Lately, it's all been a bit much hasn't it?! It's certainly taking extra will power to keep on pushing toward goals in this current climate. What I have learned about myself is that I'm pretty good at home schooling and small things like candles, music and cups of chai make a massive difference to mood and my ability to keep on keeping on.

You might be thinking that now is the time to quit, you've got far.. not quite your goal but pretty good. Stop! Take a moment... say to yourself ...

"I didn’t come this far to only come this far."

What you have achieved so far has been tremendous! Nothing should stop you! Now is the time to make yourself unstoppable.

But of course, you are human. Be kind to you! Stop, if it's too much. But don't stop because of one moment in a lifetime, making you tired.

Take a break to rest, to recharge, grab a cuppa and a chocolate biscuit - take time to think and plan next steps! And, get back to what you were doing when you are ready to!

“Wake up! No one is going to save you. No one is going to take care of your family or your retirement. No one is going to make things work out for you. The only way to do so is to utilize every moment of every day at 10X levels.” Grant Cardone, 10X Rule

If you are serious about property you need to maximise the effort you put in! You can’t just sit around and wait for the right deals to come along, you need to go out there and see as many (of the right kind) of houses as possible! In order to carry out a buy, refurbish and refinance strategy where you can pull out most (if not all!) of your money - there are not a lot of properties like that. And, most likely you are starting from a position where you don’t have a lot of time to do viewings… So, here are some tips to make sure you maximise the potential deals that will come off as a result of your viewing day!

1. Make sure you view regularly - ideally every week or every other week

2. Book viewings, if possible during the week. This maximises the chance that the person showing you around actually knows a little about the property and its history

3. Find the properties you want to view and pre-qualify them! Go through rightmove and look for the grungy properties and see if there are ‘done-up’ properties that have sold on that street or in the nearby area for much more. Set up a spreadsheet and pop in a nominal refurb value i.e. £10k and then look at what properties in this area of a similar type are renting for. Play around with your spreadsheet! Add in a contingency fund to cover unexpected expenses and insurance (I do around 10%) and to cover a letting agents expenses (again about 10%), then see if the property will still cash flow if, for instance mortgage payments go up to 6%. Does this property look like it might work? Great! pop it on your ‘to view list’.

4. Organise the to view list, by area and by agent. Try to clump viewings by agent and then by area.

5. Create a viewing time sheet and organise your viewings into one per half hour. This gives you about 15 mins to view and 15 mins to get to the next viewing! Aim to book in viewings from 10:30am until it gets dark (you may be able to book viewings earlier but most agents wont start viewing until 10:30am.

6. Ring up/email estate agents to book in your viewings at the times requested.

7. FILL your viewing sheet up! Aim to get viewings into double figures every time you go. If an agent said one of the properties you wanted to view is no longer available go back to point 3 and see if there are any gems you may have missed. Perhaps a little further outside of your area.

8. Use a viewing checklist on the day and take lots of photos (see my previous blog) and take along some flyers to pop in houses that maybe look run down on the street you’re viewing (i.e. “want to sell your home? Call Ana on ….”)

9. Spend a little time on the street before each viewing - while you are checking out the roof - if a neighbour is about ask them a bit about the area and anything they know about the property.

I hope those tips were helpful! Do you have any to add to this list? Do you want to get started out with a buy to let portfolio? I’d love to know or help you out! Drop me a comment below…

Ana ♡

Want to connect? Find me on insta @dranaattlee, or why not pop along to a meet up? If you think I can accelerate your journey to your goals get in touch or book a coaching session!

You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” Zig Ziglar

Let me tell you a secret… I’m not actually that great at anything! But, I did manage to get a PhD, write tons of academic papers, advise government, train academics, start successful businesses, scale up a manufacturing business and have been part of nearly 150 property deals.

Of course, none of that would have been possible alone and none of that would have been possible without consistency… I have consistently been great at seeking out people who know more than me, and are better than me, and then working out what I need to do to be successful… and doing that… consistently!

Being successful in life, it seems to me, is not about great leaps of genius but about consistent (often mundane) small steps and habits we can all do every day. Each of these steps are so easy, that they would be simple enough to skip entirely… waking up late once wont hurt right? Not going to my investment area this week wont hurt, right? Wrong!! These small things are the only things that matter. Being successful is the result of these small steps.

There are no secrets to success. No shortcut. Of course over night successes happen and you hear all the time about people who have just started out in business/property making a fortune seemingly over-night. For the majority of us that is just not going to happen! The secret is consistent grind. Nothing sexy, just getting up and showing up and doing what you say you are going to do, day after day, week after week!

Consistency isn’t the easiest way to success, but it is the most sure one.

You can build your consistency muscle, as believe me it’s not easy to be suddenly consistent. I had to. Start small and habit stack. For example:

1.   I always get up when I have decided to – I’m recently trialing a 4am start but generally I get up at 5am Mon-Fri

2.   I consistently go to the gym

3.   I consistently have the same process for checking in on emails and social media (by a certain time).

4.   I consistently view houses on the same day

5.   Run numbers on the same day

6.   Re-offer on houses the same day

7.   Book trains the same day etc etc.

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Progress and success is also not linear… so expect to be grinding away thanklessly for some time! And also expect that some times you may actually feel like you are worse off than you were… keep going!!!

You may find it useful to share some of your routine on social media, in this way it holds you accountable and also has the added bonus of showing everyone how consistent you are (unexpectedly attracting angel finance and JV finance offers in DM!!).

Have a great day! And let me know what habits your going to stack consistently!

Ana ♡

Want to connect? Find me on insta @dranaattlee, or why not pop along to a meet up? If you think I can accelerate your journey to your goals get in touch or book a coaching session!

Interested in this strategy?? Do grab Jacquie Edwards Books on Rent to Rent!

"Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." Francis of Assisi

I started out in property with no money (also no time! ha!) ... my first strategy was to create cash flow so I began with a rent to rent portfolio. This strategy is simply looking for properties on the market that are currently being marketed as single lets but have potential to be made into HMOs by renting out each room individually.

You pay the landlord a guaranteed rent for a set amount of time and you manage the property and any problems that arise. You then, are effectively the managing agent for that property, taking over furnishing the property, tenant finding and tenant management of the property. Do all of this to an extremely high standard and its a great strategy as everyone is happy. You, as a new investor, learn about staging properties and all the legalities of letting a property (perfect for your future dealings with letting agents!) and you make a healthy cashflow…. anywhere between £500-£1k pcm. In my experience it is a quick way to get started, but not a stress free one as the learning curve is steep (see also my post on HMO investing) … not only do you deal with legalities and being out of your comfort zone, it also takes, in my opinion, about 3 months for tenants to settle in properly (in this time there can be bickering amongst tenants and incessant requests for extras, plus many things seem to get broken! Then it takes about 9-12months for things like cashflow to settle into a recognisable state. For this reason I recommend keeping aside 1 rooms rent from as soon as possible to cover voids and build that up to a cash reserve of the full rent you will be paying to the landlord.

For me - I decided to start in rent to rent in November and by January I had my first two properties cashflowing and one more in the set up process! By February I was earning more than I had ever done! So, here are some simple tips to get you started :

1. You need to be prepared to view a lot of properties! Get your comfy shoes on and realise you will learn what you need to say to landlords over time… you dont need to get it right straight away. But, you do need to start to get it right.,

2. Learn your legals!! Become an NLA registered landlord

3. Go out and view rooms in the area you’d like to do rent to rent in… book viewings (at least 5) from spareroom and get to know your market this for me was the single most uncomfortable step but one that cant be missed!

4. Look on open rent and gumtree for properties that would be suitable to rent. Go and view as many as possible.

5. Don’t bother negotiating the rent… but work out how you can make this win win for both you and the landlord

6. Stage your property well!

7. Make sure you know how you will be dealing with cleaning and maintenance - task rabbit was my friend!

8. Advertise and advertise well - do your listing for your market! I went for a high end HMO market so I made my listing look like a serviced accommodation ad… in fact my rent to rent HMOs were almost a hybrid between serviced accommodation and HMO.

9. Have the most personable person you know do the viewings … I am a HUGE people person so I did my own viewings

10. Have systems!!!

11. Make sure the rent for each landlord comes out on the same day near the end of the month and your tenant rents come in at the same day at the start of the mont

12. WATCH your cashflow!!

I hope those tips were helpful! What’s your strategy? Do you want to get started out with a rent to rent portfolio? I’d love to know or help you out! Drop me a comment below…

Ana ♡

Want to connect? Find me on insta @dranaattlee, or why not pop along to a meet up? If you think I can accelerate your journey to your goals get in touch or book a coaching session!

Sooooo… before I start this I think you know what Im going to say… maybe you follow me on insta and you can see what time I get up and a little insight into what I do in the morning. But, before I start with my routine I really want to stress that morning routines are not a one size fits all, nor is sleep. Some people are early birds, some night owls… some need a lot of sleep some need not too much. And, well, some of us are parents!

For me the way I start my morning literally can make or break my day! My morning routine starts at 5am. Getting up at this time sets the bar for what I expect of myself, and over time has increased my confidence (afterall if you let yourself down on promises you make how can you expect others to trust you).

Getting up at 5am gives me at least an hour before the rest of the house is up to get some quiet reflection done, write and respond to emails and check in with social media and then I get some exercise in. Essentially what I do is an adaptation of a Miracle Morning S.A.V.E.R.S. routine. Although for me it’s S.A.V.R.S.E. as that works best to make sure all quiet reflective work is out of the way before the danger-zone of kids waking up happens! The routine takes about an hour… ideally 10mins given for each of the sections but this can be reduced to a couple of mins each if needed!

What’s your morning routine? Do you have any tips for me to improve mine? I’d love to know! Drop me a comment below…

Ana ♡

Want to connect? Find me on insta @dranaattlee, or why not pop along to a meet up? If you think I can accelerate your journey to your goals get in touch or book a coaching session!