Only a short time ago Elijah Ramsay was reeling from the shock of losing his job. Now he is celebrating after being crowned the winner of The Eviction 2024. Samuel Leeds himself will be helping the 24-year-old to become financially free after his victory in the Apprentice-style competition. Ten aspiring property investors fought for the prize, tackling real-life investment challenges over five weeks before Elijah emerged triumphant.
Contestants given 72 hours to refurbish a hotel room
It is not every day that a multi-millionaire property entrepreneur moves into your home for a week to show you how to build a highly lucrative property investment company. But that’s the reality for Elijah as he prepares to host Samuel Leeds, one of the best-known figures in the industry.
The rising young star is brimming with confidence. And why not? Previous winners of The Eviction have become seriously wealthy with the same individual attention.
This is his time to make the most of his golden opportunity, having already tasted the high life with a fine dining experience after reaching the final.
The contest took place at Willingham House, the 26-bedroom country hotel near Cambridge which Samuel secured earlier in the year for just £1 on a lease with an option to buy it later.
The hotel is undergoing renovation and participants had to demonstrate their skill and resilience with a series of gruelling tasks, living on site while competing against one another.
Each week two people were evicted after being summoned to the boardroom, with Samuel deciding who should go and who should stay. Assisting him were some of his most trusted mentors, including Anthony Wilmott, winner of The Eviction in 2018. They would also be giving the contestants valuable tips during the challenges.
Elijah came close to being eliminated himself before he had barely unpacked. However, he had a powerful motivation to succeed.
Shortly before he took part in the event he was ‘fired’ from his job as a building control surveyor for being involved in property on the side. He hadn’t even told his parents that his contract had been terminated when he walked through the doors of Willingham House.
“My reason to win this is so I can give back to my mum and dad and family members who truly deserve it,” he said, explaining why financial independence was important to him.
The architecture graduate would go on to prove that he has what it takes to make it as a professional property, despite making a sticky start.
In the first round, five pairs of contestants were given £2,000 each and 72 hours to transform a room in the hotel, balancing style, quality and cost.
Elijah seized the initiative and quickly brought in contractors from his contacts’ list to help with the refurbishment.
One contractor wallpapered some of the walls and another lent a hand with removing sockets. However, it didn’t entirely go to plan. His teammate spilled paint on the carpet which led to delays in the work being completed.
When they arrived in the boardroom, Samuel was unimpressed. “The room was a mess. The towel was just flung on the shower board. The bed wasn’t made properly. The paintwork was shoddy,” he said, adding: “If I had a property to be refurbed, the last people I’d put on the planet to oversee it would be you two.”
When Elijah was asked why he should not be evicted, he argued that he had worked the hardest and was the strongest candidate, only to come under attack again.
“You’ve skirted around my basic questions. You don’t seem to have any fire or get up and go. I need more from you in these boardroom meetings. In the next challenge if I sense weakness you’re out.”
It was a bad start but there was worse to come before his fortunes dramatically changed.
Dead heat leads to weakest links being evicted
In the second round, the budding entrepreneurs had to find guests that night for the rooms which they had done up by advertising the accommodation online. The winning team would be the one which obtained the most bookings and money for the business. Guests would be asked afterwards what they thought of the pricing and their room.
The competitors were divided into ‘boys’ and ‘girls’, with Elijah appointed a team leader and then steering his team to collecting bookings of £4,090. It was not enough to beat the girls who brought in £5,560. They were safe and again he was faced with pleading his case to stay.
Samuel had heard that one group had agreed to a £40 booking which he felt was too cheap. Elijah confessed to accepting a £50 reservation. He was told: “It’s too low. Yes, you’ve brought in some cash flow but now you’ve damaged my business.”
Again, Elijah survived after confusion between the two teams led to a double-booking disaster resulting in another room and a corridor having to be spruced up at the last minute.
The third round was about deal selling which was where he came into his own. Samuel told the contestants: “This next challenge is going to be the ultimate challenge because the purpose of any business is to make money.
“The best and fastest way to make money is through packaging property investments and then selling those opportunities on to investors.”
The winning team would be the one that made the most money, but if it wasn’t in the bank it wouldn’t count. Their strategy would be to find undervalued properties and package them attractively. They could then sell their deals to investors at a barbecue to be held at the hotel.
The pressure was on. Speed and accuracy would be essential as they would have only 48 hours to get their deals over the line. Two of Samuel’s closest companions, Elliot Spencer and Chris Jeavons, who have sold hundreds of deals, would be their mentors and assessing their performance.
After being split into two teams, Elijah was on it straight away, hitting the phones and negotiating. His determination won him praise from Elliot for collecting most of the fees. But there was a rival hot on his heels.
Rebecca ‘Bex’ East, from Stoke-on-Trent, who owns a property staging company, brought in a £10,000 sourcing fee for a 32-room commercial building suitable for conversion to flats.
At the end of the challenge, it was a dead heat with both sides collecting an eyewatering £51,000.
Samuel was taken by surprise and had a thorny problem to solve: “I never expected you to have sold the same amount. We’re going to have to find the weakest link in each team.”
Elijah was once more in the spotlight with his property guru. “I said to you last time in the boardroom if it was between you and one other person you were going to go.”
Defending himself, Elijah pointed to his strength on the sales side which was indisputable, and this time Samuel commended him, despite his being poor at admin operations.
“I wanted to see the fire and you brought the fire. I want to see more of that in the next challenge. So, you can go back to the house.”
Elijah sells nine deals worth £29,000
The semi-final saw the four remaining adversaries having to do what Samuel Leeds did when he took control of Willingham House.
He said: “I put down a £1 deposit with an agreement to buy it in 10 years for just £2m. In the next 10 years I’m going to make a substantial amount of cash flow by renting it out as a hotel which will then be the down payment to buy it for £2m.
The next challenge is to find a purchase lease option agreement. I want to see one secured deal, contracts signed, and I want to see you secure it with an option fee of just £1.”
This time the mentors were Anthony Wilmott, who has completed countless such transactions, and Tatiana Sharposhnikova, a property lawyer who specialises in purchase lease option agreements.
Elijah was partnered with Bex. They had 48 hours to clinch the business. Through a connection with a schoolfriend Elijah found a landlord open to the idea. He owned a four-bedroom house in an area where there was demand for serviced accommodation.
The property in Plumstead, southeast London, had been empty for seven months, and the owner had been trying to sell it.
It was a rare find. Elijah set out the terms. They would offer the full purchase price with completion within five years. In the meantime, the landlord would receive a rental income which would be guaranteed monthly, making it ‘hands off and passive.’ They would also take care of all the expenses, including any mortgage payments.
The landlord agreed to the proposal which would allow them to rent out the property for a higher amount. He signed the contract, but Elijah and Bex still needed to view it. After being held up in traffic, they had to arrange a digital viewing instead.
The other pairing also found a lease option but failed to get the contract signed in time for the deadline, and so they were out.
In the final, Bex and Elijah had to produce business plans. Samuel told them: “I’m an investor of money but I’m also an investor of time and I want to be investing my time into somebody who’s got a clear business plan – something that I can really buy into and get behind.
“You’re going to be helped by my brother and the CEO of our company Russell and Tony Crook who’s mentored me for over a decade.”
They also had to give a presentation to an invited audience at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in the capital.
Elijah admitted in his speech to struggling with two challenges but then surprised himself and everyone else by selling nine deals generating an income of £29,000.
After winning the audience vote by a landslide and succeeding in the previous test, he was declared the winner. Afterwards he said: “I manifested this and it’s true now. I’m just going to keep it humble.”
Elijah plans to launch a deal sourcing company and put the profits from that into acquiring properties which he can rent out, using the buy, refurbish, refinance strategy.
Samuel Leeds’ verdict
“It’s been a journey of grit, ambition and high stakes. The Eviction has pushed these contestants to their limits, revealing who has the skill and the resilience to succeed in property. I look forward to helping Elijah achieve his goal of financial freedom.
“We received hundreds of applications from people wanting to take part in the competition and so all the contestants did well to come this far.”
Also competing in The Eviction were: Reuben Wincott, Pragati Giri, Jaegen Roberts, Lavinia Rutti, Natalie Broad, Praveen Sharma, Lauren Morley and Szymon Gorski. Sue Gray, Tim Gray, Richard Harris and Patricia Kilty also played key roles as mentors.