From Royal Marine to Property Investor | Samuel Leeds interviews Joe Lane

This week's Winners on a Wednesday is a great story! I sit down with royal marine turned property investor, Joe Lane.

Joe picked up a life threatening injury a few years back in which he was in a coma for three days and had to learn to walk and talk again. Now, in 2018, he is a successful property investor with an impressive portfolio and is financially free.

Check out the interview below.

Samuel – “Joe you didn't really want me to bring you on the show yet you were like can we just wait a few months until I've got an

even more amazing story right but you are financially free full-time in property. Can you just give us a little bit of background about

yourself…”

Joe – ” I was in the Royal Marines for eight and a half years so I served time in Afghanistan, Iraq and some time with the culture and guards working in London and doing ceremonial, I then got injured, a really bad injury on the ski slopes in Austria and I was in a coma for about three days and then spent 18 months relearning how to walk and talk which is a bit emotional but I fought through it.”

Samuel – “That's quite incredible, really I mean a coma for three days and then had to learn to walk and talk all over again that must have been

absolutely traumatic?”

Joe – “Yeah it's one of those things. I wasn't married at the time that's probably for the best.”

Samuel – “You wouldn't remember your wife now?”

Joe – ” Exactly!”

Samuel – “So you had that awful experience but what happened next work wise?”

Joe – ” Work wise I probably worked out that the Royal Marines was the wrong thing and I didn't want to be on the front line so that probably wasn't going to be the way forward. So I set up the retail line for the Royal Marines charity www.royalmarineshop.com so I really chewed into that for four years.”

Samuel – ” Why did you set up that chairty?”

Joe – ” I wanted to give back to the Royal Marines as I had a lot of friends who were fairly good at standing by me through my injury and at that time the Royal Marines had a lot of injured solders and a lot of my friends were amputees and wanted to find there way back.”

Samuel – ” It's weird that your injury happened on a ski slope and not you know actually doing your job?”

Joe – “Probably most frustrating for my mom! She waves goodbye when I was off to Afghanistan and Iraq probably fearing for the worst but not when I'm going skiing.”

Samuel – ” How did property come about then? When did you decide that you wanted to be a property investor? “

Joe – ” I became an accidental landlord as I had a place back in Poole and then that was working quite nicely and I then had a friend who

recommended I went to a property event down in Plymouth and then you (Samuel) came down to that and did a really good talk. I

ended up buying property from you shortly afterwards .”

Samuel – ” Yeah back in 2016. So we met then and I remember on the night talking about HMOs and how a lot of people down south think

that they can only buy houses down south but actually they might not necessarily be the best return and we looked at properties together didn't

we in Derby? So that was your first kind of proper investment property other than being an accidental landlord?”

Joe – ” It was yeah!”

Samuel – ” So how's that property going?”

Joe – ” It's working really well yeah superb, it's in a really good area and pretty much got it rented out the whole time!”

Samuel – “How much did you buy it for?”

Joe – ” £96,500″

Samuel – ” So you bought it for £96,500 and it needed a big refurb which was about fifteen twenty thousan, so how much is it worth now?”

Joe – ” About £120,000 to £130,000!”

Samuel – “So you've kept its value and how much are you renting it out for?

Joe – “£1,400”

Samuel – ” Okay so that's a decent property with a return on investment of what?”

Joe – “It's about 25%”

Samuel – “Fantastic! and you just completed on a property today?”

Joe – “Yeah like yesterday. That property's in Nottingham and it's on the Brewer's Scheme (so buy, refurb and refinance) I've done a joint

venture with a friend and we managed to get all the investors into us, we bought that in an auction it's my first auction property. I managed to get it for ninety eight thousand and then we're hoping to get £165,000 refinance. Hopefully we'll leave no money in ,it won't be a massive

cash flow but it is no money down so we'll have a house and I reckon it will make about £300/£400 a month.”

Samuel – ” So it's a no money down deal so tell me how you are financing the deal?”

Joe – ” A JV partner is putting in a certain amount and the rest of its through investors that we have met and worked with and then when we refinance we will get a mortgage.”

Samuel – “So you're borrowing the whole 98 thousand from investors?”

Joe – “Yeah but we might end up doing bridging if another deal comes up.”

Samuel – “How much are you going to have to spend to do up this property?”

Joe – ” About £20,000 which will come from investors.”

Samuel – ” So you've spent about £20,000 doing it up and you brought it for £98,000 so you've now spent about £118,000 what will the

done up value be?”

Joe – “About £165,000!”

Samuel – “How have you managed to only spend 20 grand on it but have an uplift of £85,000?”

Joe – “Yeah there would be £40,000 . I bought it at auction, we worked out the price so we knew we're buying for the correct price. We found a very motivated seller.”

Samuel – “Tell me about buying from auction. Is it scary?”

Joe – ” It's my first auction and I bid on the first lot which I didn't get and I was semi relieved because you need to work out exactly what figures you are going to be paying.”

Samuel – “So when you bought this house for 98K did you know that what was the max you'd go to?”

Joe – “No the max was £100,000”

Samuel – “So what did that feel like just walk me through what happened?”

Joe – ” I didn't go in till quite late so I think the gravel was about to go down! I just popped up, so it was about £93,000 at that stage and then when I'm popped up it then went through about four or five thousand really quickly but then the other guy must have had his limit

and didn't go any further so the guy the auctioneer just said going going gone! I felt nervous and excited.”

Samuel – ” You're on the academy so you've got a lot of support and a lot of help and I remember you were showing me that day on our I to one also you have got some experience in property now and you're already financially free. You've got four properties all probably so you've got a little portfolio going on but borrowing 120,000 pounds cash off private investors and buying from an auction these are all things that can go

wrong but where there's bigger risk there's usually big reward!”

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