How Property Changed My Life
Welcome to the first episode of the Simon Smith Show.
For those of you who know me, you will know that over the last two or three years I have gone through a huge transition, and changed my life through property. Through this podcast I want to showcase my journey and share my knowledge of property investment, along with creative cashflow strategies.
I had a steep learning curve, and to be honest, I have made mistakes, done things the wrong way around and had to get very creative as I continued to run out of funds to invest. I’ve spent countless hours researching and testing creative ways to invest in property. As I delved deeper into this world I noticed that there were not enough positive role models of my generation and background, I hope I can change that through this podcast.
This journey has completely changed my life and my family’s, and I hope by sharing my journey I can make a positive impact on your life too.
In this episode you will learn
More about me and why I got into property.
Why I have decided to release a weekly podcast.
What I have achieved so far and how I have invested.
My plans for the podcast going forward.
To learn more listen to my new podcast and subscribe! Available on iTunes, Google, Spotify and others or click “play” on the player below!
Podcast Transcript↓
[00:00:04] I'm Simon, and a few years ago, I decided I wanted to make a change. I wanted to create a passive reoccurring income to support me and my family today and a legacy for the future. Fast-forward two years, and I've managed to generate 10,000 pounds worth of monthly passive income (all from property). I've set up the business, scaled the business, and now I've systemised the business to free up my time.
[00:00:33] So join me to find out how I've done it. How others are doing it every day and how you can do it to.
[00:00:56] Hey, guys, what's going on? I'm Simon. And welcome to episode number one of this podcast.
[00:01:03] So we're at ground zero. I'm going to drop these every single week, and we're just going to build this up together. I'm going to be asking you guys to share and subscribe and spread the word, because I think what I'm going to cover on this show is really powerful stuff. And I think it could really change a lot of people's lives. OK, so what exactly are we going to be doing on this show?
[00:01:25] So for those that know me, you'll know that over the last two or three years I've gone through a massive transition. And, you know, I've dug deep inside myself to create a bit of a new world. And I've done that through property. So what I want to do is I want to showcase that journey. And I want to give as much value as possible because... I didn't have any experience. I've only been doing this a short period of time and I've been on a really steep learning curve, to be honest with you, made mistakes, done things the wrong way round in terms of like reverbs and stuff and slipped up and ran out of money and gone again and ran out of money and gone again. So I just want to share that journey because it's completely changed my life and my family's life. And, you know, if it can change yours, then great.
[00:02:16] And to be honest with you, one thing I noticed as I delved into this world is that there wasn't enough positive role models of my generation and background like out there at the top of the game championing these concepts. So, you know, I'm going to do that. We're gonna go through these concepts one by one. And I'm really, really hopeful I'm going to be able to add value and help some people out there. So if you like the idea of that, please subscribe, share and spread the word. So what we're going to talk about today, so today is all about who exactly is Simon? What exactly I've done and how I've done it in terms of these Creative Cashflow property investment strategies and how you guys could maybe do the same sides, want to give you an insight into that. And, you know, if you like the idea of it, this place is for you. We're going to build this together. And I'm really, really excited. I think it's a great cause, really positive. And I want to give back. So who is Simon then? So I'm 34 years old. I was born in Derby in the Midlands, son of Carol and Simon. Half English, half Jamaican origin and had a great childhood. You know, music was always a massive, massive part of it. My dad being in the music industry as well. And I got to 18 and I just pretty much wanted to do music.
[00:03:40] But, you know, education was always quite a high priority. Like my aunties and stuff were head teachers and that and they were, you know, wanted me to have that to fall back on. So I decided, we came up with a compromise that I would go to London. So I went to the University of London, Queen Mary. Thinking, well, I could get my business degree, but I'll also be in London, which is great. So I could get involved in more of the music stuff and ended up doing really well at uni. And, you know, at the end of uni, it was either go and work in the city or give it a go in music. And I gave myself a year to get somewhere in music. And thankfully I did. I met some of the right people, got in some of the right circles, and we basically ended up getting a record deal, publishing deal. You know, had a lot of radio plays, shot music videos and toured the world and. And it was amazing. It was a great time. And, you know, I suppose the music industry. The thing with it is longevity. And, you know, it's tough going to lie. It's tough. So, you know, we made we made money, some of which I spent stupidly, by the way. Kind of forgot a lot of the stuff that I probably learned at uni if I'm honest and just got caught up in the music world, which was which was great, but then basically, yeah, what ended up happening was that that the artist stuff kind of took a hit.
[00:05:09] And I decided longevity wise, maybe songwriting would be something good to add to to add to my repertoire. So I decided to do songwriting. I met somebody could called Carla Marie Williams legendary songwriter, a writer for The Saturdays, Girls Aloud, Alisha Dixons and Beyonce, you know, goodness knows who. And we ended up collaborating, working together, moving to L.A. and had a great time there as well. You know, managed to work with Britney Spears, Paloma Faith and loads of other people. But then the thing with the songwriting thing was it was kind of very hit and miss, kind of like for me, you know, for me, kind of like the feast or the famine. I get a call and get a tune and that's great. But then, you know, if you don't have anything for a couple years, royalties dry up a little bit. And, you know, you kind of just feel like you're not fully in control. You're reliant on a lot of external factors. And I kind of was like, you know what? I love music. I'll always will. But I kind of just wanted to make a bit of a change. And I started exploring different things. I looked into stocks and shares. I looked into some of my business roots and caught up with some friends to see what they were up to and explored certain other ideas.
[00:06:28] At one point I wanted to do a music festival and this, that and the other. And then. I came across some property YouTube videos and bits and bobs, and it was weird, actually, because at the same time of me coming across these videos, my oldest friend got in touch with me. And, you know, I've been travelling a lot, so we've not always been in touch. But he must have heard I was back in Derby and he called me up and said, hey, you should come and have a look at some of my property. Well, come and have a look what I'm up to. And I remember thinking, what's he mean? I didn't know he had gone into property or anything. And, you know, I was still pretty caught up in the music. And I was doing a lot of writing at that point. So it took me a little while to go. But then eventually I went down and he had this is six bed HMO property that he was renting to students. He was just finishing the refurb and just blew my mind, to be honest with you. There's a real light bulb moment and I was like, so hang on a minute. You got the property at a good price. You added value to it. You rent it out on a room by room basis to six students, and it makes you X, Y, Z a month.
[00:07:37] Come what may. I'm like, that's exactly what's been missing for me. The consistent monthly income. So then, you know, if I have a hit record, great, but if I don't, that's cool, too. And I was just hooked. So I remember leaving and I was brainstorming and I went back to all the videos and started going even deeper and did some courses and got educated. And then I was like, okay, so, you know, how can I get started? And at the time I was driving a BMW M Sport, which I'd stupidly brought cash some years earlier. And I thought, do you know what? If I sell this car and, you know, get rid of my high chest, maybe I could invest in a property or two and take it from there. So what I did was I sold the car, took it to We buy any car dot com, got absolutely robbed of income, lost like 20 grand on it or something stupid. And I just basically had had enough roughly to do my first deal, which obviously in Derby, obviously properties is a lot cheaper. You know, a lot, lot cheaper. Spoke to my parents. They helped me out a little bit. And yeah. So basically what happened was I purchased a property for eighty-seven K. Spent about 17, 18 grand on the refurb. That's just a standard two up, two down bog standard thing. And we basically converted it into a three bed mini HMO.
[00:09:05] And for those that don't know HMO, it's basically a house share. So it's like rather than rent it out to a whole family. You rent out to three individuals and charge them by the room, which normally allows you to get a bit more profit. So we did that and that went well, went great. I mean, I've never, ever been a DIY person. Never. But decided to, you know, give it a go. So I started, you know, stripping walls and painting. And Lucy helped me and did all that. And, you know, really started to understand about plastering and boilers and this that over. I hated it most the time, to be honest with you. I'm not a DIY person all but did it. Understood. And that property ended up going onto cashflow in six hundred pound a month. I remember, I put it on a couple of agencies at the time and then bring in a group and then try to sell them and tell them it was all top of the range anyway. They took the property. They actually still in the property now, funnily enough. And they yeah, that makes me over 600 pounds a month. And I was like, wow, that's great. Like, I don't have to do anything. And this money's just coming in before the car was costing me money every month, now I'm making money. But, you know, the problem was I ran out of money.
[00:10:27] You know, like most people in property or any investment, you run out of money and then you kind of hit a bit of a, you know, a dead end. So that's kind of when I was like, I need to discover again. And I start discovering and brainstorming and doing more research. And that's when I came across some of what I like to call Creative Cashflow property strategies, creative ways to be involved in property. And I found a strategy called rent to rent. And the great thing about this rent to rent is that you don't buy the properties. What you do is you control the properties and monetize them in the same way that I've done with my first property. But this time, you know, I wouldn't need a big deposit. I wouldn't need to pay stamp duty. I wouldn't need to do legals and have legal fees and wait months and months and do the searches and get a mortgage and make sure my credit checks right and all that. I didn't have to do any of that. Okay. This is interesting. And I just took to it like a duck to water and I just loved it. And I built a business and we built a business. And basically I've done 26 such deals in around 18 months now, which amounts to over 10K a month in income. We've done 400 thousand pounds worth of sales revenue from that business and it's just completely changed my whole life.
[00:11:52] So, yeah, that's me. That's what I've been up to. And I want to share that. That's the whole purpose of this podcast, to share that journey and not just the glamorous get rich quick that there's too much of out there. Like, you know, I'm sick of hearing that. I don't know about you. I'm going to keep it 100 percent real with you. Show you my mistakes. Show you the struggle. Show you the wins and the losses. And hopefully give you enough value and inspiration to maybe get you started. So if you like the idea of that, you know what to do. Subscribe every single week a new episode and spread the word, guys. I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
[00:12:41] Thanks for listening. For more information, check out Simon Smith Online dot com. See you next time.