The Young Police Constable With Zero Property Experience & No Money To Invest

CASE STUDY #2 - ALEX SEERY

Alex, a 25-year old police constable, started the Mastermind Programme with zero experience, zero property contacts and no starting capital. So how was he able to do six property deals, and completely replace his income, in 12 months? Watch his case study below.
  • 6 property deals: 3 rent to rent, 3 HMO purchases, and further deals in the pipeline.
  • Great example of leveraging the Mastermind group, one joint venture partner on multiple deals.
  • £62,461 annual rental profits, enough for him to quit his job.
  • ​No cash left in on every deal, allowing him and his Mastermind JV partner to rinse and repeat in Year 2.
It is customary that at the final workshop of each Mastermind Programme, some of the departing Masterminders get up on stage and talk about their experiences and results. Here is Alex's contribution...

WATCH ALEX'S CASE STUDY

CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT / HTML

TRANSCRIPT AND SLIDES

First off, I want to say a massive thank you to Simon. To invite me on stage is an absolute honour, so thank you. I'm Alex Seery. I'm 25, and this is my mastermind journey. I've been living in Nottingham all my life. I grew in Nottingham in a town called Hucknall which north of Nottinghamshire. I was raised in a broken family and I've highlighted that in green because I've kind of used it as a positive. My dad left when I was 10 and it shattered my world, absolutely heartbroken, and I haven't seen him for about 11 years. Through the time of growing up my relationship with my mother had deteriorated and it got worse and to this day I can't remember one moment to which she ever told me she was proud of me or prompted me to encourage me to succeed.

I knew that wasn't right and what I realized in joining Mastermind is that being in an environment with all you lot and knowing you for five minutes really, you've told me that you believe in me, you've know I'll succeed, you've proud of me. To me, that was the most amazing thing I've ever heard and I fed off it so much so that I didn't want to let you down and it gave me a boost of motivation every time someone told me they was proud of me.
I went through school pretty average. I'm not a geek or anything like that. I wasn't a maths whizz or anything so dramatic. I worked in various job roles in sales, things I wasn't so passionate about, to be honest. When I was 21 I started reading books, and books was a massive escape for me, it taught me about freedom really, about creating wealth, about businesses. The first book I ever read was Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It catapulted me into the taking action mindset, so much so that I started training into fitness and bodybuilding, and that kind of discipline means taking focus and action. There was times where I don't want to go to the gym and I really don't want to prep my meals, but the more I did it, it became habit, and I had those skills transferred into my property journey. One of my sergeants mentioned that, which was amazing.

I joined Nottinghamshire Police in 2012 as special constable, hobby bobby Fraser, and then I move into custody in 2014, still there currently. I don't hate my job, kind of thoroughly enjoy it. Whilst in custody I read a book called Property Magic and that was amazing, it was so easily digestible, I picked up on it straight away and I soon booked on to the Property Quick Start Seminar. It snowballed from there to the Mastermind Accelerator, and after that I joined the full program which I'm finishing now. I joined Mastermind with no experience whatsoever. I didn't know any tradesmen, I knew how to change a light bulb and I knew it was made of bricks and had windows, that was about it. I joined with no money.

Me and Claire, once I left home, me and Claire saved up for a lot of money and we was going to get our own house and live together and so forth. I kind of knew that I would be in the same rut, so crunch time on Mastermind Accelerator was to spend all the money we have saved over the last two years, we didn't go on holidays, we didn't go out for meals, kind of really disciplined relationship really. Yeah, we really scrimped and scraped to save, and it was crunch time and we decided to spend the money on Mastermind full year course. On that day, about five minutes after signing with Amanda, I threw up because I was so shocked, even though the money didn't leave my bank account I kind of burnt my bridges, I burnt my boats, I knew that this was the way it was going to be now, I had to succeed.
My reason why, is to achieve financial independence. There's my gorgeous girlfriend, Claire. We've been together for about nearly six years now. For me, it's about enjoying time with her and people who I do love as well. She deserves so much more out of life and my main goal is to get her out of her job, so we can travel the world and drive nice cars and all the other things that we set as goals for our life together. Standing on this stage, she should be beside me, because I wouldn't have achieved this without her, she's been my absolute rock. During [the mighty times 00:05:00] from me, she's kind of slapped me and said, "Stop it." Hit me up when it's needed.
Okay, so my strategy is, purchasing HMOs using JV finance. Rent to rents and purchase lease options. We was going to get these deals by a source in deals through landlord letters, newspapers, word of mouth, Rightmove, and estate agencies. The reason why we did that is because we wanted to change our cash flow strategies. Instead of relying on our income from our jobs, we want to replace it through property which is more passive and we can use the time together to do the things we want to enjoy. Yeah, that's my strategy. What we did do, big thing, is that we, at the start of our Mastermind journey, we knew that it was going to be HMOs and we had a business plan in our first meeting and we jotted down all the things we was going to do, and it was basically this. We stuck to that throughout the whole year. Shiny pennies were there but we came back to this and we said, "No, this is the way it's going to be."
This is my first rent to rent deal. We sourced this through landlord letters. It's very close to Nottingham city center, and it's a large six bed property. It was poorly managed, the certificates were all over the place, they didn't have any gas safety, any electrical safety certificates. The HMO licence was with a manager, with another estate agency that would left the agent for about three years, so really poorly managed. One of the key things the owners wanted to go with me on this was because their joint tenancy fell through at the last minute, so they were going to have an empty property for about a year or so and they wanted income now. I said to them, "Look, I can do this." I took on the property and the figures from that, a generation of over £900 per month and the return on investment on that is 273%. That was my first deal, which was amazing because this is what Simon says, it works. That funded our marketing going forth, so we didn't have to take it from mine and Claire's wages every month, which was really good.
This was my first JV property with the amazing Mr. Simon Platt. I found this property in Hucknall where I live, literally two minutes away. It was sourced on Rightmove. I rang immediately and says, "I need to view this." Sent the numbers to Simon via email and we put a limit onto what we was going to offer. I was negotiating at the time at work. I ran out and says to my inspector, says, "I've got to just take a call." They said, "We need to speak to Simon." Because Simon was the mortgage host. I left it with their ... An hour later I get a few missed calls from Simon, I'm like, "Oh gosh, what's happening?" I finally pick up the phone to hi and the first words that he said to me, and it was absolutely amazing, was like, "Hello buddy, I just want to congratulate you on your first HMO property." I wept. I cried. It was the most amazing feeling, this relief came off my shoulders, and he's believed in me from day one and I'm truly grateful for that. Yeah, just absolutely sensational feeling.

Figures on this, we purchased for 107, the refurb cost of £40,000. Total cash in that is £66,750. Total net profit from that each is £8,721 per annum, and we're going to commercially remortgage this. The reason for this is we've drastically changed this, en suites throughout, a grade A fire alarm, the whole lot. It's been an absolutely amazing, amazing JV relationship. So much so that he's went on a second deal with me. This is on the same street as our first property. Again, same kind of numbers really. It's a four bed to a five at HMO. This was sourced through Rightmove as a repossession.
A bit of difficulty with this one, we had the offer accepted at £89,950 and was going through with the normal and the lender wanted full retention on it, they wouldn't lend on it before works would be done. We said, "Okay, we'll exchange with delayed completion." The asset managing company were having none of it, they said, "No, no way, but we will wait to go with another lender." We waited and we went with a different lender, and at the last minute they said, "Oh, we've got another offer." Someone beat us at our offer, which was very frustrating, Simon was livid. So much so he was negotiating on holiday.

I was complete hopeless with this. Simon was on holiday, I think he was in Italy, and he was making business calls whilst he was supposed to be relaxing, and we've got the solicitor arguing with the estate agent, they're putting the phone down on each other. It's a complete mess. I was very stressed as well, but luckily Simon pulled through again and we secured that property £100,250. The refurb cost on this is a bit more, it's £50,000, which was a total of £82,000 being put in. The profit split on that is £9,833 per annum, and again, we're going to commercially remortgage this, pulling out all the money so we can go again.
This is my Mastermind results. What's quite strange about this is that a year ago I knew nothing about property, absolutely nothing. Now I'm taking group investors around my portfolio, teaching the all about HMOs and how I did it my way, and I've got some great feedback from that, which is truly amazing. The power of Mastermind has done this for me really. We're up to £62,461 and this is so much that we can actually leave our jobs now. Me and Claire have the choice to do what we want with our lives and step down from our jobs and start enjoying life a bit more, because a few years before we've been scrimping and scraping and now we can go on holidays and stuff and so forth.
Pipeline deals. Mine and Simon's fourth JV we've got in the line, with this the landlord contacted me through a landlord letter, however, she's just signed a six month tenancy with tenants, so we can't do anything just yet, but we are talking about getting a purchase lease option, so she's obliged to obviously sell it to us first. Another rent to rent deal recommended by a landlord, that is the deal you saw. He's looking to ... Contacted me on that. I'm still negotiating on a five bed HMO in the center of Nottingham city center. It's been going on for some while, so hopefully that pulls off.
My top tips. Okay, pick your strategy straight from the start and stick to it. There's so many times where I could have gone for this development or that flip, and I kind of nailed down and said, "No, this is going to replace our income through HMOs." Focus. The strategy I picked, we really, really, really did focus on it and there was so many distractions in the sense of going out with friends and going to family events as well, but when business has got to be done, that's one thing we kind of said to ourselves, me and Claire, like, "This has got to be done. The family meal can wait." And so forth.

Use your pain. Big one for me. I think going for the Lamborghini or the nice house isn't as powerful as using your pain. With my upbringing and my mum doubting me, not telling that she was proud of me, and my dad leaving and so forth, I use that massively as my advantage, I want to prove them wrong, so much so that every time a hard time came I wanted to ... That was in my mind saying, "You can't do it", and I used that so much, and it really was powerful.

Use your time wisely. Cut out TV. Cut back on sleep. It needs to be done. That's something that I did quite well, again, not going out for meals and so forth. Don't get too complacent. This comes back to my own training in the gym. That extra rep or those extra few reps, that's what I brought to the property game. Whether it's attend another meeting, another viewing, making that phone call, redesigning your marketing, I wanted to make sure I got the most out of the day. Don't get too complacent. Eat your frogs every single day. There's some awful things that ... Like, accounting, I don't want to do, admin and stuff. They were the kind of things I had to do from the start of every day so they're out the way and then you can get to the stuff that you do enjoy.
Okay, so I want to say a special thanks to my amazing beautiful partner, Claire, she's been my absolutely rock, she's kind of put me in place when I've needed to. My amazing JV, Simon Platt, he's been absolutely amazing. He's gave me 100% every single time, and that's why I always give him 200% back. I'm really, really proud that you're in my life and you mean so much, and I love you, mate, I really do. My mentor, Rick Gannon. I believe success leaves clues, and Rick Gannon was my clue. I saw him stand on this stage a few years back with his lovely wife and I followed the same strategies he did, the marketing and so forth.

My coach, Saj Hussain, who's been an absolute great help as well, told me off at times, say, "No, this is the way you do it. Don't go for the shiny pennies." The wizard himself, Simon Zutshi, absolutely wizard, you've created something absolutely amazing and it really is magical, that's him, wizard. My best friend Curtis Jackson who's recommended all the trades to me, who's joining MM21 and I'm sure he will do absolutely amazing. My mother bear, Fi, who's been an absolute massive support to me as well and I appreciate everything that you've gave to me.

My amazing mother-in-law, I'm not married yet but I'm calling her mother-in-law, she's been absolutely amazing for all the help she's given me and Claire and to transforming her dining-room into an office. My amazing IFA, Mark Knight, he's not here today, he's off skiing, but I just want to say a massive thank you for all his support. My favorite Scotsman, Billy, you've been absolutely amazing as well mate, I really do appreciate everything you've given. My amazing sergeants and close friends, the amazing David Egbokhan, who's been an absolute support, and the beautiful Lisa Murray who has an absolutely amazing support as well. Working in custody and you talking about property and financial independence doesn't go down so well with employees, and them two have been absolutely amazing, and I'm sure I'll JV with them in the future.

The PIN Team, Amanda, for pushing me to sign up, and Sarah, you've been absolutely amazing as well. My buddies throughout Mastermind, you have been really, really helpful, you have been terrific. Thank you for that. Everyone else, and the list could go on, Abby, Saf, you've been absolutely amazing and I can't put all the names down there so I'm just going to say thank you to everyone who's helped me, you absolutely have been fantastic and I love you all. Thank you.

A NOTE FROM SIMON ZUTSHI

Alex's story just goes to show that you can start from nothing in this game, and achieve life-changing numbers in under a year through hard work and grit. And it doesn't take a lot of properties to make a life-changing impact.

Notice how he didn't let a lack of starting capital hold him back - he found a willing joint venture partner within the Mastermind group and split the profits. They've now done multiple deals together, and I imagine this will continue for many years to come. Alex has found a lifelong business partner.

Also notice how his mentor steered him away from "shiny object" projects and towards the dependable deals that will yield gains year after year. This type of mentoring is absolutely invaluable, and is a key component of the Programme. You are assigned your own personal property mentor who will touch base with you twice a month as well as come to see you in person for a two-day, 1-on-1 mentoring experience.

Ready to begin the journey of a lifetime? Become my next success study by joining the Mastermind Programme.
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