Purpose Into Profit: Finding Meaning in Property with Caroline Pattinson

In this episode of Girls in Property, host Athena Dobson chats with the inspiring Caroline Pattinson — an award-winning entrepreneur and property investor who’s built her journey with courage, discipline, and heart.

Caroline started her career at just 16 and bought her first property at 21, showing that you don’t need to have it all figured out to begin. Her story is proof that you can start at any age, from any place, and still build something incredible.

Since those early days, Caroline has gone on to create The Nunnery — a former convent she transformed into a beautiful shared living space that brings people and community together.

In this honest conversation, she shares what she’s learned about staying grounded, adapting to change, and keeping purpose at the centre of her work. It’s an inspiring reminder that property success isn’t just about profit — it’s about passion, people, and believing in yourself enough to take the first step.

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Transcript

0:01

Good morning everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Girls in Property podcast. So if you're tuning in today, I have absolutely no doubt that you want to hear from this absolutely incredible, incredible woman. I've had the privilege of knowing this person now and seeing her recently at the iconic Wealth for Women event. I also saw her at the HMO summit event where actually she even won awards at that event as well. So she is officially an award winner, which I'm so proud to say. And she just stands for good in my opinion. That's what this podcast is all about. It's about getting good women to help and teach other women within the property sector about just ideas and ways that you can be, but also showing what a beautiful, normal, if you like, person she also is, but yet achieving so much. So, we're looking forward to today's episode. I don't actually know what to expect from this one. It's going to be full of heart and full of fun. So without further ado, I'd love to introduce Caroline Pattinson. Hey Caroline. Hi, Athena. Thank you so much for inviting me on. got here in the end. I think we've been trying to do this for about a year, haven't we? yeah, lots to talk about. Excited. Thank you for having me. No, thank you for agreeing to come on, because I know that obviously you're so busy at the moment, and even before you came on, you were telling me all about your day and how busy your day was, and I'm just thinking like, that's what I love about you, really. You give so much time to others, and you're always willing to help, you're always willing to give advice wherever you can and help wherever you can. yet also being a very, very busy entrepreneur and businesswoman, which I love to see and to inspire others with as well. So before we sort of get into today's podcast, Caroline, I'd love for you to just take the lead first of all, in terms of introducing yourself to everyone who maybe hasn't met you before, hasn't heard your story or how you even got into property in the first place. But I love you to sort of let us know who Caroline is. Take us back a little bit and then take us through the journey of how you actually became this award winner today that you beautifully are. Okay, wow, how do I live up to that? Okay, so it just goes back to probably being 16 and I jacked in my A levels because I wanted to be able to, I was offered a job in that West Bank as a junior and I jacked in my A levels in order to go to work so that I could earn some money so I could go out on the lash basically. I think my parents at the time, I thought they were totally unreasonable that they wouldn't drive me half an hour to the local town to go on the lash and go to the pub at 16. So I decided to kind of jack it in with my theory being if I earned my own money, I've got my own car, then it won't be able to stop me, which, sorry, mum, looks like you were right. But so, yeah, so then I then went on and I joined NatWest at 16 and then I completed my A levels and a whole load of other. qualifications, financial qualifications in the bank. And so started at the bottom and worked my way up. But that meant by the time I was 21, when my friends were just sort of finishing uni and coming out with a load of student debt, I'd been working for five years. I've qualified as a mortgage advisor and as a financial advisor. I'd learned about finance, which was still the best education I ever could have had because you see customers all the time who are earning money and those aren't. And so by the time I was 21, I bought my first house and then I was a mortgage advisor and it was in the time when buy-to-let was just becoming a thing. So people were starting to come in and say, I'm buying some property to rent out and so on. And I actually had some lending discretion. wasn't computer says no, computer says yes in those days. So was actually trained to assess deals, property deals in particular. and basically give an indication of whether the bank was going to lend or not and I got to go out on site and see what people were doing and then people come back in and go, Caroline that one's great, that one's now cash flowing and can I borrow some money, know, some finance for the next one and so I learnt and then one day I was only still about 23, I kind of thought, oh hang on a minute, hang on a minute, if you're doing that then... doesn't actually look that difficult so maybe I could do it as well. So I sneaked out on my lunch hour and because you were not allowed to have a business as well as working in a bank very much no no and went and bought a three bed terrace which I've still got today and I think it's gone up about eight times in value since then and it's now a very lovely six bed HMO but at the time I just rented it to my mates. because I was too scared to go to a letter agent and rent it to a family. So I just rented it by the room to my mates before HMAs were really a thing and it gave me somewhere to crash after going to the pub and then I was like, that's okay and other people were saying, well I want somewhere to live, I don't want to live at home anymore, I can't afford my own flat. So have you got any more? So I thought, well buy another one on the same street and then so I just tried to buy a house a year and I just rented them to my mates through word of mouth and that's how I got started in. On the HMO side, that was the first thing. So by the time I was 25, I had five houses. And I knew how to finance the VC as well. So that was the thing. So I kind of had a head start, I guess, in a way. Yeah, but you gave yourself that head start. Nobody gave that head start for you. no, I saved up the money, but you didn't need, it wasn't as expensive back then, you know, it was, I mean, but then again, I wasn't earning that much either. So you had to save at the deposit and everything, but it wasn't like it is now with the, you know, with the 25 % and the extra stomp duty and stuff. But yeah, I did, I just saved everything. Every time I got a pay rise, I saved and I put it my property pot. And then I just bought, I went down the street and every time one came up for sale, I tried to buy one and that's what I did. And I've still got these today. Now I've got a few more as well, but that's basically. I did. I love that. Okay, there was a couple of things that I wrote down here that I just wanted to go back and just touch on. So the first one was is that I want to know what it was like for you back then, because I think times would have been different as a 16 year old starting in a job. Like what did that feel like as a 16 year old? Did it feel quite intimidating? Like, or did it feel quite empowering or how did you feel as a 16 year old? All I was doing is earning beer money. I was like a big party. I'm still quite, I do still like partying to be honest, but I just wanted to be out all the time. as you know, I'm a real people person. I've got a lot of friends. I love being out. I like socializing and going to gigs and stuff like that. So I just was earning beer money really. mean, but I remember getting disciplined when I was 18, because I was working on the till at NatWest and all the... pubs and shops used to come in for cash on a Friday and I was so hungover that I'm literally counting 20, well, 20 pound notes. know, I didn't, if you've ever seen the bank when they like, they count notes like that, like piles of 20s, I was so hungover and I could literally do it with my eyes closed. I had my eyes closed and I'm counting out like 30,000 pounds. So I got, I got into a bit of trouble for that. I don't make a mistake though. amazing, but I'm just trying to picture a 16 year old just in a workplace though, like what that must have felt like when, I don't know, you were working with 30 year olds, 40 year olds, like how did that feel? You know what, Athena, it was really, basically the first thing was avoid the admin manager because he will try and rape you. Don't walk past him, else he'll literally like, rape you. Don't go in this office where there's no windows, you can't get out because he'll follow you in. And that was just part of the induction for the other women and thing. And he was like 50, I was 16. I was quite a few, 16, 17, 18 year olds, because you started as a junior. And then you worked your way up. I ended up in the bank being highly qualified as a senior financial manager. had 200 plus staff. had responsibility for 25 % of NatWest and World Bank of Scotland's personal lending, which was about 600 million quid. So I went from 16 to that level of a corporate high flyer, if you want, by the end of my career. But at the beginning, I was literally locked in an office by the admin manager at 17, because I was trying to get my next grade up, because there was quite a clear career progression if you did well and whatever and didn't turn up drunk on Friday mornings. And yeah, he literally left me in there for like 20 minutes by myself and said, want to speak to you. I'm crying. I'm 17. And he said, nearly 17, just shy of 17. And then he said, how far are you prepared to go to get your next grade? With his feet on the desk and his arms behind his head like that, I'm just literally terrified. This is in the NatWest bank branch. And I was like, I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, I don't know what you mean. And he's just literally baiting me. He's like, well, how far are you prepared to go? I'm literally looking at the door thinking, if I scream, no one can hear me. And then in the end, he said, are you prepared to travel 15 miles down the road to another office to get a promotion? So he's just messing with me. I was like, came out and went ran to the ladies, burst into tears when they were sick in the toilet. And that was just part and parcel of day-to-day life back then. It wasn't like that at the end I hastened to add, but that was just totally normal. Totally normal. Like didn't, you wouldn't even report it. There was no one to report it to. All the girls knew it. It's just. Yeah, I it was worse than that as well, but that was the gist of it. So you have to, you know, in life, you'll know yourself, you're either sink or swim, you learn to adapt, adapt or die, you you adapt to stuff and you get strategies to deal with stuff or you curl up in a ball and I'm not a person to do that. you're not, you're definitely not one of those people, Caroline, not so ever. I had no idea about that story until just then and I think that that is such an important story to share because like to think what women go through, you know, this is, by the way, this story is, I guarantee you this is a story that still happens today. in some part of the world in a different place, you know, we hear about it all the time and I think that it's very, very prominent to be 17. Like I'm trying to remember me at 17 Caroline, you know, 16, yeah. I just kept saying, I don't know what you mean. I knew totally what you meant obviously. I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, I don't know what you mean. And then in the end he said, oh, you haven't got your driver's license, have you? Yeah. And I was like, no, I'm taking that since, you know, was barely 17. This was just also all the girls in the office knew. It was totally, totally irregular. type of environment. That did change massively, but it took a long time. It took a long time, but I kept the fact that had all these properties and stuff secret. I was earning more like the properties than I was in my bank career, but I kept it secret for years because you weren't allowed to have a side hustle. Yeah, definitely. So let's talk about that. So you said that you got your first house at 21, which is incredible. Absolutely an amazing achievement. Like if you think about that now, if you're like a 21 year old getting their first house, fantastic. And then you basically then got the other ones by 25. By 25, you were kind of up there and you had five, I think you said. Yeah, well I set myself a goal to buy a house a year. Bear in mind, I was not on a lot of money at this point either, and no one gave me any money. I just saved it up. And then, of course, breeds success. Because my first house, which I was renting by the room to my mates, I literally made the rent up. was like, well, what can you afford? Yeah, yeah, incredible. it was. And I was renting it by the room because there was no regulations, you see. So the house had the original pine doors. And all I did, Athena, was the principle which I still hold today. You we talked a little bit before we spoke on live about purpose and pride and passion. You don't actually have to be massively brilliant to be the best or to be successful because the general level... of effort across the board is so low in anything. I don't care if you're a surgeon or a bin man, if you have care in what you do, if you have pride like you do yourself, if you believe in what you're doing and you really want to do a good job, then you will automatically be better and more successful than the vast majority of other people in that level because most people just can't be bothered. And I hate that phrase. I always say to myself, if it's because I can't be bothered or I'm tired, that is not. a reason to, know, I'm probably a bit ADHD and I've used that creative energy, I'm very high energy person, so I always have too many things on the go. But of course, the first house that I had, it that I could save up the deposit for the next house, and then you've got two houses crash-floating, so you can save it up. But it's the discipline, right? I saved it up, I didn't blow it. I like, right, my day job gives me my lifestyle. and my car and whatever, holidays, whatever I want to do. And my property is an investment, it's a business. It's an investment. I didn't think about it that sophisticatedly at the time. was just, I had financial discipline from being in the bank from 16 because you literally told, if you go overdrawn, you're sacked. If you get a CCJ, you're sacked. If you put a foot out of line financially, you're sacked. That's it was. And so I'm sat there at 16 like, okay, okay. And that financial discipline stayed with me and, you know, in the last five years, I've invested 3.6 million of my own money into other projects and stuff, but that's taken me like really, really long time, but the ethos is exactly the same. So if you're starting out now, that's the ethos. It's just hard to make the numbers work because everything's so expensive, but it can be done. It can be done. How incredible. And I love that. And I love the journey and I the story. And I love the fact that it doesn't need to be complicated. I think what happens nowadays is, I think, this is my opinion, that there's a lot of noise out there. And the noise leads to people getting um overly stimulated and over confused because there's lots of different opinions, lots of different thoughts out there. And majority of the DMs that I get, Caroline and Jen, if you get this, is people say, I'm quite confused. I don't know the best way to do it. I don't know how to do it. That's okay. Don't worry. That's okay. Don't worry. I appreciate if you've got a cough. Don't worry about it. And so at the end of the day, it's the fact that it's all about really thinking it doesn't need to be that complicated. really, you know, and I think that's what you're showing here that actually if you just take it for what it is, which is uh building it up and building it slowly as well, not this idea of kind of rushing, you bought one a year, but it's like, okay, well what if you bought one every two years, one every three years, you're compounding. know, when I was on maternity leave and I was like not earning, so I was having babies, whatever, I didn't buy anything. Actually, no, it's not true, did actually. But anyway, you but that's, you know, you adapt. So it just has to be as simple as this. You have to, for something, for a deal to work, you have to be confident that you're going to have more money coming in that you've got going out. And it doesn't matter if that is a really small amount. You know, if you're, I don't know, if you're spending 50 quid out, but you've got 75 coming in, then you're making a profit. those numbers just expand. It doesn't matter if you're talking in tens of pounds, hundreds of pounds, or millions of pounds. The principle is exactly the same. And again, I think that just that fundamental, basic financial knowledge that was drummed into me at such a age in the environment that I was in is like hardwired through me. So I have a massive issue. with people who were selling courses and for lots of money and misleading people, I get very angry about that because I can't stand people, I can't stand bullshit if I can say that. And I see a lot of people who are being sold stuff on courses without the proper risk attached to it and leaving costs out and leaving risk out. It's a really high risk strategy being. being in property and I've done all sorts of different things but I always, I've but you know up until like a few years ago I had a day job as well. I've just run all the property on the side even though that made me more money than being quite high up in the bank in the end. Yeah, I love that. And I always say it's about learning from somebody who's just ahead of you, because they're always going to then understand how you feel with things that are going on, as opposed to a person that's starting out learning from a person, you know, 30, 40 years in the industry, who let's say is no longer investing is just sitting on it. It's like, yeah, but you invest in a different market, you invest in a different time. And it may be difficult for them to understand what it's like being a starter in a full time job and how to juggle all of those things. So my advice that I always give to people is of course, the due diligence of people, of course, go and speak to people, etc. But just try and learn from someone just that little bit ahead of you. I think it's always a really, really good way to be and certainly one that I follow when I'm looking at who to learn from myself. think the difficulty with that, is the logic of what you're saying is absolutely right. But what happens when that person who looks like they're a bit ahead of you, and they say they're a bit ahead of you, and on paper they might be a bit ahead of you, but actually they're spiralling with their debts, they can't pay their private investors, they can't pay the bank, and that's why they're selling courses, because they're selling, because basically they've got a cash flow problem, so they think, I know they're going to sell it, I don't sell my... expertise, I'm happy to talk about it for free. I do do like a bit of private mentoring, but I'm not there like flogging courses because I don't think that is... Some courses are beneficial, some people are great, of course, but in the main, the problem with thinking, this person is ahead of me, is they might be teetering on the edge of a black financial hole and they very often are. And so they might have an ulterior motive for sort of trying to sell that. And so it's very difficult to know who to trust, isn't it? That's probably why I just work by myself a lot really, because I'm a little bit, I like to have control. I've of course invested in courses myself. So I've been the person that's invested in courses. I've invested in people and you know what? And I have had some incredible experiences, some incredible experiences because, because I've done the due diligence. I've done the numbers. I've spoken to people who've worked with them. I've looked at the result. I'm very result driven. So I'm like, well, if you work with this person, what's the result? What, how do you feel about this person? There's an element of feeling as it were, and kind of trusting your gut. So for me, it's, I always say the same thing and I say the same to you guys as listeners once again, your due diligence, speak to people, don't be afraid to invest in yourself. think don't let conversations put fear in you, just make sure that you lean in, but when you lean in you do it from a place of real thinking and learning. And if you ever want to check anybody with me for example, and you're like, Athena, have you heard of this person? Have you spoken to this person before? You are always welcome just to double check something with me as well in a DM and I promise you to give me, to give you my absolute sort of... impression of it of what if my experience if I've worked with them I'm happy to do that. I think it makes a massive difference as well what the kind of sums of money are involved and also what the risk is. So I talk a lot about risk, a lot of people in property talk about profit and profit obviously is the bottom line. If you're in business, you should be making a profit. If you've got a business, you've got a problem. But the risk part of that is something that I don't get. think gets talked about. also if you're doing, if somebody's doing a course, which I've done loads of stuff like this as well for like personal development, leadership, I don't know, stuff that benefits you as a person, then fantastic. Because the worst thing that can happen probably is you come out and think, well, that was a waste of time and you've paid your money. But with the difference, I think with something like property is extremely capital heavy. So when you're going and buying, you know, you can't buy anything really much less than, I don't know, quarter of a million quid. in most places. So the sums of money involved can bankrupt somebody if they don't risk assess it properly. And that's probably the difference that I'm talking about where I think, you know, I have to say I love courses and I love education and constantly a massive fan of self growth and doing stuff. But I think when it comes to property, there's not generally enough spoken about the fact that when you talk about these sums of money, you know, I can say, invested three and a half million in the self in the past few years. have, I've been doing it for years and years and I think, you know, I know exactly what I'm doing, but there's always an element of risk. So yeah. I hear exactly what you're saying. And then if you were to talk about, so on this podcast, Caroline, what I always do at the beginning, or in this case, midway through the podcast, is I always talk about what it is that we're celebrating at the moment as people. So this could be personal, this could be professional, but we always celebrate on girls and properties. So what are you celebrating at the moment? I am celebrating the fact that I've just had a holiday of two and a half weeks. I go away a lot, I go on lot of trips and I travel a lot, but I haven't actually had a holiday of like where I'm actually out the country for more than two weeks for 20 years and I still work probably five hours a day. Those pictures that people put on by the pool with a cocktail with the laptop going office view for the day. It's not fun that. you know, because I was doing that by the pool in this beautiful villa, I used to have a villa in Spain and I went back to the area and stayed at this lovely place, but I wanted to have an extended time, I am trying really hard to work less, I'm not doing very well at it because my personality is such, and then just went and bought another house and now I've got two house renovations, massive house renovations on the go, which I really need to get open ASAP, so I kind of tell myself I'm going to do this. And then I'll be like, oh, actually, I'm just going to go buy that and do that. So I have a bit of an internal tussle. But my celebration is I did go away. So I did work on Holiday Bit. But most of the time, I just relaxed. And I had family coming out and friends and stuff like that. So that was great. And then I'm going again on Wednesday. So I'm trying to take more time off. But these two houses, we've got on the go at the moment as well. Quite exciting. I love that. So where did you go on holiday? Where were you? in a place called Denia in Spain. yeah, bought some property out there 20 years ago and bought a villa out there and did a Euro libel mortgage myself at the time, because I still just about had my qualifications, because you can only do financial advice if you haven't lapsed basically in your qualifications. You have to keep up your CPD. At the time I was stuck, I still just about had enough time on my license, so I did that and then bought property in Spain and then just rented it out in between times in order. I always liked to an objective with them and say like, my objective with that was I really want the beautiful villa in Spain. My eldest kids were young at that point, my daughter was a baby and my little boy was three, four. and it was just a real hassle trying to go on holiday, especially because I've got a corporate job, I've got a business, I've got a baby, I've got a toddler, it's like stressful. And so I wanted to buy a house where we could just go and it was easy, but I couldn't afford to just go and buy it, right? Because it was 400,000 euros 20 years ago and I can't afford that, couldn't afford that. So I always like to try and find a way. And the way was my object and have an objective. So my objective was I want to have a beautiful villa in Spain as a holiday home for the family. And I want to be able to go for free. I want to, I want to, it needs to wash its face. So it needs to cover its costs. So I'm able to go for free. So bought the house and you have to work back all your calculations. So top down planning. So I was like, okay, how much will it cost? if we go abroad like every school holidays, and that's maybe, I don't know, four times a year, how much is like, oh, all of this seems like wildly extravagant, by the way. Like, it seemed unattainable. But I'm like, okay, but how can I attain it? So I remember thinking, right, well, let's just go for the big dream and then we'll see. And then so I just thought, right, if we want to go away four times a year, five maybe, if, it just, and there's that little voice in the head going. That's ridiculous. Who do you think you are? You can't do that. You can't afford that. And I'm like, shut up. I can financially plan this. I'm just doing a piece of paper. There's no risk involved at this point. So thought, OK, if we want to go four or five times a year, I still feel a bit twatty saying that. anyway, and I want to be in a nice place with a pool and a villa and views and a nice town nearby and a nice area, whatever. How much is that going to cost? And then. How much is it gonna cost to go as a family if we just go higher on? And then I was like, okay, that's what the cost would be. And then you think, oh my God, that's crazy, can't do it, can't afford it, can't afford it. And I think, no. So then I thought that cost would be X. And I was like, okay, so how can I make that money? And then I looked at the houses that I liked, I went, can't afford it, can't afford it. And it's like, no, it's 400,000 euros. I was like, I can't do it, can't do it. It's like, no, I can do it, I just need to find a way. calculated it all back and then figured out that, okay, well, in order for the mortgage rate and the amount that I could get on a holiday let, which I see I researched a lot and everything, I calculated the optimum figures that would allow us to have a really swanky holiday home and go for free every year. And the cost of that was me working my ass off to rent it all and not use an agent. So that I'm in control of it. I know who's there, because I don't want the place trashed. And also I can set the rates and I can manage it. So the cost is my time and the risk. And then I cashed, I basically put all my savings, I had into it at the time I bought it. And then, yeah, I've had 10 years of, well, more than 10 years of doing that. And basically I had three holidays and then an asset in the meantime. So, and I've just done the same from the Daughters University and school fees and stuff, I just think, this is my why, what is it want to achieve, and then I just try and figure out a way to do it. And it's actually quite easy, really. and again, this comes back to not over complicating things, Caroline, which I love, like working with the exit, working with the end in mind and working backwards. And I love the fact that you've just said for the listeners to listen to this bit, which is you said, when when all this was going on, I had doubts, I had that niggling feeling in the back of my head of myself saying, no, don't be don't be so ridiculous. You can't achieve that. but you didn't let that take over you. You actually said, no, I can achieve this. This is what I want to do. And you did achieve it and you've been able to holiday ever since. And you really thought to yourself, what is the end goal of this? And then went towards it. And I think that's what I want the listeners to really pick up on that in that moment of that story that you just said. Yeah, I think it's just like that. I was adamant. And it's that little voice. We all have that little voice. I had it. I have it now. We all have it. Oh, you can't do that. Who do you think you are? That's too much money. That's out of your league. That's for the people. All of those things. All of those things. then, you know, I was trained and I thought, okay, no, it's just a case of getting the numbers right. and maybe I can't buy it in the area that I want, or maybe I need to buy something smaller than I really want, or maybe this or maybe that. And it's hard work, you know, because then I've basically created like a little business and I had to get people in Spain to manage it, and then you've got people to manage. It doesn't come without time and effort, but that was just one example. That's the ethos I apply to everything, really. That's why I did the nunnery as well last year. No, I love it. I love the fact you had a two and a half week break, which is so incredible. Like I love that. Just touching on something similar that I'm celebrating at the moment uh is, is classic. What am I going to celebrate? But let's go along this, this ethos. So my uncle actually has a place out in Greece where my grandparents died. They left him, my mom and the brothers and sisters some money and he chose to go and buy a little villa out in Greece, which is what one of my goals and one of my dreams is. And we've managed to benefit from it because we get to go out and we get to use it. and things like that when it's available. And so when this podcast comes out, I will actually have returned from the trip. But next week, I'm actually going out to um do something quite special. It's actually a working trip that I'm doing. So I've been asked to contribute to a women in property book that Steph's writing. And she said, Athena, I want you to be one of the contributors to it. And I knew that if I wrote, because I'm dyslexic, Caroline, if I was to write this in the UK, where I've got distractions and I've got loads of things happening, I knew that I'd be distracted from writing the book because it would be easy for me to be distracted. So what I've done is I've said to my mum, I've said, do you want to go work abroad for a week? And I'm going to work abroad for a week. Am I going to go to the villa and I'm going to write the, I'm going to contribute and write to the book and you're going to work. and we're going to have no distractions whatsoever. And she's like, yeah, let's do it. So I'm taking a working holiday next week. So by the time this podcast comes out, I'd have returned, hopefully the book written, and I'm going to be doing that and it's going to be released um early. I think she said it's going to be released like around Christmas time. So everybody knows what they're getting for Christmas. They're getting the women in property book. I've been interested in seeing. Yeah. I love that and Athena, do you know that if you are actually genuinely going on a working holiday, you can probably claim some of that against your... As a tax it costs, as a tax cost as well. way ahead of you, don't worry. Way, way ahead with that, that was the first thing I thought, I how can I expense this? Definitely. so many things. Again, we know, just learning. I learn something new every single day. I've been doing this for like, well, I don't know, 28 years. I've been, learn everything. Every day I learn something new. I love that. And that's so important is to never stop learning. think that's the thing that every single person I think says to me all the time, no matter their age, no matter their experience, they always say never ever stop learning, which I love. um yeah. So Caroline, what I'd love to talk to you about the rest of this podcast is just to really help the listeners to really understand almost the diversity actually of the aspect of what you do, because when we were having a conversation, um when we were at Iconic Wealth Together and when I saw you at summit, you actually do so much. So. you you've got, I'm sure I'm going to miss things out here and please fill me in whatever I miss, but you know, you've got the HMOs, you've got the service accommodation units, you've got land, uh you've got your villas abroad, for example, you've actually just touched on something such as the fact that you have bought a nunnery, you know, I mean, all of this is crazy, like, the different strategies that you do. So can you help the listeners who listening, who just to give you a bit of insight are probably around either getting into property or let's say they're in zero to three years of their journey. What advice would you give them in terms of looking at different strategies and how they all differentiated for you as well? I think that the, get asked a lot about how do you get started and I really, really want to give a silver, what's the word, magic bullet, silver bullet, what's the word, whatever you know what mean. I really want to be able to give a nice answer that is you can do this, it's easy, you just do this. I really want to able to do it but I can't because it's not, you know, so and the thing is, Save up and that's really hard for people to do most people, know, especially the younger are Barely like able to pay their own for their own home whether it's rented or mortgaged and all the bills I think is everything is so expensive So I saved up for a long time and I was fortunate that the savings that I was able to make they're really really small beginning and But I was really fortunate that the savings I made from a day job were able to do something with them, whereas now it's actually really difficult to get into money. But as soon as you borrow money, if you're borrowing it from anybody, a bank, forbid, a credit card, a private investor, you're into a debt situation straight away and it can be very difficult to then get onto the front foot. So money makes money, debt makes debt, but debt obviously can be used to make money, but it's It's just tricky and there is a risk. I would never say risk the reef over your own head. Have I remortgage my own house to do stuff sometimes, but not much. I don't like mortgage myself up to the eyeballs at all. I'm probably like 50 % or something, like because it does a risk involved. So I think getting involved in it is don't give up your day job. I kept my day job for years. I grew my career. Nobody even knew I did property. If anybody asked me what I did, I told them about my bank career. I never even mentioned the houses at all. So I think actually just work hard to pop property or any business. It's just a business. It's just a means to make money. But as you know, I'm really passionate about providing a great environment for my tenants and my guests. And I'm well known for HMOs because that's kind of my specialism. do with the stuff as well. But I think you've just got to be really clear on what it is you want and why you want it. know, like the holiday villa. went, first holiday I went on with my husband at the time with a baby and a toddler. It was just a nightmare. It cost us a lot of money, relative to what we could afford at the time. And it was crap. And then I thought, right, need to do something differently. It seemed impossible. But I had a very clear vision in my head about what I wanted to achieve and why. you know, I've sent my daughter into that, education and stuff, I know how much I needed to learn to do that and why. So the nunnery I bought to fund my daughter's university education and I wanted my 11 year old to go to private school. People got really like opinionated about that um and that's fine. But for me, that was something I wanted to do. It costs a lot of money. It's 20 grand a year. I to support my daughter through uni. costs a lot of money, like where do I find that from? You know, so I knew when she was going to turn 11, I knew when my elder daughter was going to uni, so I decided to like buy some more property to fund that. I know how much I needed to generate and it was partly to fund that, but it's also to give the people who live there a really fantastic life and they do, you know, and was the nunnery, was the nice award that we got for the shared design because the people that live there. are really, happy. But I think starting out is look at your numbers about what you want to achieve and why and how much work are you prepared to do to get it. I work really hard. I've worked my arse off since I was 14 because I worked for my dad before serving petrol in a garage and washing cars and stuff from when I was 14 in my dad's garage. So I've always worked and I'm a real hard worker and I think you've got to be prepared to put the work in. to try and do things yourself rather than pay someone else to do them in the early days if you can. I don't do that now. I've got nine, a team of nine, 10, Pete Staff now, but. Yeah, amazing. Tell me more about this nunnery because you know, we don't get many people on the podcast that say that they that they bought a nunnery basically. So tell me like, what is this? What was the project? What was the conversion? Like, I'm so fascinated, Caroline, what is it? It's the best project I've ever done in my whole life, Athena. I'm so proud of it. And to get the award was just actually the icing on the cake for that. em So it's in North Wales. I was basically, I invest in Chester in Cheshire and it's quite expensive town. We're up North, it's like, it's just, it's quite, it's quite expensive area. And I invest in the. Chester and Cheshire and sort of like the surrounding areas, but this is into North Wales, which is only half an hour down the road, completely demographic, different demographic, very much a working class town. And in fact, the area that it's in is called Chotton and it was a steelworks town. And so like many Victorian village towns, it grew up around the industry and the railway. and would have been beautiful in its day and you have the steelworks because it's on the coast and the train station and then all the towns for the workers so you've got big houses for the managers, small houses for the workers and that sort of Victorian town and then the steelworks closed in the 80s and the town like mining towns and things like that just fell into like unemployment and the town went downhill. And so I found out that the nuns arrived, Ursuline Convent Nuns, 17 of them were dispatched to the area to try and do good, basically, to try and help the town and to help. And all of the nuns had a different role. One of them was assigned to single mothers. Someone was assigned to old people. Someone was assigned to help people with like, drinking drug addiction. Not sure how that would have panned out. and there was 17 and so whoever's funding the nuns clearly was okay for money because they bought two terrace tiles, sorry, two semi-detached tiles with all the mints and tiles and everything that were quite big in like quite a nice plot, bought them and then knocked them together into one big house. And then, so they lived there in the 80s and so 17 nuns and apparently they had a prayer room. and like a hatch, one of the windows, it'd be in a hatch where they were open to the community on certain days of the week so people could literally walk past and there would be a, so found, like an open hatch where they would serve tea and coffee or cake or I'm guessing maybe you could go in and pray. But also I was told a story that when the house was sold, because I didn't buy it from the nuns, I was like, they left it I think at the end of the eighties. and then the house fell into disrepair and was used as an HMO, but it's awful. Apparently when the nuns left, there was a bed with straps on left in one of the bedrooms with like, you know, those signs, like, what's the word, exorcism, like those like circles with all the weird things in all around the floor. which I've only found out since I finished it, but I was on my own there night after night after night in the winter planning literally crawling around the floors with the tape measure, gonna knock this wall down, tape the massive chimneys in there, like crawling around, I'm so glad I didn't know that. I sort of been freaked out, but it's a big property, it's a massive property. It's got 11 bedrooms, wrap around, well now, landscape gardens, but it all just was like a jungle they'd obviously planted it and made it really nice but it's it's not had any attention for like 30 years I think so it was a shithole it was awful inside and so I bought it because it was really cheap relative to buying the same I bought it at a really good price because it was an illegal HMO it had no license it had no you know it was awful and It needed a massive investment, so I needed to wait to get planning permission on it, change of use, all of that. had neighbours giving me abuse, had someone screaming at me in the street saying that was a greedy landlord and blah, blah, blah. But the fact is, you know, I've done that, I've got the planning permission and then spent a lot of money, spent twice as much, invested nearly half a million pounds in the... refurb alone on the property last year and myself and Charlie Gregg are my builder. We basically, I have a full-time interior designer that works with me as well and we basically gutted the house and completely reimagined it but I wanted to break the mold, I wanted to make it the best HMO the world has ever seen and that's what we got the award for actually so. So for example, some of the rooms have got their own gardens, they've got their own entrances that you can come in. So it's still a shed house, but you've got your own patio. It's beautiful. And I also did a little mini Starbucks thing in there. I went and sat in Starbucks with Laura and we observed the human behavior of how people, how close will somebody sit to a relative stranger without feeling awkward? If we meet somewhere, how close do we sit apart on average? to the point where we can say hello and strike up a conversation but you don't think, my god, someone's in my space. And the answer is 60 centimeters. Wow, that's a fat 60 centimetres. centimeters and if you go into any, you'll do this now, if you go into any Starbucks now, you'll see that their tables are 60 centimeters apart. So I literally deep, deep dive, I deep dive into the psychology and that is the customer experience. Cause if anyone lives in any of my houses, I truly, truly want them to be happy. I want them to make friends. I want them to love their time there. Yes, the pain of premium to live there because the house has got everything. It's like, No bins, no shared bins. I've tried to take all of the crap sides out of shared living, like living with strangers and shared bins and the downsides, and I've taken all of that away. And the community in that house is amazing. They go to the gym together. They asked me for a trestle table, which I've done Amazon to them and paid for it for barbecues this summer. They cooked a big Christmas dinner together and they've made friends. So I basically have like a lot of contacts with local employers and stuff. take the graduates and the uni leavers and the professionals and they're just, it's, it is beautiful and every time I go in there I just feel so proud of what I've achieved for them because I'm providing houses for people that they can actually love living in. And so I think the ethos of them, I've tried to channel the positive ethos of the nuns in terms of doing a good thing for the community and providing some like, a positive space for people. but just in a very modern way. sounds absolutely incredible. it, I actually love it so much. a place that it sounds like just by you speaking about it I've got this vision of what it looks like and I'm thinking God I would love to live there and I think I think that's why I wanted to get you on the podcast Caroline is because that's what you represent and you know before before when I was thinking about about a conversation as it were we we had almost a very interesting conversation that one should have the listeners because I said, you know, we can have a conversation about uh Purpose over profit, but you then said to me well, no because that actually isn't true profit is still the number one factor. You we're not a charity, we need to make money. This is really important and you're absolutely right. But at the same time, your passion for what you do oozes out of you. Like you can just see it, it oozes out of you. And you know what? I mean, I meet so many people, Caroline, as I'm sure you do. I meet so many people that you can see. don't quite have that love anymore. They might have had it at one point, but right now the love is almost just not there. And it shows in the quality of the work that they do. And although the profits might be there, their passion has gone to the point where you almost want to say, it's time to move on now because the passion isn't there. And do you know what? That happened for me. I'll tell you when that happened for me is when I was doing my rent to rent. And there came a point where I no longer needed to do the rent to rent. It got me to the dance. It got me in. It got me into property. But I remember my business partner at time and my very good friend Sophie turning around and saying to me, you don't love this anymore. You don't love it. She's like, you need to leave. You need to get out of this business. And she was 100 % right because... I'd hit a ceiling where I no longer loved meeting new people, loved going to the viewings, loved giving people great homes to live in and that's not right. You need to maintain that love and that's what I see when you're talking about the nunnery and how proud you are and why you won that award because they probably felt you in that house, in that property. So proud of yourself. yeah, I agree with you so much and that's why you have to keep growing, right? Because I was just like, I can just churn out the same beautiful six, seven bed HMOs that I've got loads of, or I can just churn out some Airbnb's or I can just churn out this, but I need. I'm a very passionate person and I need to have the purpose and the pride, you know. So like when I'm speaking, it sounds like a bit naff, purpose and pride and passion equals profit. You know, it sounds a bit thingy, but actually, although it's really cheesy, I truly, truly believe it. So the best thing for me, and this is genuinely the best thing, is how happy the people are in there. As literally one of the girls, she's like, you've literally changed my life. She's like, you've changed my life. I know all my talents and they all know me. Obviously I'm not going around there every five minutes, that would be a bit weird, but I am available and I hand pick all the talents. So I have a team of people, but I hand pick the people going to my houses myself because I want to make sure that they are going to be, as a bare minimum, you need to be really comfortable in the house and have everything you need and you're content. but what I actually, a lot of landlords don't even do that, obviously, a lot don't. then, but what I, my thing is, I run an anti-loneliness strategy across my property. I don't advertise that, because it sounds really, ugh, naff. But basically, I try and, I'm quite good with people, I've done it a long time, so I kind of, you know, I try and put similar people together. and I thought 11 people in the house, that's pushing it even for me. I can do six, I can do seven, I've done that a lot, 11, putting 11 strangers together and hoping that they'll enjoy living together and make friends is a big ask. And they don't have to make friends. You can't make somebody make friends, but I try and create that environment where they can, and it honestly makes my heart sing. I love it when they're saying, they message me going. Is it okay? Is there any way we've got like a big table we can have outside? Because we're doing barbecues and we're like doing a big Sunday roast dinner. I'm like, my God, I'll buy you a table. I had it Amazoned. And not only that, I sent them a case of beers and pizacco and at Christmas, a Christmas tree with all the decorations because I want them to be happy. I love it that they've created this community. They've made friends. I've like shot myself in the foot a little bit because in two of my houses at the moment. two separate lots of people have made such great friends that they're literally buying their own house and moving in together. But you know what, I just think, yeah, because one of my tenants, Jade, she said to me, but like, Emily's my best friend and we're moving in together. And I'm like, you know what, good on you. I feel pleased that I've been able to put the right people together. Like, obviously you and I met, we clicked straight away. We'd be happy to hang out. I try and create that and that's really important. So I do turn away about 85 % of tenant inquiries. Yeah, but you know what? I also think that that's a smart move because then they're going to stay around longer, particularly with particularly with what's changing with the renter's rights bill at the moment. You want them to stay. You really do. And so by you doing that, I think that's an amazing way to just think about again, coming back to profit. They're going to stay. You want them to want to stay, right? And so I've got a number of strategies on my business. One is 100 % occupancy, zero voids, which is ambitious, but literally somebody moves out in the morning, the room's clean, somebody moves in at night. So I tend to apply my hospitality mentality to that, like a hotel, from an occupancy point of view. If you can get to 100, that's pretty damn good. So mine run like that. and you want people to pay on time. So I don't have any arrears, I have no late payers, none. And that's basically because people want to be there. love where they live. they want to pay their rent on time because they want to be there. If you get them into places, the amount of landlords are, oh, I'm not paying for this, I'm not fixing that, the house goes downhill. And then they wonder why people don't want to pay their rent on time. Well, why should they? If you don't look after the house. I just think if you look after your customers, it doesn't matter if you have a dog grooming business or a massive corporation, it doesn't matter if you're Richard Branson or you're a local hairdresser, if you look after your customers so that they love you, they love you, not you personally, but your brand, then they're gonna stay and they're gonna pay. So my other business strategy is always stay and pay customer retention. And again, I probably got that from it being in the bank, but I've just got it from being human, you know? Like if we're friends. I want you to be happy. I'm not going to like roll over and like be a softie like all the time because in business you have to be tough and you have to not take any shit when necessary but I try and present everything in a place that I myself or your children or anyone you know would just think God I love living here it just makes my life better that's what I try and do. Beautiful. I love that. I love the ethos of it. Caroline, so many people are gonna want to get in contact with you after today because I just think that... Do you know what I love actually? I'll tell you what I love is there's very few occasions where you can be in a room when let's for example say that you're not in the room and other people are... Name is mentioned in a room and every single person just has wonderful things to say I think that's a real gift to actually have where people are talking about you in a beautiful way when you're not even in the room and Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am because anytime I've ever I've ever Any time I've ever spoken in a positive way like been in a room or anything you know, and I just mention your name, everybody goes, I love Caroline. Isn't she fabulous? Isn't she great? And I'm like, yeah, she is. And I think that that's, that's, that's the, that's the, um, the vibe and the ethos that you give. So I think that's a real, a real gift to actually receive. And I think that not enough people might tell you that. So I thought that I'd tell you that. oh That's really lovely. I think it's just about being authentic, isn't it? And my qualities are being warm and genuine and authentic and I can't stand fakeness and I don't like bullying or bitching or anything like that, you know? So I kind of do tend to stand up for those things if I see them. But I just think if you just try and be a good person and... treat as you want to. There's so many, as you know in your community, Athena, and all the amazing things you've done in Girls in Property, all the amazing women that you've brought together. There's so many fantastic people out there. And if we join together enough, we crowd out the toxicity a bit, then that's going to be good thing, right? I'm here for it. 100%. I love just authenticity all the way. And so, so girls, what I'm saying to you is if you're listening to this, go, go and check out Caroline. She's an amazing person, a beautiful person to, to, to, to me be involved with and, just somebody that I really champion. So, so thank you for, for everything today, Caroline. Um, one question I've got for you just before we finished this podcast, um, because I think you're a great person to ask this to. I don't ask many people this question, by the way, I just pick the right people to ask it to. I got asked on a podcast recently a certain question and it stumped me because I wasn't sure how to answer it and I was probably silent on the podcast for about three minutes trying to think of what it is that I needed to answer to this. But no, no, don't be scared. I'm just sort of saying to you why I'm asking you this question. So the question that I got asked recently is what's one question that you wish somebody would have asked you in life? that no one's ever asked you that you would like to share today, like a question you wish you'd have been asked. Why are you marrying him? My kids aren't listening to this. That's so funny that you just said, I thought you were going to be really prolific there, they give a really prolific answer. She's like, why are you marrying him? That sums Caroline up guys, basically. you I was going to say bullshit. That's not a very comfortable answer but I've been through a lot of difficult things in my life. We've all been through difficult things. I've been through loads of difficult things. I haven't got everything all on a plate by any means. yeah, that's the question. answer is, your answer is that you wish someone had asked you is why are you marrying him? Okay, we'll roll with that. I wonder if many other women will relate to that. I'm not sure. I think we've opened a whole other new podcast there. Yes, we will go on to that on a different podcast. Absolutely. But I love that. And that's why I love you, Caroline. You were straight in. You were straight in. You were like, that's what I think. No, you didn't. think that I should give a more politically correct answer than that, but that's it, that's the genuine answer, yeah. Yeah, I'm actually friends with my ex-husband now, but that's because we're not married anymore. Hilarious, I love it. So Caroline, people are gonna want to get in contact with you after this podcast. So where is the best place for people to find you on socials? So I've been very bad on my socials. I've actually been doing so much stuff over the last year and a half, but I haven't, I've been really like stopped posting stuff. So I'm on Instagram, obviously. My company is Chester Homeshare. That's my main business, Chester Homeshare. I'm also on as Caroline Pattinson. I tend to use Facebook more than Instagram, but I know, I know I need to get rid it. I know I do. And also I'm on LinkedIn as Caroline Pattinson as well. So I need to get back on my socials. em you, whoa. uh start posting something because I'm actually doing some really exciting stuff but I've just kind of you you do phases of like posting stuff and then and then I've just got out of habit and haven't posted anything for quite a while so I love it. will relate to that. So let's all champion one another. I'd love to see more about the nunnery. So maybe get posting about that and maybe share the experience. actually. So if you search up Chester Homeshare on YouTube, I'll actually WhatsApp it to you with you. There's like a two minute tour of the property and you can see it. And all my Google reviews as well, mean a lot. They tell you more than anything. On the awards things, just say to the judges, just read my Google reviews because then they're real, aren't they? They're the talents that live there. Chester Homeshare. So I've got, think between Facebook, Google, I've got about 145 star reviews and the ones that mean that the most to me. They're all five star, which is nice. But the ones that mean the most to me is like, Caroline's done this. I'll just sum it up, one lad left recently to move to another, and he said, Caroline, he says, I came thinking I needed room in the house to just stay with my job. And he said, and what you've provided for me is actually helped me on my way in my life. Helped me on my way in life. And I was like, that's, I'll leave it there. That's great. Yeah, that's absolutely beautiful. love that. I love everything that you represent. Absolutely. m And then I am as always Athena Dobson underscore official girls and property on Instagram. And we have the new website literally launching very, very soon. So that is going to be girls in property.co.uk. I will tell you once it's out and announcing. m And then just to let you all know, so by the time this episode actually comes out, so I'm basically um launching my accelerator course because so many girls in the community have been asking me for this and they've been saying Athena what is it that we can get involved with what is it that we can learn from what is it that we can do and so it's gonna be a very very it's gonna be a beta launch it's brand new it's gonna be 15 of us in it I don't know how many spaces are left by the time I launch this because I'm doing a call on Thursday but it's basically for anybody who's in zero to three years of your journey as a business property owner. So if you're an architect, if you're a mortgage advisor, if you are wanting to start a rent to rent business, if you're wanting to buy your first buy to let, anyone who's in that stage of your business, come and speak to me and let's have a conversation on the phone about it, see if it's right for you. Because I feel like there's so many different places that people can go to, but people seem to be gravitating towards me and I really feel like I can be the one to really teach you how to really get there, especially with girls and property and how I've managed to build that. So... If any of that sounds like something you'd like to do, then just DM me and I'll let you know how many spaces are left for the launch, which is launching in October officially. So come and speak to me and we'll have a conversation. and then not forgetting, Caroline, you might want to come to this. I have also got the Girls in Property Winter Party that I am doing. Yes. And location wise, location wise, it's going to be in Birmingham. So... Birmingham's location and it's on Saturday the 15th of November. So we're getting girls and property all together community non-community and I'm really excited and really looking forward to it. So everybody put that date in your diary and the link to book your ticket is in the the show notes section to go and have a look the community if you're a member of the community you get to come completely free of charge as it is a community wins party. And if you are non-community and you want to come and see what it's all about, it's just£49 for your ticket to cover your cost. So hopefully nothing too crazy. But in Birmingham, central location, cannot wait to see everybody there. Yay, excited. Caroline, I'd love to leave you with the parting words for the listeners today. So what is your last sort of bit of advice you'd love to leave everybody with? Just treat treat other people as you want to be treated. I think is probably an ethos that I live with all of the time But also don't play small either push yourself forward if I can do it anyone can do it You know, I'm excited to be a judge in the blue bricks Awards next year. That's gonna be a thing. So yeah, keep keep growing keep growing and keep learning from each other So thank you so much for having me on Athena. I've loved it. Love what you're doing and Yeah, looking forward to the Christmas party Amazing and beautifully said don't play small guys. Let's all take that forward in our journey for the week for the year forever and Remember wherever you're listening from let me know have the most amazing week and we will see you all soon Have a good one guys. Take care. Bye