By Tony Houlihan
We had a great day at the Manchester August meeting – we were missing a few of the usual Manchester Massive due to the summer holidays, but we had some fantastic guests join for the first time, and Sue Sims joined us in Sunny Manchester as Co-Host for the day!
Ian Welsh kicked off proceedings with some of his business stories from earlier in his career, including how he set up and developed several businesses in the travel industry. He shared his entrepreneurial journey and how he had to deal with expansion, digital marketing and some unwanted attention from the local transport Mafia! He then went on to share a story of a very near death experience which ultimately led him to change direction and start getting involved in property. He shared several of his projects and then shared his extensive knowledge of SSAS pensions and how he has used them effectively in several of his and others property projects!
We then had a mortgage update from Hannah Vandervennin from the Mortgage Consultancy – sharing the latest in the mortgage market news, sharing some insights into how the lenders are funded, and a drill down into offset mortgages which was really useful for our members and guests to expand their knowledge
We then heard from our next speaker Nicky Russell from Ki (pronounced Key!) Property. Nicky shared her remarkable story of how she has defied the norm, and managed to fund some of her seed capital in her property business by taking the bold move of living in a motorhome! She is currently working on flips and assisted sales in the Fylde Coast and she shared some in depth case studies on her latest projects including how she acquired them, where she gets her deals and how she works with private investors. She is currently growing her property network and is a regular at some of the Manchester property events and she shared some useful tips on how to get the most of out of networking.
Steve Ryan from the Mistoria group then shared some tips for our HMO Landlords on how they can be achieving higher occupancy levels and improve their profits – very detailed tips which will help our members combat some of the headwinds we are currently experiencing.
Rupert Lowe then from Crowd Property then shared some of the insights from their recent developer and investors survey – really beneficial research into how the investors and developers that are active are currently viewing market trends, their plans for the future and what they think the most important external influences are on their property businesses at the moment. It’s always useful to know what our peers in the property market are doing and thinking!
After some fantastic networking over the usual lovely lunch at Together HQ, we then spent the afternoon troubleshooting members current property challenges, some of our speakers and sponsors went into detail on certain deals helping our members really benefit from the expertise in the room.
We have some fantastic speakers planned for September and Octobers events, so if you have not yet joined us for a Manchester meeting please reach out to Alicia and Tony – we’d love to see more property people join us and our fantastic group of Manchester members.
