#13 Interview with Co-founder of Aspire Properties, Dan Buchan

Coming to you live from the Book Writing Bootcamp in Mallorca, your host David Siegler interviews established speaker, trainer and mentor and Co-founder of Aspire Properties Dan Buchan. Dan and his business partner Jamie Yorke have packaged over 1000 deals and now also focus on, No Monday Down strategies with Progressive Property. In today’s episode, David and Dan discuss how to attract the right investors, where to find them and why credibility is essential to seal the deal. Firstly, understand that you’re not dealing in property, you’re dealing in a vehicle to make people money and your credibility comes from serving them in the best way possible. Finally, Dan explains why mindset is number one and that the ability to grow and the ability to raise finance lives on the boundary between challenge and support. Value yourself more and centralise yourself in one place, and let the investors come to you. KEY TAKEAWAYS David: How do you decide what interest rate to pay your investors?Dan: The biggest mistake we made was overpaying and over offering in order to seal the investment. The issue we found is if you offer investors anything more than 10% it’s deemed to be very risky. We now prefer to offer interest-only investment as you can advertise it to the retailer and effectively pay less over time. David: What is your typical investor and where do you find it?Dan: Each investor or vendor we create an avatar for. They will have an income of over £200,000 per year and this will generally put them in the higher age bracket. The thing is the UK’s net wealth is £10.1 trillion and there are almost a million millionaires in the UK alone. That’s one in seventy people and you’re average Facebook user has 200 friends so when you look at the numbers there’s a huge amount of investors to attract. The key thing is putting yourself in front of those investors so put yourself in the place where your avatar will go. The most scalable model is connecting with people online and attending networking events. David: Can you tell the listeners where to find investors and how to build credibility?Dan: You have to market yourself, your product and how to can serve your investors. Marketing is essential a competition for people’s attention and you can market yourself to investors in three ways. Online presence, build it up and reach people by constantly posting content. Physical meetings, go to the places your investor (avatar) goes on a consistent basis to build relationships Speak to everyone you know and create referrals. If you provide genuine value you should be telling everything you know and as a result, investors will come to you. BEST MOMENTS “There is a lot of money out there and property is a fantastic facilitator so be able to deliver value to people and serve your investors” “You only need to attract two or three investors and then get referrals for life.” “You’re much better off working with like-minded investors rather than banks, the interest rates might be higher but the hoops to jump through are much lower and easy to get through.” “Your reason why is yours and yours only” “Property is an asset class that increases in value in three separate ways; property Rent, capital growth and rent increases over time.” “People will believe in you when you believe in yourself, know your numbers and know your product” VALUABLE RESOURCES Progressive Property Facebook Community Rich Dad, Poor Dad The C.R.E.S.T Model - Credibility, return, exit, security and trust. ABOUT THE HOST David is a property expert with over 25 years’ experience and his own portfolio of 26 units. His current rent roll is in excess of £10k per month. He is also a partner in a Deal Sourcing and Packaging business in the North West of England and has sourced over 250 properties for investors since 2004. In recent years he has, by necessity, had to develop an expertise in LHA strategies. This area is increasingly becoming a niche for him and he enjoys empowering other landlords by sharing the knowledge he has gained. The ultimate purpose when sourcing properties in this sector for investors is to minimise risk while maximising profit. He has had to find answers to the challenges of Tenant Find, Management, ensuring rents are paid and the transition to Universal Credit. These are strategies he uses in his own business and also on behalf of investors. His investor clients regularly achieve annual gross yields of over 20% with high occupancy rates and voids resolved, sometimes within hours. CONTACT METHOD   David’s LinkedIn David’s Facebook   ABOUT THE GUEST Dan and Jamie are committed to their 70/20/10 strategy split which is split between 70% of their time on sourcing and selling BMV deals, 20% of their time on development deals, and finally 10% on simple flips. Their ‘We Sell BMV’ brand is a market leader in the UK, sending out between 3 and 10 different deals every single week. As well as pure below market value deals, they’re branching out to offer properties suitable for a variety of different strategies, and Dan mentioned one particular deal in the interview which he’d sold the morning of the interview, which was a serviced accommodation deal making them £4,000. On the development side of the business these are typically much larger deals where Dan and Jamie work with other investors/developers. They currently have one in Isleworth and another in Surrey, one of which is a development of new houses and the other is a commercial conversion. Their final 10% spent doing flips is working with someone else who manages the work on deals that Dan & Jamie have sourced and funded. This is a relatively new strategy for them, but already they’re scaling it up and are confident of hitting their targets of completing one flip every month.