Why Most People Fail at UK Property Investing – Common Pitfalls

Most people do not achieve the results they want and fail to get the results they want for several reasons. They over complicate things, they're overthinking, they think they need to know everything before they can move forward. But the reality is, you need some knowledge and you need to start moving and actually start doing things by implementing by taking action. That's how you learn. 

Learn about the theory about what to say to an estate agent and how to speak to them. The best thing is to pick up the phone and actually start engaging in a conversation. Yes you might mess it up the first time but does it really matter? Of course not because you might never ever speak to that agent again. So a lot of what stops people moving forward is fear, fear can be a very real thing however most fear is what we call false expectations appearing real. It's just in your head and people are worried about conversations they don't want to have. They're worried about what could happen and often these things, although they could happen they might happen very often or they're not going to happen at all. Realize a lot of things that you are worried about are not actually problems

I want to really break it down to just three fundamental steps and I'm going to deliberately make this very very simple if you follow these three steps you will be a more successful investor

Step number one is familiarising yourself with how to find really good deals in your area. A lot of people don't know what makes a good deal in the first place, they spend hours looking through Zoopla, and might move come off frustrated none the better. The key here is to find motivated sellers. These are people for whom the speed and certainty of the sale might be more important than the amount of money they can get, and so they're flexible on the price and the terms.

Only about 5% of sellers are going to be truly motivated, however, right now we're in this Buyers Market. This means it's in our favour as buyers because there are more sellers looking to get rid of their property than there are buyers looking to buy. So with the less competition out there we can find better deals and sellers are becoming more and more motivated.

So how do we find these motivated sellers? There are lots and lots of different ways but I'm going give you just two principles right now to think about.

There are properties online for sale right now where some of those sellers are going to be very motivated, for example maybe sales that have fallen through so someone's got a property they had a sale agreed and months and months have gone by and suddenly falls through. Maybe not just once maybe several times. That person is going to be more and more motivated wondering are they ever going to sell this property.

Properties that are listed by multiple agents, why do you think the seller does that well? It's because they really need to sell the property or maybe it's listed for sale or for rent. It's a landlord who doesn't want it anymore they want to sell or just rent the property so all these things we could look for now.

Once you found some actual deals you need to pick up the phone speak to the agent and just book some calls to go and visit those properties. Very often people worry about that, bur just because you go and view a property it doesn't mean you have to buy that property. Getting out there and looking at properties, walking around, you're going to gain valuable learning experience from that.

I actually recommend that you should make an offer on every single property you view. You're not going to want to buy everything and obviously you adjust the offer according to how much you actually want the property or not, but the whole point is by making more offers you're practicing. If you look at everything you do, speaking to an agent, viewing a property, speaking to a landlord - it's all practice.

Another great strategy we teach our students is sending out landlord letters. These are people who are registered with the local Council, maybe they might be HMO landlords, we can send them letters to do a great deal and pick up their properties from them. The good news is maybe there's no competition if they're not being marketed online, no one knows they're for sale and we can reach direct to those landlords and maybe secure a fantastic win-win deal for everybody.

Everybody runs out of their own money at some point myself included so I use other people's money I teach my students to use other people's money. Now of course you need to be care careful when using other people's money and in order to use other people's money you need to be able to follow step two - which is finding really good profitable deals. You want to find great deals that make so much profit that not only can you make a great return, you can afford to give someone else either a profit share or just an interest rate, because the return on the deal is so fantastic. So find great deals first of all then find people to fund those deals for you e.g. family and friends.

Although you might not like the idea of asking them they're a great place to start. They are people that know you and trust you. There are other places you can meet people by going to physical networking events and  property training events. You'll get people who go to those events who've got money, who understand the value of investing in themselves to get the specialist knowledge to learn how to be a successful investor but once they've got the knowledge they think well this is great but you know what I don't have the time the energy or inclination to do it and they'd much rather work with someone else who can do the running around find the deal. hey just put the money it's what we call a joint venture partnership.

The best way to find potential joint ventures is to put yourself into paid events, whether they're physical events, which is obviously best or whether they're virtual events. You get to connect with other people who are participating in that training because they've invested in themselves and importantly they know you have invested in yourself to be at that paid training.

Your network is your net worth. I've got so many property deals through networking now, I don't even have to look for those deals .I'm getting other people bring those deals to me. You might think well that's okay for you, Simon you've been investing for 30 years, you've been teaching me for 22 years, it's okay for you. When you know how to network, when you put yourself in that environment and let people know what you're looking for, there are deals you could meet that other people can bring to you and also at those events that's where you meet people who can fund your deals.

I've used all of my funds, I I keep on recycling those into new deals but I'm working with lots of other people's money at the moment for all the deals that are on the table because there are so many great deals out there. So I encourage you to get networking, it could be physical it could be virtual but there's a couple of key steps that you need to understand first. You need to put yourself in the right environment with other like-minded people that's the first step and secondly connect with people you don't already know. There's no point you go into a network meeting and just talking to the people who you already know, which is within most people's comfort zones. You need to stretch your comfort zone and do things you wouldn't normally do.

You've got to build that working relationship whether it's with someone who's bringing deals to you, money to you, build that relationship with them. Following up after meeting them initially is a really important thing to do that most people just do not do.

If you take note of all 3 of these key steps, I guarantee you will become a much more successful investor in 2025.