David started investing in property, properly, in 2020, with a small commercial conversion, in South-East London, turning an estate agents office into a 1-bed flat. The property was purchased for £120k, refurbished for £58k, and revalued at £240k, all during COVID.
Since then, his dual strategy has seen him go in heavy on direct to vendor marketing, for commercial premises in the South-East, focusing on premises with permitted development rights, rather than looking for full planning, whilst building a rental portfolio of 3-bed properties, using sourcers and project managers in the North-East, to be relatively hands-off.
Current conversion deals secured, in development or under option agreements are in excess of £4m GDV, whilst structuring them to limit risk as much as possible. He’s a firm believer that concentrated hard, consistent work will bear results.
Tej graduated from King's’ College London with a BSc Biochemistry in 2014, he then pursued a career in Medical Education and Marketing. Soon after his second job… he was fired! A moment of relief and freedom was what he felt, not sure what his mother felt when he told her he was jobless at 23…
He then went in search of a more ethical path, a business he could set up where the reward was equal to the work put in. “If they are making pounds, why am I making pennies?” - was his thought process, not happy with slow progression and bureaucracy (& having to wear smart shoes everyday). This lead him to opening a Recruitment business (not sure where the ethics went) which doubled in profit every year, for 4 years. He hated it. Golden handcuffs they call it.
Fortunately, he used the cash he’d built up from that business, to educate himself in Property Investing. Soon, he’d stopped the business and transitioned into Property Investment full time. He then had a slow start -
Purchasing 15 properties in his first 9 months, using over £650,000 of Investor Finance, he built a £1,200,000 property portfolio and created £30,000 of profit from flips. This gave him ‘financial freedom’, but it was the most stressful period of his life. Growing quickly is very painful.
Let’s not forget that his Podcast grew to be the most-reviewed UK Property Podcast, peaking at 4,000 unique downloads per episode.
His Podcast (Tej Talks) now sits at 660,000 downloads in over 100 countries and has 489 reviews, rated 5/5.
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