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Tej Talks
37 years’ experience in Construction, Dave Forde tell us how to refurbish property properly!
37 years experience in construction and engineering projects in the UK and abroad. Started as apprentice electrician. Worked my way up as an electrician, supervisor, site manager, construction manager, assistant project manager, quality assurance engineer, project manager. I have my own property development company and an electrical installation company.
I also provide services as a construction consultant to people in property developing. I am currently a project manager on Crossrail in London. I have worked on new build flats and houses, commercial to residential, house to flat conversions and high end residential. I worked on one Hyde Park for the Candy brothers. It was hailed as the most exclusive address in London. I have my own residential BTL portfolio.
At the moment, I am just concentrating on flips. I am a member of the Association for Project Management and Institution of Engineering and Technology. I am currently in the process of becoming a member of the Chartered Institute of Building.
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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