There is no shortage of buzzwords when it comes to property investing and this month we met up with a duo that are throwing themselves into the latest niche within developments; build to rent. Andi and Lloyd started their journey in 2014 when they bought a piece of land in Northampton for £157,000. Sixteen months later they had built eight town houses with a total spend of £834,000 and a GDV of £1,180,000. That meant they were able to refinance the entire site and pull their funds out. It was at that point they decided that this was the strategy for them.
As always there is more to the story and I am keen to find out how and why they teamed up and Lloyd explains: “In 2013, unfortunately I lost my dad through cancer and then my grandad a month later from dementia. One of my dreams as a boy was to own my own business. Life unfortunately got in the way and I worked for eight years after travelling to New Zealand. When I lost my dad and grandad that was the trigger for me to do what I had always wanted. I was working for a lighting company and I really enjoyed the design side so I decided this was what I was going to do. I spoke to various business owners about how to start a business. One of those people was Andi, my wife’s cousin, who had run his own construction company for the previous seven years.
We both looked into property investing as a business after Andi had read a few books on property investing and this was the start of our property business. It worked well as I had previously worked for Taylor Wimpey homes as an independent mortgage broker so I knew the new build property market well.
“When we first started in 2014 we both had one buy-to-let property each. Now we have a portfolio of 42 properties [a combination of properties up and running and those currently under construction] with an approximate value of £9m. In 3 years we have systemised our build-to-rent strategy and now teach others how to use this strategy.”
After completing their first project of eight townhouses the duo then went on to use the same model to do another site in Irthlingborough consisting of eleven houses. Even though the partnership and strategy was relatively new Andi was able to use his experience in the construction industry and his existing team to build the projects out. Lloyd’s experience with new build properties came in useful when dressing and marketing the properties.
