Is "No Experience" holding you back?

This article is for those of you that are new to property investing who are getting your Rent to Rent business up and running.  If you have been following the 14 Day Rent to Rent Success Plan (see HERE if you don't know what I'm talking about) and you are out there viewing properties and chatting with owners and agents you might come across a form of this question:

 How much experience do you have?

 Or

 Do you have any references?

 Or

 How many properties do you currently manager?

These can be tough questions for those of you out there that don't have any experience and it might knock your confidence a bit.  So I wanted to tell you my story of how I pushed through this barrier in the beginning (because I didn't have any property experience when I started) and a few ideas of what you can do.

The very first thing I did when I got started and realized I needed to focus on HMOs (for cash flow) was got a joint venture partner that was super experienced with HMOs.  I did this by lending money for one of his projects and in return I received a great interest rate and invaluable mentoring opportunities by being able to shadow him, walk through all his houses and his processes.  I was then able to use him as a reference when my landlords wanted to speak with someone about my experience.  I was able to tell the landlords that I work with an experienced property owner and helped him with his properties and am now branching out on my own.  And that they could call him for a reference.  It worked great.  My JV partner/mentor would speak to them and let them know that I knew what I was doing and then once I got my first property or two under my belt, I didn't need to use him anymore as I had my own landlords to refer people to.

Now, this might not be possible for most of you as it did take quite a bit of capital investment to joint venture with this experience property investor.  So what I recommend for those of you that want to save any bit of £££ you have for your own projects - get out and get networking!

Attend the pin and PPN and any other property networking meetings in your area.  Start building relationships with other local investors.  This might take a few weeks / months as people need to get to know like and trust you - but build relationships with the aim of finding someone you would like to partner with.  Now this partnership doesn't have to involve money, I'm suggesting a partnership of experience and sharing.  You need to figure out how you can help the more experienced investor and in turn ask if they can help you by acting as a reference.  For instance, maybe they need a bit of help doing tenant viewings for their newest HMO and you offer to help (pro bono) or maybe they have a few maintenance issues and you can go and sort them out (again for free…and only if you really are capable of doing DIY) or maybe you are great at building spreadsheets and can offer your services there to make the management of his portfolio easier.  Once you've built the relationship you'll be able to find ways to help and gain some experience on the management side.  And after you've done that you should be able to ask if they would mind vouching for you or acting as a reference when you have a landlord / agent that needs to chat with someone.  Now you won't be able to tell the landlord/agent that you manage all these properties on your own, but you will be able to say that you have experience managing properties working with a local property owner on his X number of properties and that you are now looking for additional properties to work on.

If that sounds like a long process or you aren't comfortable approaching other landlords - then stay tuned as I will shortly be offering a service that will allow you to benefit from my experience and use my company brand to help kick-start your business.  To get notified as soon as we release this opportunity add your details to the waiting list using the form below: