From Maternity Leave to Rent-to-Rent Success with Lucy Akrigg

This week on the Girls and Property Podcast, Athena Dobson is joined by one of our original Girls in Property community members, Lucy Akrigg – and trust me, this episode is one you won’t want to miss!

Not only is this Lucy’s very first podcast appearance (and can we just say – she absolutely smashes it!), but her story is one that’s sure to leave you feeling inspired. It’s one of those “if she can do it, so can I” moments – and we’re here for it.

Lucy takes us back to how she got started in property during her maternity leave (yes, really!) and launched her very first rent-to-rent business, whilst continuing to travel the world with her family. Fast forward to now, and she’s growing her portfolio with HMOs and serviced accommodation units at a pace that’s honestly hard to keep up with – all while balancing the realities of mum life and running a business like a total pro.

As always, our chat dives into the real, behind-the-scenes stuff: the highs, the hustle, and those classic “what on earth am I doing?” moments. Lucy shares some brilliant tips on sourcing properties, picking the right tenants, and gives a refreshingly honest take on what it’s really like building a business with your partner by your side.

If you’ve ever found yourself doubting your dreams, Lucy’s journey is your reminder that with a bit of resilience, a supportive home life, and a whole lot of heart, you can build a property business you love. 

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Disclaimer: None of the content in our podcast is intended to constitute legal or financial advice. All interviews and statements are the thoughts & opinions of the hosts and guests themselves and should be taken as such. Any information used from this podcast is done so at your own risk.

Transcript

0:01

Good morning everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Girls and Property Podcast. I am super, super excited today for today's episode, like really excited. One, because I think it's so important on this podcast, and I'm sure all of you listeners will agree with me, that it's important to get a variety of voices on this podcast. It's important to get experience from people who have been in the industry for, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 years, whatever they may be. different backgrounds, different levels of experience. But at the same time, it's also so important to hear from the voices who are sort of into their journey, sort of starting out as it were. But also when I say that, also doing incredible things within the industry that hopefully are a bit more relatable within the current markets that we are investing in. And that's something that I'm really learning as well. So today, without further ado, I'm sure you're as excited as I am to be with Lucy Atkins. Hey, Lucy! Yay! oh I'm so excited to be here. uh let's just tell all the listeners first of all to set the scene. This is your debut podcast. Yes, very first one. Right, so everyone listening, this is Lucy's first ever podcast. And as I said to you, it could only be the Girls and Property podcast. Which is so exciting. we were gonna go for it. You have so much, so many stories and so much knowledge to give the listeners today. Like I think they're in for such a treat with you, honestly. You're somebody that I have, not in a weird way Lucy, but watched for a long period of time and. Just watch you grow and just watch like how you inspire so many other people with your traveling and the kids and Sam and all the things that you're doing whilst trying to do a successful property business at the same time. And I think you're genuinely so inspirational with it all. And I can't wait for the listeners to learn from you, be inspired and get to know you a bit more today. So would you like to do an introduction for yourself? And I think what would be a good idea is to tell everybody about you kind of. where you started, how you got into property, your why, where you are with things now, and then maybe something really interesting about you that we don't know about. Oh, okay. Crikey. Okay, so we started six years ago. So six years ago, I was on maternity leave with my eldest son, Joey. And at the time I was working for a really big holiday company with awful hours, massive commute, and I just didn't want to go back. They weren't having any of sort of flexible working or anything like that. So I said to Sam, that's it. When we have Joey, I'm not going back to work. So we sort of sat there and we're like, okay, but we need to bring in a bit of money. So we were like, let's think of a side hustle, something I can do short term, couple of years, and then I'll go back to normal life. And then sort of by fluke, Sam heard about Rent to Rent. He was listening to some random podcast and heard about it and came and told me. And it was a bit of a light bulb moment really. We were like, oh, like, we could do this. Maybe this is that thing that'll bring us a bit of extra cash. That means they don't have to go back to work. And I'm a big believer that like the timings of things all sort of align when they should. And my granddad had an apartment in Exeter that had long tenants in and they were leaving. So we were like, oh, like this could be it. We can sort of trial out with him. He knows us, trusts us. If it goes wrong. It doesn't matter. He would just be pleased to have given us a chance. But it flew and we loved it. So that was our first one. And then we sort of sat down and thought, if we can replicate this and grow this, then Sam can leave as well. And maybe we can do what we've always said we would do and actually make it a reality. So over the next few years, we sort of grew our SA business and our family at the same time. We had our second son. Max. And yeah, we grew our portfolio to nine properties and that sort of funded the lifestyle that we wanted. So our whole sort of ethos was to sort of live life by our design, to create a business that gave us location freedom where we could travel and adventure wherever we wanted, run the business from wherever we were in the world. So that's what we did and we loved it. And then about 18 months ago, we were starting to get a bit sick of the drama of essays and we wanted a bit more of stability in our life. So we, that's when we started looking at HMO. So we now have a rent to rent HMO business as well, which has sort of been our main focus the last 12 months. And it's given us that sort of stability we craved. Our son started school. So life has sort of changed for us and we've been home more and sort of forced home more from school. And so we were able to grow that business, but still with that, like big goal that we want to live life with our kids, be present with them, do all the drop-offs, be able to go anywhere we want. So that's what we did. I love this. There is so much I want to unpack. Also, what's one thing we don't know about you? Go on, there must be loads we don't know about you, Lucy. There's probably loads, yeah. I think probably the main thing. So my husband Sam, we met nine years ago, I think, doing our first ski season straight from uni. That's where we met and that's where we fell in love. And we did two more together. So we lived in France for three years doing that. So yeah, not many people know that about us. I that. you speak French? I love that. Oh, Lucy, I love your story. There is so much to unpack on this episode with you. I'll tell you one of the things that I really picked up from you as well and what we're be talking about on this podcast today is first of all, how wonderful that your granddad gave you your first one. mean, you know, and we always say this, don't we? We always talk about, and we mean it when we say it like. people that are going to give you your first investment or the first opportunity are going to be the people closest to you because he obviously knew that he could trust you and Sam at the end of the day, he knew that the property was in safe hands. And as a result of that, he's like, there you go. Like, and I always say this to people, like they're like, oh, my, family don't have any money. My family don't have any resources. You know, I'm like, you don't know that they might not talk about it, but I mean, did your granddad always talk about this apartment or how did it even come to fruition? No, like, and, he loves it. Like, well, he's unfortunately not here anymore, but he loved the fact that he was like the start of our journey and he gave us that opportunity. But yeah, he never even, he'd never heard of rent to rent and we hadn't to that point. And it was just like complete fluke that I'd heard him say, oh, I've got to look for some more tenants. And then I was like, oh, hang on a minute. I can be your tenant. Like, let's get this to work. So yeah, amazing that it came from him. How incredible is that? We're going to be delving into that because also what you just said there and what I really want to talk to you about today is we are in a small category of people, Lucy, me and you. And that category is that we decided at the same time, simultaneously, to have a rent-to-rent service accommodation business and a rent-to-rent HMO business at the same time, which not many people do. I can understand why. Yeah, slightly insane, but we're be delving into that as well and kind of what it means in terms of putting different hats on uh between tenants and guests and what it means to have both of those businesses. Before we delve into these things, Lucy, what are you celebrating at the moment? Because you know I was always gonna ask you this question for a podcast. always ask. And so I am celebrating signing my 10th HMO lease yesterday. amazing. just be really just be really clear with this. So is that 10 as in 10 now in total for all of the properties or is that just 10 HMOs? Just 10, yeah, HMOs, just HMOs. That's our 10th HMO within 12 months when we started. Yeah, so it's exciting. And it's like 10 seconds walk from my house. Usually we take on properties that like need quite a bit of a refurb, but this one is beautiful. It's ready to go. So it's all very exciting. Okay, fantastic. So let's just recap here. 10 HMOs in 12 months through rent to rent and service accommodation. How many have you got of those? And nine of those. You have 19 in total. Okay. You need one more to even yourself out on the service accommodation. And then you'll be in nice numbers, 10 each. My goodness. So just to recap once again, so I think it's important just to say. I introduced you and I was like, look, we get lots of different people on and some people have got X amount of years in the industry. Some people have got this. What this has just proven, Lucy, in the most beautiful way, it does not matter about years. You know, you're like, we've done it for six years, but look what you've achieved in those six years, like huge, huge things. And actually with the HMOs, you said six years, but actually those, all of those were achieved in 12 months. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the industry for. What matters is the purpose and the drive and the implementation of the time that you have. So huge congratulations to you, like huge. And you're just a superstar and I just can't wait to see you fly even more. So fantastic celebration. And yeah, but you're the perfect person to talk about this with as well with all of that. What am I celebrating? I'm, do you know what? I'm going to celebrate something to do with Girls and Property because you're on here Lucy. So I'm going to celebrate the fact that when this podcast comes out, it will probably be about four weeks when it happened, but I hosted my first Girls and Property workshop, which was amazing. It went so well. So we had 20 women all together in the room and I just did what I wanted to achieve. And do you know what? had, I feel I can say this to you. I had a moment when I was sat at the back of the room. And it was just a moment of like genuine pride going, this is what I wanted to create. This is what the whole purpose of it was. It was to be intimate, small group workshops for different topics where girls could come and feel intimate and things. And to be fair, the girls said to me, they're like, they said to me at the end, were like, Athena, you know, we love your retreats. Your retreats are amazing. We love them. Just the days are fab. But they're like, there's something different about being in a room of just 20 women. where you feel that you can just put your hand up or say, don't understand or say, can you repeat that again? And the whole thing was about social media and social media algorithm. And so the person who led it, Sarah Spar Scott, who, as I've said, is a wizard, go listen to the podcast with her. Yeah, she's incredible. She was able to go round and really like, like implement and do like a hands-on approach with all of the girls. And I'm just so excited to do the others now. and something happened at the workshop, which was not meant to happen, but it did. I was at the back of the room and the girls were like, Athena, what are you gonna do for the next workshop? And I said to them, I'll be really honest with you girls, I'm really struggling at the moment. So on Friday the 12th of September, originally I was thinking about doing a finance workshop, people weren't really, they were sort of interested, but not really. Then I was gonna do a renter's rights bill one and the girls were like, I think that's a bit intense, like a full day. And then I said to them, well, help me, like I make these workshops for you. What topic should I do? Who should I be getting in? And it was specifically this beautiful girl, Anissa and Nancy, who went to me, Athena, why don't you lead the workshop? Why don't you do the workshop? And I went, what, me? And they're like, yeah, why do you need someone else? Why don't you do it? And I was like, why don't I do it? And we had this moment where I, don't know why, but I had this block that I had to get an expert in and I had to... get somebody else in almost because I don't know, I was having a moment of limiting beliefs and posture syndrome. And they were like, Athena, like, and Anissa said the most gorgeous thing and Anissa, if you're listening, I hope you don't mind me repeating this. But Anissa was like, Athena, I joined Girls and Property because I love girls and I love property and all that. But I also joined because of you. And I was like, I want to learn from you. And I was like, oh, right. Okay. And it was really weird for me because suddenly I was like saying to the girls, I was like, so shall I run the workshop? And they're like, yes. And I was like, Thank the workshop. So I'm running the next one on Friday the 12th and I said to the girls, what do you want? They're like, we want goal setting. We want limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome. We want strategy. We want, um you know, all these things. And I was like, my head just started to go into just right planning mode, planning. I was like, my God, this is retreat 2.0, but for 20 of you. So I'm really excited to celebrate. Yeah. that I'm gonna host the 12th of September one. And the girls were like, you know, like signed up there and then and they were like, right, we're in. So yeah, I feel like I can celebrate that with you as well. Do you know what I mean? I feel like you can really understand when I'm celebrating that. yay. Yay. I know it is so exciting. So everybody believe in yourself, never doubt yourself and always know that you are enough because even people like, I'm sure Lucy, you have this all the time. people like me, you we doubt ourselves, we feel like we're not enough and it's just not true. It really isn't. And the more you do, the more you'll get into it. Right, Lucy, let's go. Let's delve into the really nitty gritty. So here's my first question for you just to set the scene. So a lot of the time people will usually say to me, how can you really acquire your first rent to SA property? Because Just to explain, with HMOs it's a bit different because with HMOs you can receive something called the HMO register in your area. And as a result of that you get the HMO register that will have, in my case in Bournemouth, know, over thousand landlords on there. You can put a letter template together, you can send it to them and that would be your first set of marketing. Now with service accommodation, you can't do that. You don't have, there's no such thing, you don't have that list. And so trying to get service accommodation properties is quite difficult. Now I understand that your granddad gave you your first one, but how did you get your second? How did that come about? Yeah, a lot of people say to me, how do you do the first one? Like, that's the hardest. And I'm like, I was really lucky that I got that one from family. So then going forward, I could say, I'm already doing it. And I think that's the hardest thing. And, but actually, all of our ones since all of our essays have been through Facebook and through word of mouth. So the second one, we just saw an ad on Facebook on like a local local page of a landlord who said, I've got this apartment that is in a really bad condition. I'm not local. Does anyone want it? So we just messaged him saying, yeah, we want it. And it went from there. Wow, social media was working for you. Interesting that it was Facebook that you're saying majority of time works best. Do you feel like landlords tend to hang out more on Facebook, would you say, over like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn? Yeah, I mean, I don't have TikTok, so I don't know how that works. But yeah, we've only ever found landlords through Facebook. We've not actively looked through another channel though to know, but for us, it has been Facebook, definitely. And without sounding ageist, I think that's more of a sort of generational thing. I think the age of our landlords, that's their social media is Facebook. Yeah, definitely. So would you say therefore that how you approach this, I'm just trying to think about my local page. So let's say that there was like, I presume it was like an Exeter page. Yeah, so it was literally the Exeter page on Facebook. You went through it, like I've got a Bournemouth and Paul one, for example. You saw that there was a property being advertised and he was basically like, who wants to take this? And then you messaged. And now my second question is, did this landlord know what corporate latting rent to rent was? Yes. Ah, they did know. So you had two bits of good luck. I know. So he himself does rent to rent with sort of social housing. He's not local, but that is what he does. So he was specifically looking for someone to take it on a rent to rent basis. I know. you literally are laughing at these two, aren't you? You're like, our luck has just continued. Okay, so you didn't have to explain what it was, he already knew. What was the type of property? Did it need a lot of work? Like, how was it set up? Yeah, so I think it's been our biggest refurb. It had been a long let for about 10 years. So he hadn't been in in 10 years. It was let to sue somebody who had drug issues. And it was disgusting, like the worst you can imagine. It needed completely ripping out and redoing. It's a lovely two bed apartment, amazing location, but just... disgusting. And he just, he just couldn't be arsed. He was so busy with his own business. yeah, he couldn't be arsed. So he was like, if you do everything, you can pay me less. I just don't want to even step foot in here again. And he hasn't. No. So let's just paint that scene for people listening. So you've had this property from Uganda, which I bet was lovely, well-kept, beautiful, you know, and you did a great success out of that, wonderful. So now you've gone on to take on this new property and you walk in and you're like, what is this? I mean, did you think to yourself, you know, we're gonna have to refurb, this is a big project. Did you ever have moments to think to yourself, this is disgusting, why are we even doing this? Like what went through your mind? Yeah, Sam and I are like the opposite really. Before we'd even signed anything, when we were just looking around, I was like, this is brilliant. We can make this work. The numbers look good. And Sam was like, hell no, we're gonna lose all our money. This is a disaster. But somehow we come to like a bit of a middle ground and we go for it. And once we signed, we sort of switch. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, what have we done? This is a disaster. And Sam's like, no, it's fine. We'll make it work. So yeah, we make it work. I love that. And sometimes that's why it's good to have two of you in the business. Because imagine if you having those conversations internally with yourself, that's tough. You just, think if it, I think we would pull out if it was just me, I think I'd always be too scared to go the next step and actually commit to it. So I think we sort of force each other to commit and go for it. Yeah. Wow, and I guess if you are on your own listening to this, I presume that maybe an accountability partner or a community would therefore be that support to you if you're on your own. To be like, yeah. Yeah, or a mentor just to be like, you can do it. Yes, let's go for it. Okay, so you've taken on this property. Now, when you're doing your figures and things, because I don't know about you, Lucy, and what your opinion about this is, I'd love to hear it actually, but when you're doing rent-to-rent, Do you, what's your opinion about getting a manager in to manage it for you if you're doing rent to rent? Well, I mean, it sounds lovely, but just pointless. I think, I say pointless, that's probably wrong, but we have always managed them all ourselves to make it work financially. And I think we've actually just got to a point the last few months where we thought we can't actually carry on managing just ourselves. We're going to burn out big time and we need help. But that's such a hard thing to do to know you're- giving money away that could be yours. And so it's a bit of a balancing act. But yeah, we have self managed up to today. We still self manage. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because when you're doing the figures, if you think about it, if they take say 20%, which is on average for a management company, and they're never going to be you, they're never going to care about it the way that you care about it. It's really hard to make your figures work. It really is. There's so much to learn with service accommodation. know, for example, Lucy, you know, how did you feel with your cleaners or linen? Like when you started to learn about the world of SA and everything that comes with it, what would you say was your biggest lessons? as you were going through that you were learning on the job doing. think I was quite lucky that even though I'd worked before in Holiday Let, I'd done a lot of the same things, sort of dealing with landlords, pricing, all of that. So none of that was new, but the pressure on you is still a lesson now. Like it all comes down to us. When things go wrong, it's on us. When guest message at midnight, it's on us. Finding cleaners is on us and cleaners are. the hardest part of the service accommodation business by far. Like six years in and I still struggle with cleaners now. So yeah, think that the fact that it's all on you and everything falls back to you, I find really hard and I'm such a stress head that I take everything and it really affects me physically. Yeah, so I do, it's just a lot, isn't it? is, it is. And I tell you what my biggest one is, and I need your help with this Lucy, because I need your opinion on this for the listeners. I sometimes get DMs or I get messages from women mainly who say to me, Athena, I'm in a full-time job. This is what I do. These are my hours. I don't have lots of money to get into a property, but I know that I want to do something different. I know I want a better life. I know I want a better life for my kids. I've seen that you can get into something called Rent to SA. It looks great. You can make really good cash flow because it's nightly instead of having tenants in. Can I get some advice about it? Like, yeah, yeah, I get these DMs all the time, by the way, like literally all the time. And like, it's a really difficult one for me and I'd almost love to hear your voice on this one because when you first started, what was like your situation in regards to working and balancing the situation with Brent, I say, I know that you're on maternity leave, I don't know if you went back, like what was your situation? Yeah, so when we first started, I was on maternity leave and it was before I'd had my son. So I had all the time in the world. So that was great for the first one. I could really put in a lot of time to learn and get to know how to do it. I actually never went back to work. It wasn't the intention, but yeah, just, I never had to. We sort of grew at a point, yeah, that I didn't. And Sam left work within a year. Before he left work, we'd got to a point where we had two children under two and however many essays, probably about five at that point. And it was too much for me. So Sam needed to pull back from work and join the business with me. It's hard. The thing with essay is if you can have your phone on you, you can, so it depends what your job is, you can still work full time. while you're building that business. You just need to be able to communicate with guests like 24 seven. But it is hard. I've never had to do it alongside another job. I've never had to answer to an employer or worry about time off or anything like that. So I sort of had sort of bit of luxury with that. I could just jump in and give it my full focus from the start. I mean, I had kids, so that in itself is a bit of a job, especially when the second came along. But yeah, it is hard. And you have to just be committed really and accept the fact if you want to go for it and you still need to work, then just forget about your life just while you get it going. Like the end game is better. Like sacrifice your evenings for a short time, get the business up and running so you can leave work or lower your hours. and then you've got what you want. Yeah, definitely. I think when I speak to these people, the first thing I do is I try and explain to them the situation where I'm like, look, guests can message you at any time of day because they're not there for a long period of time and you need to be responsive because if you're not responsive, it will be reflected badly in the reviews. And if you get bad reviews, you'll get put to the bottom of the list and nobody will book them. That's just, you know, and also people read reviews and things. But what I would say is this, like, I always say to people, if you can get yourself for example, like a channel manager, uh know, SmooBoo, Uplisting, Uplisting was one that we used. Do you have a channel manager? Uplisting, perfect. Then you can automate quite a lot of things. So for example, you can get a lot of systems in place. So guests usually checking around 3 p.m. So if you're in a full-time job, I've been trying to think about helpful tips to genuinely give to people in full-time jobs. So I would probably say my top tip would be know that at 3 p.m. if a guest is checking in, 90 % of the time they're probably gonna have an issue because let's face it, guests always have issues. You can give them, yeah, I mean Lucy, correct me I'm wrong, you can give them all the information in the entire world and they'll still be like, I don't know how to check in. So just maybe take your lunch break or take a break around three o'clock so that you can be actively available on your phone, will be my first top tip. um And try and systemize as much as you can. So all automated, all like that and maybe just contact them the... the night before if you're in a full-time job and just explain the situation to them as well and just say, I'm gonna be in and out of meetings all day tomorrow. Please be patient while I respond to you. That's because then I think you're gonna almost meet their expectations as well and they're not gonna have too much of a problem because you've already communicated with them. That would probably be like something that I would advise and top tier cleaners. Do not go for the cheapest cleaners. Like I'm telling you like cleaners are your eyes, your ears, your everything within this business. the life of the business. They're the life of the business, what Lucy just said. And they will be the make or break of your business. Like treat your cleaners well, Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, lovely, lovely comments. Like just be really kind to them and they will treat you so, well. uh Yeah, I couldn't have done it without the cleaners. I really couldn't. They were everything and they were amazing, really amazing. But at the same time, things still get missed. For example, silly things like... Let me give you some examples on my side Lucy, I'm sure you're going to have your own. Batteries not in the remote control. um Light bulbs, massive one. Light bulbs is a huge one. Not enough coat hangers. um We had one where they said the Wi-Fi wasn't working. All they had to do was switch it on and the wall because the cleaners had switched it off. There are so many of these, honestly. So just be prepared for those. um Have you got any? I know you're to come on at the end to talk about some. property disasters, but have you got any kind of ones where someone's been like, this isn't working or this isn't happening and you're like, you just need to switch on at the wall. Have you got any of those? all the time. I actually think weekly I get a message saying something is broken or not working, but it is. And they're just not doing something right. Like I can't lock the door and I'm like, turn the key and then it locks. And you're like, come on. But it's all the time. I think people are like, we don't really even have holiday makers, but it's like they've got holiday brain on. Yeah, they just can't, they can't work it. It's hilarious, isn't it? okay. So, I know that Facebook was one of them. You've got nine of these service accommodations. So I'm just trying to think about acquisition at the moment, because majority of the time, a lot of people, by the way, a lot of people think acquisition is one of the toughest parts of this. You think it's the toughest part? Oh, you do? The essay. Okay. Okay. So of the nine in that case, what was one of the toughest ones that you were able to get and how did you manage to get it? What's some creative techniques we can give advice for? Oh, creative techniques to get essays. Or like, what was one of the toughest ones you had to get? How did you manage to get it? Yeah, so gonna we've been lucky with all of our mistakes. We have grown so we've had some through word of mouth. And I mean, one of them what we had a landlord said, I've got a friend, I think this would be great for them, la la and we went and spoke to this, this owner of an apartment and he was like, no, this is terrible and not for me. But we did get it in the end. So it was just a case of really explaining. what we do, how we can help you. So yeah, we, I've never actively looked for an essay, which, and I know that seems really lucky. But we, yeah, we've had them all mostly through word of mouth. So we've had the one, or a neighbor who's seen it and who said, I want to do that with mine, but I really can't be asked, can you come and help me? And then that helping them has led to actually just Just take it on, just do it for me. So I'm going to help you out here because I don't want the listeners to listen to this go, well, it's easy for Lucy. She got really lucky, right? I don't want people thinking that I'm going to change this. I don't think you've been lucky. I don't think that's what it is. I think you've put yourself in the right positions at the right times. So for example, you are very active on social media. You and the family are very active. You and Sam are great at this. And so again, that's not luck. That's positioning yourself in the correct way that you're like, We're showing you the good, the bad and the ugly. Like when I see you as a brand Lucy, I see you as very authentic and I see you as very genuine. You're always putting about what's going well for you and you're always putting what's going bad for you. I mean, it really makes me laugh the content that you and Sam put out on socials, you know, and the reality of you'll be in Madeira or somewhere traveling and Sam's there like, you know, this beautiful view and then it just pannos to you, not even looking at the view. because you've got like your angry face talking to like a guest. I'm like, that's the reality. That's the reality of life. And so I think that through word of mouth, for example, people know, like, and trust you and therefore have gone on to do it. I've got absolutely no doubt that when you go to set up these with the landlords that currently have, you're very friendly, you're very outgoing, you probably chat to everyone on the street. That therefore gives you the next opportunity next door. None of that is luck. And I don't agree with that. It is positioning yourself in the right position to be given the opportunity. So if people are listening, yeah, if people are listening to this, change the framework of how you're thinking, put yourself in the right positions, I would say. um And talk to everyone. Exactly, talk to everybody and network. Like Lucy, you do do quite a bit of networking as well, don't you? yeah, we network a lot. If we're refurbishing a property, we will talk to every single person that walks past the house always. And we've found a lot of contacts that way. Like it will be like in the middle of something and see someone coming and we're like, quick run outside. Just so we can be like, hi, this is who we are. Yeah, always. would you run and talk to somebody walking along, say, what would you do? I would always just start being like, hi, how are you? Having a good day. Like really just like a friendly passing. And then people normally always say, it's great. What are you up to? And then you can get talking and we've met tradesmen that way. We've found a property. One of our essays was that way. So you never know who might be walking past. I mean, nine times out of 10, they're just people walking past and you say hi and they leave and you never see them again, but you never know. Never know. And that does not sound like luck to me. That sounds like active, being really proactive and really talking to everybody. So fab stuff. So you've now got your essays, you know, which, which we'll come back to it kind of has a minefield of its own essay. It really does. We will come back to it. But what made you then after your nine essays, think to yourself, do you know what? We want to do a dab hand at HMOs. How did that transition happen? You know, we had got to a point with the essays, but we were tired. We were tired of the drama. We were tired of the cashflow mind field that is and the ups and downs that it comes with. Our son was about to start school. So we knew we were suddenly going to have a lot more time to grow. But we were like, we just, don't want more essays. We are done with them. And we really want some stability. which is where HMOs came in. We wanted that sort of stable income roundabout, still on the rent to rent, something we know we love, works for us. Yeah, so we went for HMOs. Okay, so what was the first thing you found in terms of the differences for acquisition between SA and HMO? Oh, it's It's easier to have a register of landlords, of owners that you can communicate with off the bat is like lovely as someone who's trying to get these properties. And I'm a bit of a writer and I love writing. So creating these letters that I could send out to let people know how we can help them. I loved that. I still love that. It's a big part of. the tasks that I love. Yeah, so that makes it much easier. Okay, so you wrote your first letter, you sent out to how many? How many do you reckon you sent out in the first batch? 100 or more? Easily a hundred if not more. If not more. Okay, and what was the success rate out of that hundred? How many came back to you? two. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, and out of the two, who did you then manage to get a meeting with and have a conversation with and get to agree? Both of them, wow, okay, you are, you are great. And we got both their prophecies. Yeah. huge. Okay, and that was on the first letter. So what were the general issues that they were having with their properties in general? So they were both student properties. So this was probably like May last year. So the timing was great. They were both student properties that had no students coming in in September. So the landlords were panicked that they hadn't sorted that out yet. So the timing did help the time that we'd started. And yeah, the fact that we could say to them, oh, forget about September. We'll take it from you as soon as the students go. You don't have to worry. That was... That was all they needed to hear. You know, that's a really good point that you just made. So we had this recently actually in, so in May that you're right, there are usually properties that just aren't tenanted at the moment. And the landlords who have got student properties tend to panic around this time. So I want you to speak to this agent who literally never used to give me anything. It was about two years ago and he was like, no, no, no, no, no. And then May came around and I got an email from him being like, uh Athena, we've got some properties that we just can't shift. Are you interested in looking at them? And was really funny how the market almost dictated what was then happening with the conversation. So May is a fantastic time to start looking because now we're in June, you may still just be on the cusp if you're actually listening to this podcast, because they tend to go in, I'd say around about September, if not just before. So you've still got time actually, but now is a fab time. yeah, yeah, sorry Lucy, what were you gonna say? I was going to say it is there are still HMOs out there, student houses out there empty for September. So now is the best time. And I got hits then but the times I've sent letters where I haven't had hits are in the middle of the winter when students are in, they're not that worried about next year, you know. So I've had a lot of letters sent and no replies, but this time of year, it's a brilliant time of year. It is, it really is. So if you're listening to this and you are in this game, I'd get a bunch of letters sent out like ASAP, basically. Yeah, now, like yesterday, basically. um But the other thing I'd also say is don't feel like not to send any letters in winter or whenever it is, because what happens is we actually managed to take on quite a lot of properties that we then signed for the following year. So we were able to do that as well. So don't just sort of do it in a short period of time and then let it go. You need to be at the forefront of their minds the whole time. um consistent, like then your name is in their head when they might think later, oh, I remember them. They sent me a letter in November and January. But yeah, so. I completely agree. What about agents? Did you ever go speak to agents? So we've spoken to a few who have just been horrible. Right, what was your experience? there. I had one agent recently who said to me, and you're going to go bust, you're going to end up with no money and bankrupt because of what you're doing. And I was like, Oh, thank you. You don't know who I am. But thank you. Really, really hates rent to rent businesses. my goodness, this happened to you recently, they just said that out of nowhere. Yeah, literally out of I know. So I haven't had great successes with agents. Yeah. But can we just make a point? So two things I wanna make a point of, you've just said that you don't have a great success with agents, yet you're sitting on nine service accommodation properties and 10 HMOs. So you don't need agents is the first thing to say. But on the other hand, I will also say that I have had good experiences with agents. I've had both, I've had bad and good, but there are some good agents out there that honestly, if they become, how I managed to do it for me personally was, it worked really well when they were tenant find only, when they weren't managing the properties, because they were getting paid by the landlord themselves. And then you kind of had a good relationship with them where you would bring them their favorite coffee, or you might, you know, say to them, we'll give you some sort of a consultation fee for your efforts. You know, they do quite well out of it. And then that therefore that particular agent then becomes almost your saucer because they then just start bringing you everything. So I think agents can work. think that there are bad agents and good agents, just like there's bad landlords and good landlords. The best advice that we can give to you in this moment would be trial and error. Trial and error, do what works for you, would probably be the advice that I would give. And you're better off trying than never trying and sitting behind your laptop, as it were. OK, so we've now taken on these HMOs. So talk to me about what you found was then the difference with tenants. So you've started to attract tenants, tenants are now coming in. I mean, how did the experience differ to SA? This makes me laugh because I thought it was gonna be really easy. And I know that that's bad, but I thought, my goodness, tenants compared to guests is gonna be a breeze. I cannot wait. But it's been not, it's not been a breeze. We've like 80 % of our tenants are brilliant and lovely and I never hear from them. But the small percent that caused me issues caused me a lot of issues all the time. And unlike guests who I'm like, It's fine, they'll be gone in a week. I can deal with this for a week. I'm like, no, they're here. I've got to carry on dealing with this going forward. Like that's what's been really hard is knowing that it's long-term. So I found that easier with the essays, knowing in my head I can deal with all this drama because I know it's not gonna last very long and I'll never have to see them again. But these tenants that are causing me headaches are here to stay, unless I can give them. yeah, what sort of headaches then? What have been your experiences for tenants? so one of our HMOs we took on tenanted. So my number one tip is don't just don't do that. If I if I ever have the choice again, I'll take them empty any day. Because this this whole house has been an issue from the start. They don't get on and I didn't I didn't choose them. They were referenced badly. So the rent collections being tricky. Yeah, just general. It's just a generally fractious house and they're bringing us into all their drama all the time. Right, right. So that's a really good bit of top tip actually. So depends on the situation, but the majority of the time we would always have asked for vacant possession when we're taking it on because we don't want to take on the issues. Yeah, exactly. Because this is what I was actually going to ask you in terms of like, for example, when you're actually finding the right tenants, I know I'm speaking to quite a few people at the moment who are actually struggling in particular areas because of the saturation actually in certain areas. where they're not able to get the tenants in because they're so, I think somebody said to me the other day, they sent me a message that said, Athena, I'm on spare room at the moment. There are, I think it was something like 560 HMO properties available, only 150 people actually looking for a property. Like the saturation on it was massive. And so how do you go about like advice when people are starting out with their viewings and things and pre qualifying questions and actually conducting the viewings like. How did you find that? would be your advice? Yeah, it is hard. And you, I'm hearing that like across the country with people struggling to fill HMO rooms and we've had it here and we've, you know, started some slightly different sort of creative strategies to fill some of our rooms with back to back leases and stuff. But I think with viewings, so we always ask like the general questions on spare room, like what do do for work and how old are you and all those sorts of things. But actually until you meet someone. you're just not gonna know. And I think just trust your gut. And I've learned this from a mistake where I didn't trust my gut, where I felt like this would be the wrong fit for the house, but he could afford it and he could move in quickly. But I just knew he wouldn't get on with the tenants, but I went for it and now he doesn't get on with the tenants, which I just knew, I knew that, but I didn't trust myself. So I think... When I'm doing viewings, I'm just really friendly and I get to know them, get to know who they are, what they do, what they like. And then I try and fit that with the other housemates. Yeah, I love that. And actually you just said something perfect there, because let's face it, I think majority of people have had that moment. I've had that moment. We were struggling to fill a room. ah I really just wanted it filled. He said that he would take it on. He could move in next week. I was like, this is great. But I knew in my heart, if I'm honest, that it just wasn't going to work. And I think the advice I would give is you're actually going to create more work for yourself in the long term. because they're going to have to leave. You're going to have to then have paid for the, to the bunnies in the deposit scheme to then get it out again, to get somebody else in again. Just wait, there will be a better, so much happen time. A panic fill is a really good way to actually word that for a panic fill. Yeah. Let's advise people not to do that. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, and they will. really will. It's better to have a short void than it is to get the wrong tenant in because also, let's just face it, once a tenant enters, it is really, really difficult to get them out without the courts. Really difficult. Have you actually had to go through that yet yourself with the courts? we're about to go through it now with our first tenant. So that's fun. oh what's happened there? Was this a person that you took it on and they were already in there or did you choose this person? This is a tenant that we chose who is lovely, who then just left, stopped communication and stopped paying rent. And we've had like very limited communication with her over the last few weeks where she's saying, I don't want to live there. I've moved back home. She's not local and I'm not going to pay rent. that's it. She hasn't even left us the keys. So we can't, we're like, you need to give us the keys back at least. Goodness gracious. So are you having to go down a procedure with that in that case? Yeah, yeah. today, actually, she's got her first formal letter through in the post. So we're at the very start of it. Yeah, it's, you know what, I remember when we had to do our first one, it's a really stressful thing to do because, you know, you really care about these people that live in the properties, but at the same time, we're creating a business at the end of the day. Like we've got families to feed, we've got mouths to feed. Like you can't, you've got to look after yourself as well. And it's a really difficult situation to go through. And let's face it, I bet you're learning as you're going right now, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. m is what happens with the first one. You learn and then hopefully you're never gonna have it again. But if you do, you're like, well, actually I know the process. I'll tell you one thing we had was we had one guy that we got in and he knew the system, like the back of his hand. He, to any time we said anything, like you need to do this, you need to this, he's like, well, actually under section 33 of this, this, this, this happens, he had played the system, I reckon since he was out of the womb, because he just, He just knew, he just knew how to get around each thing and he knew how to do the bare minimum in order to stay in the property. It was really interesting to watch actually, really interesting. It is, but let's also bring it back to saying about all the positives as well. So, you from this, you've also been able to create a business for you and the family. So let's talk about like the fact that you are on Instagram as your hashtag, you are... uh family property adventure, if I said that right? I got it right, yes. So you are, I was like, please get this right, Athena. So yeah, family property adventure on Instagram. So let's talk about what it's actually given you, these businesses, you know, your travel, everything, let's talk about that. So yeah. could talk about this all year. Sam and I love travel, always have. We met abroad and it's who we are. And when we had kids, we were like, the last thing we wanna do is go away a few weeks a year. We're working all the time, they're in nursery all the time. Like those years before school, we wanted to take advantage of and get away as much as we could. these businesses have allowed us to do that. So our eldest, Joey, started school last September. So it's all changed a bit since then. But before that, we had done ski seasons with them. We had road tripped for months on end, gone backpacking. Like all the things we dreamed about doing, we made a priority. We were like, we've got four years that we can do this before we can't, because they're stuck in school. So let's just make it work and let's live that life that we want. mean, how incredible is that? How have you managed with traveling so much and also managing the businesses that take so much sort of attention and even like time restrictions and time zones and things like, how have you genuinely dealt with that? It's been hard. But I think, so there's a few things. have like systems and automations, everything we've possibly been able to do to systemize to make easier, we have done. So we've paid into every system we can. Obviously a lot of it we can run from our phones so we can reply to tenants, to guests, all on our phone, wherever we are. And we have a brilliant team at home who we can. rely on when we're not here to step in. If there's an issue, they can go and deal with it for us. So yeah, there's been times when we've been away where something's gone wrong and we've had to work all day. But at least we're working, like one of us will work, one of us will have the kids, but at least we're in like a beautiful country with lovely food and yeah, experiencing that with the kids. I love that. When you say team at home, are you talking about like family and friends or do you have like a paid for team now? So it started with family and friends. So we actually couldn't be here without them, at the very least, just helping us with the kids. Like if we're getting called out at midnight, relying on my parents, especially to come and help us with the kids. But yeah, we've got brilliant cleaners and maintenance and trades and VA's and yeah, we've got a lovely team now who we can call when there's a party going on and they need kicking out. If we're not here, we know who we can call to go and... Kick them up for us. love that. I mean that's what it's all about. It really is about sort of teamwork and bringing everyone together. I think it's also important to mention that when Lucy says about these holidays, like it really is an adventure, you know, very rarely, very rarely Lucy do I see you in a five-star luxury hotel, which is definitely where I would rather be. You know, I see you with like a tent at the airport or something, you know, rather than paying for a night, you're like, well, we just got a tent, we're just all going to sleep in the tent tonight because you the way that you do your travel and I adore this, I'd be a bit anxious to go traveling with you, but I think it'd be good for my soul is, you you'll book a last minute trip based on where, if you don't mind me saying is, you know, good value or, you know, it's a good deal. So I think you literally booked like a trip to Madeira and then flew out two days later because there was some last minute good seats on the flight. You had absolutely no idea about any accommodation when you got there. you literally landed and you put up a thing on social saying, right, we don't have accommodation for tonight. Here's our tent. We're going to sleep in the tent and then tomorrow we're going to try and find an Airbnb. I think you rocked up to one, but it was absolutely horrendous. Yeah. So you spent the entire day trying to actually find a different Airbnb to stay in that you then went. I think that, you know, what you're doing is brilliant for your kids as well. Just teaching them about hustle and uh you know, not like not to be tied down in your life, but to create businesses and to work hard and through property. Like I always see, you know, your little ones always with the paint brushes and everything. Like you really get them involved, don't you? Yeah, they do everything from refurbs to cleaning. Like, yeah, they know it all and they do it all. and they do it all exactly. And it is a family unit, isn't it? Which is so amazing, like getting everybody involved. On that note, Lucy, I have to ask because you're one of the rare minorities where you work with your husband and you're in the business together. So, I mean, how do you find that? Like as a partnership, but trying to keep as a relationship as well. What would be your top tips for couples that work together? Oh, it's so hard. I am so strict with Sam with separating work and like marriage. So he will be like in bed at like midnight and he'll suddenly think of something important for work. And I'm like, no, do not tell me when we're in bed about work. are not having that conversation. Like write it down and talk to me tomorrow. Right now we're just husband and wife. And that's like my biggest tip is force yourself to have times where you don't talk about work. And that's so hard. Like you'll go on a date, you'll be sat at table and you'll start talking about work, about like some tenant issue. And you've got to be like, no, let's like just talk about life or something else. Just for a minute, let's remember that. Like firstly, we're married and we love each other and it doesn't have to all be work. Yeah, it's so tough, isn't it? It really is because it consumes our lives. you know, it becomes us. It really does. So it's very difficult. I mean, me and Steve don't work together, but we have our own separate businesses. And so we always end up talking about our separate businesses. And sometimes it's like, oh, can we just talk about something else? Like anything, anything. I literally say to him, anything, literally. So we've tried, we've tried, we're getting better, we're getting better. When we went to Cornwall recently, and funny enough, we drove through Exeter and I was like, Lucy lives here. And we drove through, we made a deal when we went to Cornwall, it was only for like three nights. And I said, right, while we're here, we are just a young, fun couple. Like forget that we even have businesses, it doesn't exist. Like we're just young and fun. And do know, it was great. We really tried so hard. We just spoke about. what we were doing in the moments, lots of activities. And it's so important to have those moments just to reconnect, I think, because otherwise we just get so lost in the mundane and lost in the day to day. And I'll be honest with you, I can't even imagine adding kids into that equation. That's a whole different conversation. I love that. So let me ask you this then Lucy. uh So you've gone through, well, let me ask you two quick things. The first one is you've gone through rent, rent service accommodation. You've gone through rent, rent HMO. If you have a person who tomorrow messages you and says, Lucy, I just listened to your podcast. I loved it. I'm just starting out in property. What would you recommend? Do you think I should start off in rent-to-rent service accommodation or rent-to-rent HMO? What would be the thing that you would say? What would be your advice? I would say like, what do you want out of it? I'm like a big believer in like, forget what you're gonna do, but what do you want from it? So for us at the beginning, it was to find a business that allowed us to get some cash in, but it didn't have to be sort of stable because Sam was working to be able to travel a lot. So service.com worked for that. But if you're wanting something that's gonna give you... like replace your salary and you need a certain amount of money every month, then go for the HMOs and have that stability. But it depends what you're wanting out of it. Yeah, beautifully said. And also, I don't know if you agree with this, but also like what resources you have available. I always talk about resources. Yeah, like what time have you got available to dedicate to this? What team have you got to dedicate to this as well? And the thing is people usually say, oh, but Athena, I can get on average like a thousand pounds per calendar month profit from NSA and I can only get 500 from a HMO. But you've just said it yourself and you touched on this Susie, which is about consistent income. Yeah. Yeah, you might get a grand one month, but next month, you might get nothing. If you've got like a long booking in depending on when they send you your money, you might get nothing. And that's the thing with service accommodation. If you need that money, like monthly, you don't have any other income. Service accommodation is hard because it is really high, but really low. Whereas at least with HMOs, you know, you're pretty stable throughout the months. Yeah, exactly. So yes, it might be a bit lower, but you have the stability there when when your tenants pay you. oh I love that. That was great. Thank you for that one. And what's next for you and Sam? Like, you know, you've got your you've got your nine and you've got your 10, which makes 19 rent to wrench, which makes my heart just anxiety, to be honest with you. But like what genuinely like what what do see as your future? What is next for you? So we've got like a bit of a mad goal. So the essays, they're running and they're fine. We have no desire to get any more and less like something incredible came up. Like I'd never say never, but otherwise we're done. The HMOs at the moment, we have 62 rooms and we want 112 by the end of the year. So we're on like a mad push for HMOs. And that's purely because we've sort of worked out a salary that we both want, a life that we both want. and that's going to get us that. Once we've got that, that's our cash flow, that's our salary, and then we can have some fun and do what we want, do some flips or yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I love the fact that you've got a goal. You're like that we've worked out that this is how much we want. This is what we need to acquire in order to do that. And this is how we're to achieve that. And so you're just going to keep pushing and pushing and doing that. And I've, I have no doubt, Lucy, that you're going to achieve that. Like, no, no doubt. I'll get you back on the podcast when you do. I'll be like, remember that goal that she said, she's now achieved it. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant stuff. And And I was just going to say to you actually in regards to purchase and things like that, I bet you because of the experience that you've done in the Rent2Rent and the authenticity that you've had around it, I reckon if you genuinely were to switch now to say, we've just found this project, we want to do a flip, who's willing to invest? I think you'd be amazed at how many people would be willing to do that. Have you already had offers from investors? We have, yeah, we've had, you know, through social media, friends and family, know, acquaintances that we haven't spoken to in years who've come to us and said, but we're not quite there yet. Like we've got this goal of these rooms and we're just focusing on that. But after that, hopefully we'll, I mean, flips for us, refurbs for us are what excites us. That's what we love. So yeah, that is something to come in the future. Wow. So what advice also would you give to somebody in your shoes who is a bit timid on social media, not so sure about it? What would be the advice that you would give them? Social media is awful. But it's so hard. it's, mean, we haven't always been consistent, but we work hard at it and we sort of force ourselves to do it. And actually it's easier because we have one account that we both manage. So if one of us is like, I cannot cope with Instagram today, it doesn't matter because Sam can go and do it. But yeah, we did Millie's social media course, which for us was essential because we had zero ideas. So I just say, find someone who can give you some tips and just go for it. Like take a breath and go for it. It's really nerve wracking when you're putting things out that you think you'll get judged for. And we have, we've had comments from friends about things that we've put up that they're not, you know, they think we're bragging. but we're just trying to show our story. And actually, as long as we're speaking from our heart and telling our truth and our story, then people can say what they want. I agree. think you putting up a tent at an airport is really bragging, Lucy. I think that's a really despicable thing for you to put up. Honestly, that's proper bragging. No, do know what? Sometimes you have that and I think it's quite an English thing, if I'm honest with you. I doubt the Americans do that. know, the Americans in the corner like cheering everybody on. But I'm genuinely finding this as you go through life, people come into your life and they leave your life at certain moments and never ever... dial yourself for somebody else. You're incredible. You're going to inspire so many people today. um You are the least bragging person that I know. If anything, I think you need to shout more about how amazing you are. And I have no doubt that you're going to get so many messages just reiterating what I've said. So everybody go message Lucy, tell her how amazing she is. um So if they wanted to message you, Lucy, where can they do that? Where do you hang out? Instagram, message me on Instagram and you'll definitely get through to me. Family property adventure is who we are. Fabulous. And as always, I'm Athena Dobson, underscore official and girls and property pod on Instagram. My DMS are always open. Just message me, come and, come and chat, come and tell me what you thought of today's episode. Um, and then don't forget for the girls and property community, come and join. over a hundred members now. Lucy is in that community. So do come and join. Um, and we have a social social media. That's wrong. We have a social gathering. which is going to be free for the community on Saturday, the 5th of July down on Bournemouth beach. We love the beach, don't we Lucy? In the sunshine. Yes, please, please let it be. Someone said to me, they're like, what if it rains? I'm like, I don't know. Bring the tent. But that'll be on Saturday, 5th of July. So if you want any information about that in the community, just DM me the word beach or community and I'll get back to you. And then like I was celebrating at the beginning of this podcast, my next workshop, which is gonna be me leading it and me hosting it, all around strategy and goal setting and implementing who it is you wanna be and how you want your business to grow. um Then that will be on Friday, the 12th of September, 20 spaces maximum. So I wanna keep it really intimate and it's gonna be held in Basingstoke again, a fabulous venue. They did an amazing job for us. um So we're gonna have it there again. But any questions you've got, let me know. I'm also looking for a new sponsor for Girls and Property as well. So if you're sat there listening to this podcast and thinking actually we'd love to collaborate and do something with Girls and Property to get our name out there, then also DM me and let's have a conversation. um Lucy, what did you think for your debut podcast? How do you think you did? it was good. I hope it was good. I loved talking to you. I always loved talking to you. Do you feel like, I've done it now, that was great! Yeah, yeah, what was I nervous about? Exactly, you are fantastic. So I'm going to leave you with the parting words for the listeners. Oh, actually, first of all, before you do your parting words, what was your property disaster just to finish on? Because I bet you've got like the most brilliant one. What was it? We've got quite a few, but I've got a mad one that has to be shared. So basically two years ago, we were doing a ski season with the boys living in our camper van. And Sam gets a WhatsApp through on his phone from an unknown number. And the photo was of like a group of men looking really scary with like makeshift weapons. And the message was, you kicked my girls out my apartment, out your apartment, you owe me the money I've lost. So we were like, whoa, what is going on? This is in a service accommodation and we've basically had over the years issues with prostitutes and gangs and things. And so this must've been ones that we'd asked to leave, but the threats got worse and they sent us our address and they said, We're going to be at your house in an hour if you don't pay and we'll force you to pay. But we were, we were obviously skiing and went whenever we go away, we rent our house out on Airbnb. There was people in, so I was panicking. So we, we obviously rang the police who were brilliant and did drive-bys and put our house on high alert and all these things. And it's still ongoing now. So two years later, we basically got put through to like a specialist. crime unit who are dealing with this huge gang across the country. And yeah, they've got like a uh database of numbers of people who owe them money from, I don't know, not turning up to appointments and things. And we're on that database and the police said, you're going to get threats and messages for years unless you change your number. And even they even messaged us and said, we know you've got children. We're going to harm your children. We're going to find them and hurt them. It was really scary. I don't know, it's mad. my goodness. So did they ever, did they, presume they didn't come to the property. No, they didn't come and the police said they're not even in the country. They're managing these sort of prostitutes across the UK, but they're managing them from wherever they are abroad em and they won't come. They're doing like a huge investigation on it, trying to gather evidence. They've had hundreds of people come forward saying they're being blackmailed and probably even more who are too scared to come forward. But yeah, it's mad. my god, what a story. What a story, my god. And you know what? It didn't put you off. You still continued, you still did it. But that's scary, especially if they sent you your address and threatened the kids as well. Yeah, was that quite early days in your journey or was that recent? It was about two years ago. So we'd been doing it for a few years. So yeah, it was scary. And now, mean, every message we get, Sam gets them all the time. He has to just send them on to the police and they're building this case. But they were like, it's probably gonna go on for years. Like, just ignore it. He still gets the messages. Yeah, and they call him in middle of the night. It's, yeah, it's mad. this is horrible. And this is still going on for you. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. I was not expecting this one Lucy. Wow. Okay. I was thinking like maybe egg on the ceiling or like, know, and then you just come out with this story. Wow. Okay. We need, we need to get you back on the podcast so you can tell part two to this. That's, that, that's pretty intense. And do know what? That, that just shows like how resilient you are. That shows how, brave you are as well and I think that kudos to you for getting the police involved and standing your ground and persisting with this. That could have really broke some people and thought we just can't do this anymore, we can't risk our family but you've got the information, you've got the facts, you understood the fact that you were safe, you were made to feel safe and you continued with that. my god, in a way I'm glad that you weren't home but... I am so glad I wasn't home, so glad. yeah, yeah, yeah, but still also very stressful the fact that you had somebody staying and you were abroad. That's also stressful as well. Oh, I need to take a breath after that story. Okay. So now can you please leave your parting words of wisdom? Because do know what, Lucy, I feel like I know you listen to this podcast and I know you've listened to this podcast for a really long time. Think of yourself listening to this podcast now as that younger self. What do you think you would have wanted to have heard? from somebody in your shoes on the podcast. I think the biggest thing is to believe in your dream and go for it. Don't be scared and just give it a go. It might not work. You might have to try something else, but to live the life that you want is the most important thing. And if you've got your vision of what that life is, just go for it, make it work. What a beautiful way to finish the podcast. I don't need to say anything else. That's it. Just go have a dream, live that dream, go in a straight line towards it. You can achieve it. You can do it. Lucy, I think you have been fantastic for your debut podcast. Honestly, you're better than regular guests. I'm like, yes, girl, this is fantastic. So again, believe in yourself as you've done and just keep smashing and I cannot wait. to support you and I can't wait to see how you fly in your journey. I'm so, so proud of you. So proud. Thank you, thank you for having me. Anytime. Right, girls and guys, enjoy your week, have the most amazing time, DM us both, let us know what you're up to, and if you've got any questions for Lucy, go and reach out. Have a great week, everyone. Bye.