HMO Heaven and Rent 2 Rent Success - The Year of WTF! A Review of our businesses in 2020 – Part 1
Hello, hello, hello it’s Stephanie here.
Welcome aboard episode 49 of the Rent to Rent Success Podcast and today we’re talking about our businesses in 2020.
We usually talk about rent to rent and interview other people about their businesses so I’m excited to tell you all about our businesses today.
I just can’t believe where we are less than 5 years from going full-time in property.
It’s why I’m so evangelical about property because it can really change your life in a short time.
And especially if you’re as nervous I was and think you don’t have £50k in the bank or the right contacts to get started.
It's the new year and if you know that you want to get started but you’ve put off making a decision.
Now is a great time.
Our Rent 2 Rent Kickstarter Programme takes you step by step to your first deal.
2021 is such an exciting year.
We’re just about to launch a new and improved version of our already amazing Programme.
This month our book will be published.
And right now is the last chance for you to join Kickstarter at current prices.
As from 21st January at midnight our special offer will end and the price to join will go up significantly.
Right now you can join for a heavily discounted, never to be repeated, crazy good value price to get your 2021 off to a flying start!
So if you want to join us to get your first deal now and get started in property find out more here:
Last Chance for our special offer
So on today’s topic…
I want to pull back the curtain on our businesses and what we’ve been doing in 2020.
In episode 48 I talked about how our rent to rent business HMO Heaven did through the pandemic and today I want to include our wider businesses.
Before I start let me say I’m not saying any of this to show off. Frankly, everything is relative and to some people our business successes are incredibly small and to others they’re ginormous and incredible. This is my experience as someone who didn’t expect success in property or business. I love sharing how quickly things can change when you go all in on property.
If people can see that someone like me who was a professional procrastinator with masses of self-doubt became a consistent action taker and has done more in the last 5 years than the preceding 25!
And I do all of this with my sister and business partner, Nicky Taylor. You might be saying ‘who?!’. Nicky is often behind the scenes so you might not know her.
Do listen to episode 30 if you want to get to know all about Nicky and her journey into property which is very different from mine.
And if you want to see the video, you can watch here.
Let me give you an overview to start off with, of our businesses.
We have three parts
Our rent to rent HMO management business HMO Heaven
Our rent to rent training company Rent 2 Rent Success
Our portfolio of owned properties owned in a number of limited companies
I’ll talk about each of them and our challenges and success in 2020.
HMO Heaven
In episode 48 of the podcast I talk about some of the specific challenges and opportunities coronavirus gave us last year. We grew last year too. What I’m most proud of though is that we stepped up as leaders, it was so uncertain and scary to start off with and I’ll admit I was worried. We made a 3 month plan and started communicating openly and in good time with our landlords and our housemates.
We did more than get through, we paid all guaranteed rent due too. And I know that’s not possible for everyone. Some of our Kickstarter Stars mentioned on the podcast that their landlords agreed to lower rents for example or to have their properties back. Communication is the important thing and agreeing.
The question that we asked ourselves was,
‘What service would make our landlords and housemates delighted to be working with HMO Heaven?’
And that helped us to plan our communications and processes to provide an exceptional service in a challenging time. And I must give a shout out to our Assistant Property Manager, Luke, because he implements the day-to-day communications with housemates. Because of the service he provides we have over 70 5 star Google reviews.
Our rent to rent business is such an asset to us now. I work in the business half-day a week where I have two meetings.
One is a strategic meeting with Nicky during which we look at progress on our strategic objectives across all of the businesses. Basically, we’re looking at the projects where there is no outside push to do the work, such as our project to move our process to a new software, to write a book or buy a new property.
These are the things that don’t happen unless you focus on them and that’s what the strategic meetings are for. We also cover % profit across each of the businesses and high-level operations in HMO Heaven.
The other weekly meeting I have in HMO Heaven is with our Assistant Property Manager Luke to look at occupancy across our portfolio. This meeting started in lockdown.
Before that we maintained 0-1% voids with existing processes without regular meetings but with the uncertainty of lockdown we started the regular meetings to stay on top of all the changes and get the results we want and it’s good to be more involved again.
We’re so grateful to have this business. And now is an incredible time to be in rent to rent as landlords really struggle to find effective HMO management.
So, that’s HMO Heaven, you can get more detail in episode 48. I’ll move on now to look at Rent 2 Rent Success.
Rent 2 Rent Success
Rent 2 Rent Success is our training business where we show people the ethical way to get started in property without buying it. It’s been life changing for so many of our Stars and for us. And we’re passionate about sharing that ‘yes you can’, especially if you thought you couldn’t. Kickstarter is our flagship 3-month Programme to take you step by step with everything you need to get your first deal.
It’s such a joy seeing our Stars succeed, Mark now has 9 properties and loves that he’s there for his kids, Loise loves the fact she’s been able to give up her job in Accountancy in the city and finally get to enjoy Christmas without the January end of year hanging over her. Maria loves that she’s currently negotiating her fourth property and she involves her children in her business. We love doing it because of the amazing people we work with.
The first challenge was coronavirus, working out what to do in this unique situation and guiding our Kickstarters. We immediately moved from one live meeting per week to two live meetings each week so we could guide our Stars on how to negotiate with landlords and communicate with tenants as things started to change. It was amazing seeing people getting deals right through coronavirus.
Our big thing last year was a focus on how we can make our Rent 2 Rent Kickstarter Programme exceptional. We receive great feedback and reviews from our Kickstarters, but we continually focus on how we can improve and make it an even more amazing experience for people. We worked for months updating the materials and the videos and the support.
For those of you in the Programme you’ll be getting these new resources later this month and we’re so excited. We know you’re going to love the new format and new content.
Some of the things we’ve added more content on
How to raise funds
How to negotiate who pays for refurbs
How to handle letting agent objections with specific answers that work
How to make irresistible offers to letting agents
How to turn rent to rent deals into lease options - the exact questions to ask
We’ve taken everything we’ve learned from our students in the last two years and added it to the Programme.
The other major wins this year is that we launched this podcast! I love podcasts so it’s been so so good to finally have our own. Thanks so much for all the love you give us.
We’ve been going 7 months now and at the time of recording this we have over 18,000 downloads which is just mind-boggling.
And over 70 reviews like this one from Rikki:
“Firstly I have to say as someone moving into the R2R space as a complete newcomer, can't’ say enough just how useful and insightful the podcasts are. Love the content and value it provides, it really gives me the confidence every day to go out there and take action. Had a face to face call with Stephanie and can’t wait to start working with her and Rent 2 Rent Success. Thank you for all the content you guys put out there, you are the real Rockstars!”
I want to say a huge thank you to you Rikki for taking the time to leave a review, it’s such a gift. And I want to say a huge thank you to you for listening. There are so many things you could listen to and I’m so glad you chose us.
We want to keep the podcasts relevant to what you want, so do let me know on insta what topics you’d like us to address here, or people you’d like us to interview, or questions you’d like us to answer.
The Rent to Rent Book!
This is a challenge and a success all wrapped up in one. As my son Alex said to his Aunty Nicky and I, ‘I can’t believe you’ve written a book, I’m so proud of you’. Honestly that was a moment, it’s so special to hear your adult children say they’re proud of you. I’m so proud of him. And I can’t believe we’ve written a book either!
Lockdown was helpful for book writing, so did have an upside. We have worked hard on the book because we want to make it the best rent to rent book and give you the full overview of all the steps to rent to rent success. We wanted the book to be useful and engaging and even entertaining.
We’re on version 19 of the book that’ll be published later this month and is very different to the first draft. And that’s a metaphor for life. You have to start somewhere and keep working on it until you have something great.
Of course, we’ll be doing a book launch for everyone. But before that and for a very limited time, we’ll do a crazy pre-book-launch for our VIPs. If you want in, sign up here so you don’t miss the email!
The other thing that I’m excited about is that we have created a whole library of rent 2 rent articles, videos and podcasts on our website at rent 2 rent success. And here’s the best bit. It’s fully searchable. It’s been so popular that our website activity has jumped almost 10X from over 6,000 page views in 2019 to over 55,000 page views in 2020.
When you visit the blog section of our website, right underneath the main photo there’s a search bar. If you want to know about contracts you can search it, if you want to know about deal analysers you can search it, if you want to know about letters you can search it. I think you’re getting the picture here!
So thrilled to have it up and running. Do make use of the resources on our blog.
And I want to give a huge shout out to
Lorraine who helps me with the podcast and creating the blog posts for our site, we wouldn’t be able to do it without you.
Angelica who is my right hand woman helping me with social media and administration.
Our next big win was Property Gamechangers.
Our Property Gamechangers Live video series started in lockdown and continued in October. I talked to property investors I admire about their story, their strategies and how they’re changing the game in property and using it for good. You can check it out here https://propertygamechangers.com
Watch out for more in 2021 with a new website, YouTube channel and podcast. And of course lots more incredible Property Gamechangers.
And finally, our big win is our giving through B1G1 and to Amazing Grace Spaces.
We link our giving to our business successes, we give every time you leave a podcast review, every time you purchase our Rent 2 Rent Kickstarter Programme and every time you join or renew your Superstars subscription.
We are immensely proud that through you, our giving in 2020 includes providing:
45 days of education support to disadvantaged children
81 days of training for kindergarten teachers in Ghana
332 days of business training program to women in Zimbabwe
861 days of business training to women in need in Malawi
Wow! This episode has been longer than expected so I’m going to create a Part 2 where I talk about the businesses that we own and buying properties.
Don’t leave it too late and then send me a message to say you missed this amazing deal because a llama ate your phone!
Success requires action and if you know it’s your time and you want to join Rent 2 Rent Kickstarter this year.
Now is the time.
Remember, on the 21st January 2021 the price will go up substantially as our special offer will end so visit to get on board. Once the doors close they won’t reopen at the old price.
Sign up here and don't miss out!
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Until next time, have a great rest of the week.
And remember,
Believe Bigger, Be Bolder and Be a Gamechanger!
See you soon!
Stephanie & Nicky
xx
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