Lawton Hopwood, 32, is banking £20,000-£25,000 a month from selling property deals alone. And he says that is just the tip of the iceberg. He has set up his own company, Hopwood Homes, and also become a property developer involved in multi-million pound deals.

How Covid impacted his life

Up until spring last year the former Sale man was enjoying a good life with his partner Rachel and young son Mason. He had a well-paid job as a project manager with a large construction firm, a company car and lived in a nice house in Lymm.

But suddenly along came Covid, unemployment and insecurity. He says June 2020 was a ‘nightmare of a month’ which destroyed his income and self-esteem.

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone I’d lost my job other than Rachel. I just couldn’t bear the thought of having somebody put their arm around my back and say ‘it’s alright Lawton you’ll find your feet again’. ‘You’ll get another job.'

“I needed someone to say ‘look Lawton this is your big chance now. You’ve got a moment to sink or swim. You can change your life if you do something’. That was the voice I had in my head,” he said.

“My heart just fell. I was afraid of losing my home and my relationship, but I knew I needed to take action straight away.”

Moving on up on the ladder

Lawton, who was brought up by a single mum on a Sale council estate, decided to turn to property as it was something he had always been interested in.

“As a youngster I was always drawing houses and wanted to be an architect,” he explained.

“Nobody in my family has ever been entrepreneurial and everybody worked for an hourly rate.

“Looking back, I think I was a natural businessman. As a kid I used to print out Pokémon posters on the school printers and sell them to other pupils.

Within minutes of telling his partner he was unemployed, Lawton had opened his laptop and paid £1 for a week-long trial of an online property training course.

During the next seven days he studied hours of educational videos making notes from early morning to late at night.

The lucky break

Then he got the ‘luckiest break’ of his life. He applied to take part in a national competition for aspiring property entrepreneurs called The Eviction.

Lawton was gutted when he was not selected, but he got a second chance – and all because of the pandemic which ironically had just cost him his job.

The Eviction attracts hundreds of applicants but because of the coronavirus pandemic several of the 12 candidates chosen had dropped out.

“I said yes straight away, count me in. The only other thing is it starts tomorrow – yes, I’m in. Oh, just one more thing it’s in London. I said yes, I’ll see you there. Send me the address.”

The contestants were required to complete some training first, but several were quickly shown the exit door.

During the contest Lawton ended up netting six property deals and sold one of the options he secured to another constant.

That contestant was Evans Willie who was jointly named a winner with Lawton and David Eccles, a budding entrepreneur from Ireland. The prize for each of them was spending a week with Samuel on one of his Financial Freedom Challenges in which he attempted to help people become financially independent within seven days.

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