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.

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...

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.