mortgage rates were still low because everyone was competing for business.  Now, it seems that’s been flipped on its head. There’s plenty of people now seeking a mortgage but the rates aren’t particularly attractive. One broker Rob D spoke to recently even said that some lenders are currently putting their rates up because they wanted to become less competitive!  Lenders are actually struggling with their workload so much that they want to put people off from applying for a new mortgage with them. Absolute madness!    We’ve got another two resources for you for this week’s Hub Extra. Naturally they’re related to what Chris has talked about on this week’s episode, and they’re both helpful with connecting different pieces of technology together to do cool automated stuff for you. The first is called ‘if this, then that’ which allows you to connect different tools together and it’s pretty cool in the way that it works, just have a look at the website. The second tool is called ‘Zapier’ which is basically the same thing but a little bit more techy and more for connecting ‘small business’ kind of software.   We’d love to hear what you think of this week’s Property Podcast over on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You might even have a topic you’d like us to cover in the future - if so, pop us a message on social and we’ll see what we can do. Make sure you’ve liked and subscribed to our YouTube channel where we upload new content every week!  If that wasn’t enough, you can also join our friendly property community on the Property Hub forum.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on Ask Rob & Rob we’ve got two great questions around location and using the bounceback loan scheme to fund your deposit. Is it a good idea? It seems a number of people are turning their head towards Liverpool for investing in property right now, and this week we’ve got another question regarding properties in the area. So let’s get to it. The first question is from Mohammad. He’s recently acquired £50,000 from the bounceback loan scheme through his limited company and he’s now wanting to know if he can use this money as a deposit for a buy-to-let property?  There’s been a bit of confusion and uncertainty around this topic as it’s not really been clear as to whether you can use the bounceback loan as a deposit.  So, do The Robs think it’s alright to use the loan as a deposit or do they think Mohammad should reconsider? Our second caller of the week is Harry from Bristol. He’s asking if £70,000 is too cheap to purchase a decent property in Liverpool?  If Rob & Rob think it’s too low, Harry wants to know what they think would be the minimum they’d pay for a property in this location. Naturally, there was only one Rob to take on this question, so it’s over to Rob B to answer this one. Does Rob B think that Harry should be looking at paying more than £70,000 to get himself a good investment property?  Tune in to find out.   Do you have a buy to let or property investment related question for Rob & Rob? You could feature on the next episode by giving us a call on 013 808 00035 and leaving a message with your name and question (normal UK call rates apply).  Or if you prefer, click here to leave a recording via your computer instead. The next question on Ask Rob & Rob could be yours.  Have you joined us over on the Property Hub Forum yet? Our online community is friendly, informative, and the members are waiting to welcome you with open arms. So get yourself over and introduce yourself.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Property Podcast The Robs are discussing the importance of knowing what mega trends are currently playing out in the property market.  Yes, it’s important to know the tactics behind becoming a successful investor, how to get the best deal and understanding mortgages. But it’s just as important, if not more important, to understand the mega trends that are taking place. Because if you don’t understand the trends, you could find yourself on the wrong side of very powerful forces.  So today Rob & Rob are going to take you through trends that could happen, so you can put yourself in the strongest position going forward.  Here’s a look at the trends that they’re going to cover: Reversal of city centre living UK becoming less London-centric  More home-working  Death of retail More holidays in the UK “Peak HMO” If these aren’t topics that you’ve thought about already, then you’re going to want to listen to this episode. These particular trends are some that could happen off the back of a crazy start to 2020, so The Robs are taking a look at how they might affect property investment in the future.    In the news this week there’s been more bad news and mixed messages. But we’ve actually got a good news story for the property market; ‘asking prices reach four-year high’ according to Rightmove.  Which seems crazy right now with everything currently going on but since March average asking prices have grown 2.4% bringing the price up to £320,265. It seems like the confidence and optimism has swept across the country with other areas seeing even bigger increases than this.   This week’s Hub isn’t a new resource or a new app, it’s actually something that’s been around for a while but only recently have The Robs become fond of it. The app in question is Google Photos.  If you don’t know what it is, it’s basically storage for your photos that are backed up in a cloud for a minimal fee each month. But there’s two reasons why Rob & Rob are fascinated with this app. The first being that it has a great search function, so if you’ve taken a picture of a book and you can only remember the author’s name, simply type that in and Google Photos should bring up the photo that you’re looking for. The second is that you can use something called Google Lens within your photos. So like Rob D, he took a picture of some flowers and by using Google Lens, it told him exactly what type of flowers they were! You’ll basically hear how exciting The Robs find this one.    We’d love to hear what you think of this week’s Property Podcast over on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You might even have a topic you’d like us to cover in the future - if so, pop us a message on social and we’ll see what we can do. Make sure you’ve liked and subscribed to our YouTube channel where we upload new content every week!  If that wasn’t enough, you can also join our friendly property community on the Property Hub forum.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on Ask Rob & Rob, the guys are helping one caller up his location knowledge and explaining why buying with a mortgage is the better option. First up this week is Chris from London. He’s been talking to another investor about a property in Bootle, Liverpool.  However this investor has informed Chris that the street isn’t exactly the best or the most desirable in the area and that he should look elsewhere.  So now Chris is wondering if house prices can really differ that much street by street and with being based down south, how can he gain local property knowledge in different locations?  Naturally this question was made for Rob B so what does he recommend Chris do to improve his location knowledge?  Next up we’ve got Marlon who’s looking to find out what the benefits are of buying with a mortgage as opposed to purchasing in cash if you’re able to? His reason for asking is that he’s got 60% of the property purchase price and the oher 40% will be loaned to him by a family member, which he will go on to pay back like a mortgage, but without any interest and at a more flexible rate.  If you’ve been thinking about purchasing in cash, you’ll probably want to listen to this episode first, along with this podcast episode and take this course.  Enjoy!   Do you have a buy to let or property investment related question for Rob & Rob? You could feature on the next episode by giving us a call on 013 808 00035 and leaving a message with your name and question (normal UK call rates apply).  Or if you prefer, click here to leave a recording via your computer instead. The next question on Ask Rob & Rob could be yours.  Have you joined us over on the Property Hub Forum yet? Our online community is friendly, informative, and the members are waiting to welcome you with open arms. So get yourself over and introduce yourself.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of weeks ago The Robs interviewed serviced accommodation specialist Chris Ryder to find out how the coronavirus had affected his business. Well now they’re back this week with another guest, Natalie Gascoyne who’s going to talk us through how she handled renovating two major projects through lockdown.  Natalie is the owner of Davis Properties and she’s no stranger to tackling plain BTL’s and HMO’s. At the moment she’s currently working two commercial-to-residential conversions and we’re keen to find out how those have been affected by what’s currently going on. When COVID-19 first hit, Natalie was due to exchange on two properties, so rather than pulling out completely and losing thousands that she’d already invested, she decided to delay the process.  Unfortunately, one project was delayed further with another party member pulling out, however, on the other property she managed to bag a £30,000 saving!  How? You’ll have to tune in and listen to the rest of Natalie’s story... We don’t often talk about commercial-to-residential projects on the podcast as it’s never really been a strategy we’ve advised investors to do.  But Natalie seems to have quite a good strategy in terms of the kind of properties she looks for and the areas that she sources them in.  It’s certainly not the kind of project for the faint hearted and you’ve definitely got to be able to envision the end product to take something like this on.  So who knows, after hearing about Natalie’s journey and strategy, maybe this could be something to consider for your next purchase.    In the news this week, it seems like the rest of Great Britain weren’t too pleased when England received a stamp duty holiday. Now it seems that Scotland and Wales have jumped on the bandwagon and are also offering a stamp duty holiday up to £250,000. However they are slightly different… In Scotland investors still have to pay the surcharge which is 4% and in Wales you have to pay the surcharge and property investors are exempt from the stamp duty holiday. So some good news across the country, even if investors won’t 100% benefit from it.   This week’s Hub Extra it’s a book that Rob D is already calling his book of the year! So you know it’s got to be good. It’s called ‘A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner’ by Chris Atkins. He’s more commonly known as a documentary filmmaker who got caught up in a tax avoidance scheme to do with the film industry and ended up getting sentenced to five years in prison!  The book is based on the diaries he wrote whilst in prison and it gives you a really good insight as to what prison life is really like and hopefully it will be the only experience you’ll ever have.   We’d love to hear what you think of this week’s Property Podcast over on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You might even have a topic you’d like us to cover in the future - if so, pop us a message on social and we’ll see what we can do. Make sure you’ve liked and subscribed to our YouTube channel where we upload new content every week!  If that wasn’t enough, you can also join our friendly property community on the Property Hub forum.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on Ask Rob & Rob, the guys are discussing what one caller should do with the property she hates, and what the new electrical regulations mean. Our first caller this week is Nancy. She’s a GP who's taken a step into the world of property investment.  Nancy owns a property that’s located about 15 minutes away from Liverpool Football Club. It’s a property that’s performing well, however it’s a serviced accommodation property which she’s now come to realise she hates.  Between the hours that Nancy puts in at the GP surgery as well as doing private consultations, she’s found that the amount of time the property requires and what she gets back from it, really isn’t worth it.  So now she’s questioning if she should just sell the property or whether she should keep it and outsource a company to manage the property for her.  The second caller this week is Jake who, along with a friend, manage a few properties in a portfolio that they own.  They’ve been looking into the new EICR rules that came into play on the 1st July. From what they’ve found, it looks as if you had to have new EICRs done before this date, regardless of whether you’ve had them done previously or not, to make sure you’re compliant with the regulations.  So, do you need to have brand new electrical certificates in place or do previous ones still uphold the regulations?  Tune in to find out.   Do you have a buy to let or property investment related question for Rob & Rob? You could feature on the next episode by giving us a call on 013 808 00035 and leaving a message with your name and question (normal UK call rates apply).  Or if you prefer, click here to leave a recording via your computer instead. The next question on Ask Rob & Rob could be yours.  Have you joined us over on the Property Hub Forum yet? Our online community is friendly, informative, and the members are waiting to welcome you with open arms. So get yourself over and introduce yourself.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back by popular demand, Rob & Rob have returned with a market update podcast!  Yes, we said goodbye to weekly updates BUT, we were inundated with requests to bring them back. So for now, we’ll be resurrecting them on a monthly basis so you can get your regular fix of the latest developments across the property sector.  Today they’re talking about the hot topic of the month: stamp duty. They’re covering the latest changes and what they mean for the property market now and in the long-term.   If you’re thinking ‘hang on - they’ve already covered this....’ - you’re right. They did recently cover it on this week’s episode of Ask Rob & Rob but today they’re delving deeper, and they’re also giving you their opinion on the latest market activity and of course, the rental market.  Trust us, if you’ve missed the Friday market updates, this is an episode you don’t want to miss!   In other news, it seems that not everyone is happy that the new stamp duty charges are applicable to everyone. The Shadow Housing Secretary says it’s a £1.3 billion bung for landlords. However they’ve not pointed out in the article that the 3% surcharge remains in place and where that tax increase came from in the first place.    This week’s Hub Extra is something of our very own and it’s sticking with the stamp duty topic. Ideally when you’re now looking at property prices you want to know how much you’ll be saving.  Well, we’ve put together an article that not only explains the stamp duty changes but there’s also a handy calculator in there too that you can use to work out just how much you’ll save on your next property purchase.   We’d love to hear what you think of this week’s Property Podcast over on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You might even have a topic you’d like us to cover in the future - if so, pop us a message on social and we’ll see what we can do.   Make sure you’ve liked and subscribed to our YouTube channel where we upload new content every week!  If that wasn’t enough, you can also join our friendly property community on the Property Hub forum.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week was a shocker, wasn’t it? It’s not often property investors are dealt nice little surprises from the UK government, so when Chancellor Rishi took to the stage last week and announced a stamp duty cut, we had a flurry of questions from Hubbers.  The Chancellor announced that (for England and Northern Ireland), the stamp duty threshold would now increase to £500,000 until March next year. So if you were buying a home to live in, up to this value, you’d have zero stamp duty to pay. The big question was - would this cut apply to property investors? And the answer was a surprising ‘hell yes!’ Before you run out the door, the 3% surcharge for additional properties is still there, but still, we’ll take any small wins that we can, right? We’ve explained it all in detail right here - and there’s a handy calculator that you can drop straight into your downloads folder and see how much cash you’re likely to save.  We’ve also had LOTS of questions from those who have exchanged on their properties but not yet completed.  So what’s the deal with this?  Do the new rules apply to you or not? Rob B gives us the run-down on this in today’s Ask Rob & Rob episode.  And if you’re sat there thinking… ‘These cuts are great, but what will this do to the property market in the short (and long) term…’ We’ve also got you covered on this episode.  And if that wasn’t enough, we’re bringing something back by popular demand. It’s coming this Thursday, so make sure you set your alarms for 6am! That’s a lot of excitement for a Tuesday. Happy listening! Do you have a buy to let or property investment related question for Rob & Rob? You could feature on the next episode by giving us a call on 013 808 00035 and leaving a message with your name and question (normal UK call rates apply).    Or if you prefer, click here to leave a recording via your computer instead. The next question on Ask Rob & Rob could be yours.  Have you joined us over on the Property Hub Forum yet? Our online community is friendly, informative, and the members are waiting to welcome you with open arms. So get yourself over and introduce yourself.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Robs have another special guest this week. This time it’s billionaire investor Stephen Schwarzman. Sadly, he’s too much of a big wig to actually be on the show so The Robs are going to be picking apart his book instead. You might never have heard of Stephen Schwarzman before, but after this podcast episode it’s certain to be a name you’ll remember.  After reading his book, Rob & Rob found that there are seven lessons that we can all learn from him.  Now, you might be thinking ‘how can I possibly relate to a billionaire investor when I’m just starting out?’ Well don’t worry, we promise that these seven lessons will be invaluable to you no matter what stage of your property journey you’re at. Here’s the seven lessons Stephen will be sharing with us: Failure is the best teacher in an organization The best executives are made, not born Identify problems and bring solutions How to raise money It's the same effort to work on a big thing as a small thing Group decision making Building a team of 10s There’s plenty to learn from today’s episode and it’s even a learning curve for Rob & Rob, so hopefully there will be a number of takeaways for you too.    In the news this week we’ve got a big headline for you, ‘PM pledges biggest planning shake-up since WW2’. Like usual, it’s a headline that’s been blown out of proportion, however if you are a developer or you build properties then this could be good news for you.  According to this article from Mortgage Strategy there are now going to be more things that you can do without having to acquire planning permission. Included in it are converting commercial premises to residential, demolishing an old home to replace it with a new one and if you want to extend or add floors there’s going to be a fast track method for that. So again not quite as drastic but certainly good news for some.    Naturally this week’s Hub Extra is the book that we’ve just dedicated this podcast episode to, What it Takes by Stephen Schwarzman. If you have any interest in business or investing then this is a book that you’ll enjoy, and there’s plenty more lessons that you’ll learn from it.   We’d love to hear what you think of this week’s Property Podcast over on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You might even have a topic you’d like us to cover in the future - if so, pop us a message on social and we’ll see what we can do. Make sure you’ve liked and subscribed to our YouTube channel where we upload new content every week!  If that wasn’t enough, you can also join our friendly property community on the Property Hub forum.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s Tuesday and Rob & Rob are back again to answer more of your questions. First up we have a question from Lauren. She’s a 23 year old graduate who is looking to get into property investment for the first time. At the moment Lauren is fully educating herself before she gets stuck in - good shout, Lauren! Her aim is to achieve capital growth as the market recovers from the coronavirus, with the aim of her and her brother affording deposits for their first personal houses in seven years time. Lauren currently has £126,000 and location-wise she’s looking at Birmingham for the capital growth prospects. So now she has two questions that she needs a bit of guidance on.  Should she purchase two more expensive properties with around a £50,000 deposit each, or should she choose quantity over quality and go for cheaper properties? She’d also like to know if she should buy these properties in one place or spread them out across the country? So, is it better to have more properties in your portfolio or have less of them but of a higher, more expensive quality?  Next we have Tom from Stanford who has a rather interesting question.  He says that just south of him is Peterborough where there are some cheap properties, although they are situated in less than prime areas. He’s noticed that the local council are advertising to take on private properties for a fixed 3-5 year income.  So Tom is now wondering if this is a viable option to gain a guaranteed income for at least three years and a long-term tenant? Do Rob & Rob think this would be a good strategy to sub-let to the council? Tune in to find out.    Do you have a buy to let or property investment related question for Rob & Rob? You could feature on the next episode by giving us a call on 013 808 00035 and leaving a message with your name and question (normal UK call rates apply).  Or if you prefer, click here to leave a recording via your computer instead. The next question on Ask Rob & Rob could be yours.  Have you joined us over on the Property Hub Forum yet? Our online community is friendly, informative, and the members are waiting to welcome you with open arms. So get yourself over and introduce yourself.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.