From Council Estate To Real Estate – How Samuel Leeds Made His Millions!

These days Samuel has gone up in the world. The purple Ford KA which he once drove has long since been consigned to the wrecker’s yard. Instead he owns a luxury Range Rover with a six-figure price tag and lives in one of the most expensive parts of the UK. He is also the proud owner of an historic castle in the Midlands and is a prolific property investor.

Property Investors founder Samuel Leeds went from being broke to having a £10m fortune in the space of a decade whilst still in his twenties. Here the 29-year-old entrepreneur describes his childhood – and how he became wealthy after an unpromising start in life which saw him relegated to the special needs desk at school.

Ten years ago, Samuel Leeds was living on a council estate in Walsall, and driving old bangers which were always letting him down, costing him money he didn’t have.

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And yet, the Property Investors chair insists he is ‘nothing special.’ By his own admission, he didn’t do well at school. “When I was at school, I never really felt that understood, that people believed in me and thought I was going to do well.

“I remember there was a big desk at school. It was a kind of special needs desk. A guy who was quite a few years older than me sat on this desk. He had quite severe special needs and when he left the school, they put me on the desk.

“Even to this day I don’t know exactly why they put me on it. I don’t know if it was because they thought I had special needs or maybe because I had a real short attention span. I was always flicking glue and getting into trouble. Perhaps they wanted to keep an eye on me, but I just felt people generally didn’t get me.

“I didn’t think I was going to do well and go on and get a good job. I just thought I’m going to have to rely on something different, maybe my hands, and be a builder or something like that.” His father was a gardener and his mother a mobile hairdresser. They split up when he was seven years old. It was a bad separation, says Samuel. But then, when he was 12 his father became a magician and he thought that was ‘cool.’

It was this career change which led Samuel into business after his father invited him to work with him for the day on his market stall, where he sold tricks to passers-by. It was a moment of revelation for the young Samuel.

“I could see them giving him cash. At the time I’d never made any money. I thought I can do that.”

Soon he was buying tricks off his dad and selling them to his schoolmates at a profit. It was his first business, but his teachers didn’t like it.

“They thought I was selling drugs. They used to call my mom into school meetings and say I think your boy’s selling drugs and she’d be saying no, he’s selling magic tricks!” At the same time, he was earning an income from lots of paper rounds and washing cars.

“I just wanted to make money because I knew I was going to fail in school, and I knew that I wasn’t going to walk into a highly paid job. I didn’t want to rely on anybody. I didn’t want to say to my mom, hey can I have some money for a car or for this and that.”

When his mother got remarried to an accountant, it took him on another route to making money through business. His stepfather Tim suggested he work as a plasterer because this was well paid. Samuel did some work experience as a plasterer and went on a crash course where he was taught how to plaster a house. He paid for the course out of his paper round money and his income from selling magic tricks.

He realised this could earn him £100 to £150 plus per day and advertised his services as a plasterer. His father, he recalls, was unimpressed because he wanted his son to work for him when he left school. By now his dad was doing well with magic shows.

Samuel agreed, but in the meantime set up a plastering business called Pelsall Plastering. His first job was to plaster a room for £500.

“I’m 15 years old and I’m plastering this room and the lady who’s the client keeps coming in and checking on me every few hours. I’m thinking I’m doing this all wrong. This isn’t working. Now she wants me to plaster the ceiling and I don’t know how to do that. They didn’t teach me that on the crash course!”

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