One Year On From 0 to 6 Properties with Lucinda Axelsson

Ever listened back to something you said a year ago and wondered if it actually played out the way you hoped?

I'll be the first to admit I've done this. It's easy to share the big goals. It's much harder to come back a year later and show what really happened.

This week I'm joined by Lucinda Axelsson, who's returning to the podcast one year on since her debut episode. Back then it was 0 to 6 properties in under a year. Now she's here to tell us the truth about what came next.

This is the frank, honest conversation I think this industry is missing. We get into what HMO conversions really look like in this market right now, the valuation shocks that caught her off guard, managing properties remotely, and the mindset it takes to keep going when things don't go to plan. Lucinda talks openly about choosing your hard, protecting her mental wellbeing, and why patience beats rushing every time. She also shares her bigger vision, from setting up a property fund to buying land and building a whole ecosystem.

If you want the real version of property investing, not the highlight reel, this one is for you.

Listen now on your favourite podcast platform 🎧
Or link to listen in bio 🔗

How to Get Involved With The Girls in Property  👇 

👩 Join our GIP Community

🎟️  Be the First To Hear About Upcoming Events 

🖥️ Want to Learn How to Raise Private Finance? Start with this Video 

🧠 Take Our 3 Min Quiz to Find Your First/Next Step in Property 

Get In Touch

📷Girls in Property Instagram

📧 girlsinpropertypod@gmail.com

Transcript

0:01

Good morning everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Girls in Property podcast. Well, let's just say that we have an absolute treat for you today. This is one that you are going to want to sit down or be wherever you are and listen to it from start to finish because we are bringing you absolute real conversation today. And the reason I wanted to do this, and this person wants to do this, is because let's face it. We've seen a lot, a lot of conversation happening in the industry at the moment, not just within sort of girls and property, but with the wider spectrum. And there just seems to be a lot of change in the industry at the moment, and a lot of uh stories and a lot of conversations about sort of the good, the bad and the ugly. And there is so much good in this industry, like there is an overflowing amount of good. But at the same time, one of the things I really want to do, and this person wants to do, is to give so much value in today's podcast because. Why I started this podcast is I wanted to have real conversations with real women who are actually living and breathing what it is that they're doing at the moment, i.e., doing the project as we are speaking. And what we wanted to do today is really talk you about what is happening at the moment with these projects, what is going on, of course, to celebrate, to celebrate the absolute incredible woman that you all know that she is. And if you don't know who this person is, you're gonna want to get to know her, let's just put it that way. Um, and to really sort of show what she has been up to since the last time she was on this podcast, and of course, our community spotlight member at the Girls of Property Retreat about a year and a half ago, and kind of now living on. So if you haven't already listened to episode one of this person, I recommend you go and do that, which I will tell you about, which was from zero to five properties in under a year, let's just say, and now she is coming back to really tell you about the story of those five properties. And then some and more and more and more. So without further ado, I'd love to introduce one of my very, very, very good friends, Lucinda Axwelson. Hey Lucinda! Oh, hi, Athena. What a lovely buildup. I'm not sure I'm going to live up to it, but I shall do my best. We are going to have a very honest conversation. I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to tell the truth. And I think it's just important that we all have very honest conversations around property because it isn't all roses and a lot of property training makes out property to be just this panacea and, you know, just follow. follow a few simple instructions on my training and your world will be wonderful and everything will work out and they don't tell you all the millions of things that can go wrong. So I'm not going to tell you a million things that are going to go wrong but I'm just going to tell you what's gone wrong for me just so that people can get a proper reality check on things. None of it's disastrous, it's all fine but you just need to know what the truth is when you go into this game. Exactly. Exactly. And we're gonna talk about the good, the bad and the ugly because I do think it's important to to celebrate you as well in all your glory of what you actually have achieved, but also like the absolute tenacity that you have also shown, Lucinda, like the resilience that you have shown in all of this as well. Because it is a roller coaster. I mean, you more than anyone else, you know, every time I see you I'm like, Are we up this time? Are we down this time? Are we up? Like where where on the roller coaster and you'll be no, we're good today, or no, we're not so good today. And I think that is the reality of it. And I feel like not enough people are talking about it or understand that that is what comes with it. And and I feel like when they when they almost don't get to the the top of the roller coaster instantly with instant gratification, which is what our society looks for this these days, this generation looks for these days. They then sort of almost fall off the wagon or or quit or give up because it gets tough. And I'm like, well, of course it gets tough. If it was easy, everybody would do it. And what I want to show is that yes, there is there is lessons that we always learn. And as I always say to mum, you know, we fail forward, um, which is a really important thing to do. But then there is also brilliance at the end of the tunnel. So, first of all, do you like the fact that I actually introduced yourself with the right name this time, supposed last time? helped. It's an awkward surname, but because it's my professional name, my maiden name was Ashton, which everyone can say and everyone can spell. But when I got married, I was using it for work. for those of you that don't know, I make documentaries, I make wildlife films and have done for... 20 something years so that's the name that appears on the screen on the TV so I thought you know I can't really get rid of it I've got to keep it so yeah now I've got this awkward Swedish surname but hey it's it's unique it's unique I think I'm the only I think I'm the only Lucinda Axelson in the world so I was just about to say, I think you're the only Lucinda Axel in the world. So there we go, one in a million. I love it. so Lucinda, now people can obviously go back to the original podcast and and listen to the original one to hear your full sort of story, which is essentially that you you know, you you listened to the podcast, you came to me, we worked together, and it was this journey of zero to five properties in under a year. And you talk about the before of that, you talk about um you know how you really got into it. But talk to us now as the woman that you are now, kind of like a year on from that podcast episode. I mean we've exceeded five properties, haven't we, first of all? And and talk about the the to tell everyone about what that was like going at such a rapid speed and kind of and the the journey in which you've been on since the first podcast. We can kind of take a conversation from there. Yeah, well just for a very brief recap, the whole reason I started on this journey, as everyone seems to call property, was because I got divorced. And I got divorced when, you know, just over two years ago now. getting divorced when you're nearly 60 is a bit of a bummer really, because you'll have built your financial planning. on the fact that you you're a couple, you've got your joint property, everything's joint so when everything you have is chopped in half and you're left on your own with only half of what you thought you were going to have, that throws a massive spanner in your retirement planning for a start. On top of that I lost my job because there was a massive downturn in the TV industry and there's an awful lot of incredibly talented TV producers out there that have no work. So it was a sort of a double whammy, sort of losing half of my wealth plus having no job. So that was sort of the context and I listened to a podcast as you say that you did and I was looking around for a you know what am I going to do, what am I going to do and decided that I would take all the money that I have in the whole world and put it into property to try and build an income and a pension. So that was the big idea. I've got to, you know, as I say, replace my income, but also get myself to a position where I can definitely retire at some point. So that was a quite, that's quite a big ambitious idea. and I wanted to do it really, really fast. So, you know, I thought, right, I've got, you know, year, year and a half, and that's where I'm going to be in this incredible sort of utopia where, you know, I'm working on my terms at my pace, where I don't necessarily even have to work, and that income is going to sustain me for the rest of my life. Hmm, very, very ambitious. So I went on a bit of a buying spree. I bought effectively five HMOs and buy to let in the space of six, seven months. And all the HMOs were back to brick refurb. So they weren't HMOs when I bought them. They were normal family houses. So yeah, that was the plan. And I gave myself this ridiculous schedule where it was all going to happen really, really fast. And I quickly learned that you cannot do shortcuts. Shortcuts don't work. You know, I should have just done one property at a time and I'd still be where I am now if I'd done that, but probably going slower would have been a better idea. But I was very, you know, I was naive. Let's, you you, cause you, you go on the training and you believe that, it's quite simple. You do this, you do this, you do this. And this is what comes out the end. But anyone who has done anything to do with property now knows or knows that it really isn't like that. There are a million sort of pitfalls and problems that you will encounter on the way and which is fine and you know that's normal but when you've got five builds on the go that's five lots of problems all at the same time. And no, not just five, of course, every house has a million problems. So you've got a million times five. you know, and cash flow, gosh, because I did it all in one big go, all the cash flow sort of modelling I did very quickly started to fall apart. And then you find yourself with a bill that you can't progress until you've got a refinance on this one and then this one and, know, just, and then you run out of money and everything grinds to a halt and... So, you know, things that should have gone at a certain pace, slow down because you've done it all too much at the same time. So if I could go back in time, what I'd say to myself is rush slowly, one property at a time and just, you know, learn all the lessons because, you know, I'm so busy, I'm busy learning lessons, but I'm too far down the line to apply them to the ones that I'm already doing. So it's like, no, if I'd known that before I started, my other three builds that would have been really really helpful. So it's just a case of you know if you're going into this just take your time do not rush because there are no shortcuts and it's going to take as long as it's going to take and doing five at once was you know a roller coaster shall we say and uh yeah I mean You can't have regrets, you've just got to crack on, but what you can do is learn. So I spend a lot of time learning. Yeah, but at the same time I think we should champion you as well because obviously, you know, I've I've known you since the beginning of your journey, you know, where you where you came to me and ah I just have so much admiration for you, I really do. Because I just think that also we should recognise the fact of the bravery that it took to do that. And I think what's important to say is is when we really think about this, I think you said this to yourself, the reason that you were going so quickly and there'll be there'll be other women listening to this in a similar position to you. Which is that they felt that they didn't have years on them. You know, you said it yourself, because you're approaching 60, you thought, well, I don't have all of the years to kind of go at a slower pace. I have to go quickly. And I think there'll be women listening to this who are actually recently divorced, because we get a lot of those within the community, who've got this pot of cash, who maybe are approaching 60, going, Hold on, I've got to go quickly as well. And actually, I think that that's all in your head. I think you don't actually need to go as quickly as you think that you do. Because as you said, that's where you almost like trip over yourself. If you see it almost like a dance choreography, you know, it if you don't just learn the moves, you know, slowly and in time, you end up just tripping over yourself. So I think that's brilliant that that that you said that.

And I think that a lot of people also have this notion and we hear it all the time: 12:33

this phrase, I feel behind. I feel like I should be further ahead. I feel like I don't have as many years left. And we always talk about this, don't we? We always say like Behind from who? Like, who are you comparing yourself to? Who are you looking at that you think is ahead? and I always talk about this board of snakes and ladders, Lucinda. I always prefer to for for anyone who's just listening to this podcast for the first time. What I mean by this is is I feel like as people, we will often human nature will mean that we look at other people and we will feel like those people are ahead of us. They're like, I can't believe she's just taken on her third HMO. I can't believe she's just refinanced on this. I can't believe that she's now got this community of 164 people and what have I now got and all of this, right? But you don't actually see the reality behind what it is that's happening. All you see is what's shiny on Instagram and social media. But if you're looking at a snakes and ladders board, you'll you're you're you're on this board and it's almost like you feel like all these other people are going up these ladders and you're just going at the slow pace. But what you don't see is the person who basically goes and does this. HMO conversion, for example, you know, keys in hand, Instagram, lovely, lovely, lovely. And then the down vowel comes in, for example, down valuation, and actually they valued it a hundred grand less than it actually they thought it would, fifty grand less than they thought it would. And actually now they've gone down the ladder, the they've gone down the snake on the board and you're now ahead of them. And so see life as a game of snakes and ladders where just play your own game because you don't know what someone else's game is. Absolutely agree. you know, just, just take your time, take your time. Don't rush it because actually when you rush things, don't, first of all, you don't do them properly. You don't learn your lessons quickly enough to then apply them to the next thing. But also you don't actually end up further ahead because it just, everything just takes the length of time it's going to take. and doing five properties at the same time doesn't actually get you to your destination any quicker. I should have just done one properly at a time. But you know, here I am, still alive, two years on, it's just coming up to two years since I started doing property. And I'm now starting to see the fruits of my labors. I'm now starting to see how that big idea I had at the beginning is going to happen. and it is going to work. So it's just, you know, you've got to hang in there as well. I mean, that's the other thing, you know, because there are times when I really just thought, well, sod it, I'm just going to sell everything. Forget I ever did this. But of course you don't. know, you probably can't. But also you mustn't. You know, you mustn't. It's hard for a reason. You know, it's a big idea I've got. It's a massive, ambitious idea I've got. And, you know, that's going to take time and it's going to take perseverance. And you know, I was doing some calculations the other day and you know, looking at my pension, we've got the same financial advisor and I was talking to him the other day and he said, well, you know that I said, know, roughly how much do you get each year if you've got a hundred grand in your pension? And he said, about 4k a year, depending how you do it. And I thought, 4k a year, that's not very much for £100,000 in your pension. So then I worked out what I thought I'd probably end up getting once everything's done, dusted, refinanced, all let, all going well. And I thought, well, I'm probably going to get about £6,000 a month. And then I worked out that to get £6,000 a month for the future, I'm going to have, I would have had to have had a £1.8 million pension. That was never going to happen. There was no chance I was ever going to get a £1.8 million pension. So I've gone from a standing start, if you like, to what I hope, hopefully by Christmas, will be the equivalent of a £1.8 million pension. When you think of it like that, you suddenly go, okay, now I see why A, it's so hard, but B, why it's so incredible. You know, what an incredible thing to create in what will be two and a half years by the time I get there. You know, I couldn't have earned one point, I'm only passing two and a half years. So, know, actually you just got to, when the going gets really tough and you think, oh God, just can't do this. It's just too hard. Remind yourself of what the big idea was in the first place and get back on it because you will get there. You absolutely will get there. And this is just the start. This is just my first, you know, six properties. There's no reason why I should stop at Christmas, is there? Yeah. you. I know you really well and I know that literally you'll be like, Right, you know, I've seen this other property and I'll be like, Have you now? Okay. Yeah, what are you gonna do? I love it. I don't think I'll do any more HMOs, but we'll come to that later. We'll come to my strategy later. really, um yeah, you've got to get comfortable with the stress. You've got to get comfortable with the uncertainty of property. And that's another thing that I've really had to learn is that there's an African proverb that says, Even calm waters can hide crocodiles. So even when you think, yeah, the properties are all fully lit, everything's fine. You know, the money's coming in, blah, Literally you can get a phone call from your letting agent to say, oh, really sorry to tell you one of your tenants has died or yeah, that's happened to me. Oh, really sorry to tell you one of your tenants says she's got bed bugs. you know, and so it goes on. You know, when you see your letting agent, calling you on your phone, you go, no, what is it now? Leaking the bathroom, front door's broken, I don't know. There's always gonna be something. And you have to get really, really comfortable with all that uncertainty and all those unknowns and make sure that you've got some money in reserve for all those unforeseen and unexpected incidents, because they will happen. Yeah. about managing risk, really. I think that's the thing. And and a and a person's appetite for for it, as it were. But like you said, you know, the the absolute rewards that you get, you know, a one point two million pound pension. You're so excuse me, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. How dare I? A one point eight sorry. Oh I was gonna say six hundred thousand is not money, right? Apologies. One point eight. I mean And when you think of it and you're right, you know, when you think of it in that way, what a bloody amazing achievement that you have done. I mean, really, we should celebrate that. That is amazing. and I think, you you've got to, you've got to step back and go, actually, you know, what, what is the reality of what I've done? And, you know, when I did those calculations, I thought, Hey, that's really not bad. Really not bad. And then, you know, you your state pension and you had, if you've got another private pension, add it all together. And suddenly it looks like quite a good lifestyle. And that's, you know, that's just me on my own. So, you know, if I were to be with someone else, then who knows? But it's, yeah, and you've just got to realise that plans as big and ambitious as that are going to take time. They are going to take a lot out of you. They are going to cause you a lot of stress, but just keep your eyes on the prize. Exactly, exactly that. And if we really think then before we get we we sort of get into the nitty gritty of today's conversation, because I really want to give some real stories as well about what has actually happened in these and also to hear about what your plans are going forward. But what would you say, 'cause you know with girls in property we we always, always celebrate first. So we're celebrating a one point eight million pound pension essentially, which is incredible. What else are we celebrating? Well, when I started this whole process, had been made redundant and, you know, the TV industry has gone through a very, very difficult time and still is. But I've now got an incredible documentary uh up and running. So I'm back in my comfort zone, if you like, or back in business, making a really important, powerful environmental documentary. So I'm super excited about that. Something that's going to take me a couple of years, but will be, you know, have a huge impact when it does. So yeah, I'm very, very excited about that. And, know, it's something again, you know, property is going to allow me to have the time to do that and run my portfolio because, you know, I've got letting agents, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not going to be having to do that full time. you know, to earn my 6K a month or whatever it is I'm after, you know, I can do that probably on one day a week, effectively, which gives me four days to make an incredible documentary or do whatever else it is that I want to do. So yeah, it's, when you think of it like that as well, it is quite remarkable. Absolutely. I applaud you. I'm in awe of you as I always have been. The moment I met you, I love that. And um what what am I what am I celebrating at the moment? I'm I'm gonna celebrate something new because you know when you when you talk about this this idea of when you're starting out and everything's fresh and new and and learning and kind of like mitigating risk or or getting used to it. Um I've been talking to some people, but not everybody about this at the moment, which is um I'm really, really now looking at number one buying businesses as I move into the next chapter of my own professional journey, let's call it. And I'm absolutely fascinated about this. We've, of course, started the mastermind, which I adore. There's only six women within that mastermind that me and Akhtar basically um teach and mentor. And so it's effectively like they're getting one-to-one support within the group environment. And I'm celebrating the women in that mastermind because they are. Absolut it's like Avengers, like they are amazing. They're looking at these incredible deals at the moment. And what I love to see actually in the most wonderful way is they bring this deal forward and Attar just rips it apart and goes, No, no, no, no, no, back to the drawing board, go again. No, no, no, back to and he goes, Yes, that one's good, go. And it's brilliant to know that they're just so well they've just got such a like how do I explain this, such good knowledge now within that that they can literally tap into. Mm. think like how can we really maneuver this and just watching their confidence as well. Like they're all now talking to the business buyers, they're all now doing that. And what's beautiful is it's encouraged me to do the same alongside them. So I'm of course now looking to buy my own businesses. I don't people keep asking me, Athena, what are you gonna buy? What are you gonna buy? And the answer is it doesn't, it's not about what I'm gonna buy, it's about what do the numbers look like and the fact that I don't want to be of course physically operating the business itself. I want to be the investor that buys in and you've already got the operations team operating it or the owner staying in for say three years at at um at a um agreed rate, et cetera. So I've got no intention of putting more on my plate. My intention is just to own and be like the um the conductor at the top that oversees everything if you like. So that's really exciting. And then, second of all, that's really exciting, and and again I've talked about this but very briefly, is I'm going to be doing something that I have absolutely never ever in my life done before. I don't really have any knowledge of it, and it's completely new to me, but I'm leaning into it at a rapid pace, which is learning to set up my own fund. So I want to set up my own fund where I basically get investors and pull investors in into my fund. which is what I really want to do is sort of my you know we do our vision to victories. My vision to victory is to set up a fund for and I'm gonna say this into the universe on the twenty ninth of June 2026 so I can record this. So one day when I make this happen, I will say this was when I said it on the podcast, is to set up my own fund to build out girls and property as an ecosystem within the community to invest in female centric businesses. So that the women in the community who've got their businesses come to me and say, Thina, I've got an idea for a business, or this is my business. Will you invest in it? Or will you invest in this project? Or will you invest in this property? And I say, Yes. And I've got my pool of investors, we bring it together, and girls and property becomes an ecosystem of investing in women. And the money gets recycled through the ecosystem of girls and property to go round and round because we all invest in each other. And it just becomes like the circle of life. And that is my dream with an ambition. And I will say this out loud, because I've written it down, with an ambition to be fully retired by 40 years old. And that is my dream and ambition. So that's what I'm celebrating at the moment. So I'm hoping I get there. Um it's terrifying as hell. It is scary as hell. I shit myself every day, excuse my language. But do you know what? Like I keep saying, why not? Why can't I do that? And I've got the right team helping me, I've got the right advice helping me. and and the right sort of structures in which it's gonna work. So watch this space is all I'm gonna say. It's bloody exciting. And you know what, Athena, you said, then I can retire at 40. You're not going to retire at 40. What's going to happen is you'll be financially free at 40. And that's two very different things, isn't it? Because actually, you're far too young to retire at 40. And know, people that say, yeah, I retired in my 30s, retired in my early 40s. Well, yeah, if that's what you want. I never wanted to retire. I never will want to retire from filmmaking. I'm never going to want to retire from, you know, doing property. It's a state of mind, isn't it? And it's like, what excites you? What turns you on? What floats your boat? And you know, if you've got to go like that, brilliant, but I suspect come 40, you'll be only just getting started, darling. Honestly, it'll be just the beginning. Yes, you might have reached a magic number where technically you could retire, but I suggest you don't. You know, you make you make actually an excellent point, an excellent point, because you're right. Um actually something else came out of the vision to victory, which is you're right. It's not about retiring, it's about becoming financially free. Because I talk about this oxygen mask and putting your own oxygen mask on first. The actual dream that I have, and a real dream that I have is before my fortieth birthday, just before my fortieth birthday, I actually would love to set up a charity. Like a a charity, I don't know what I'm gonna call it, but a charity for women. who are in deprived countries or third world countries or women who w who don't have the ability to be financially educated, don't have that um don't have the opportunities that that some of us have had in life. And what I'd actually really love to do is set up a charity that supports women in less um privileged areas of the UK, countries around the world and just really support them. So actually the dream the end goal, you're right, will be the charity. So it's not retiring, it's just financial. Yeah. just another pivot of which, you know, you're on your second slash third pivot now. So, you know, just be another pivot, won't it? And that's the other thing, you know, we've got to be nimble, we've got to be agile, whether that's, you know, swapping careers, trying different things, or, you know, just within your property business, being able to pivot and to be agile within that. you know, that's about, you know, staying open, open-minded, listening, thinking, learning. Absolutely. I mean, also, I've of course just completed on my residential property that obviously I had for six years with with Steve that now you know it's completely the end of the chapter of that one. And already I've been looking at what properties I want to buy, for example. Because I talk about the business side of things, and I know I don't talk about a lot of property stuff anymore, and I appreciate that. But actually, property still goes on in the background. I'm just it's just I almost see the business side as like the front end of it, whereas property kind of is just wealth in the background. So I go, right, here's my Here's my money that I've just pulled out of this property. Okay, what are we gonna go and do? And I'm looking at essentially some land, some title splits at the moment, all sorts of things. So, you know, that's all I see that as kind of like a machine that just whirls in the background whilst the other stuff goes on. So yeah, celebrations all round. Um, so Lucinda, let's talk then about load let's talk about this this this value aspect then. So where w you tell me where you want to begin with this, where if you think, right, if you're a listener right now, Hmm. want to know the reality of what you've been through, the stories as it were, that the the main help that you can give, where should we begin with this? uh my strategy was HMOs and that's partly because I'm at an age where I'm probably not going to get the benefit of a lot of capital growth. You know, if I was in my 30s and starting out in property and I had another job or another career going on, I could afford to invest in things or in properties or in areas where, you know, actually it's really about the capital growth play. So I had to go for cash flow. So I chose HMOs and em you know whether or not they're the best I don't know in terms of cash flow but certainly once I get them all right and I'm getting there then yeah they should be good for cash flow and I'll come to that what do I mean by getting it right in a minute but what I would say is each of these properties has been a teacher for me and I've learned lessons from every single one of them. So perhaps what I should do is talk about the individual properties and what I've learned from them. And then, you know, because each one will give different insights. So I've got a property up in Hartlepool that um I didn't get the valuation I was expecting on it. So it was downvalued. And, you know, that's something that everybody has to be quite careful of, especially at the moment with prices, you know, softening and, you know, HMOs flooding the market. watch out for your valuation because that will make a massive difference. know, how much you live in, how much you pull back out. You know, if you've got investors to pay off or you've got a bridging loan to pay off, just be sure that you can actually meet that uh requirement. yeah, valuation that that one was was, I think, 40k less than I thought it was going to be, which then plays havoc with your cash flow going forward. The other thing I learned from that was making sure that you pick the right area. was actually the demographic up there for what I was thinking I was going to do, which was professional HMO. Just really the demand wasn't there. And I spent a year with sort of three, maybe four people in my six bed HMO. That was really, really tricky. And it just wasn't, it barely covering its costs. I was subsidising it, which is all very well when you've got plenty of cash in reserve. But what I was doing, of course, was just throwing cash at the next and the next and the next project. you know, so cashflow became a real issue for me because of the speed at which I went. So that's one that I'm pivoting on. And one of the things that you can do is you can turn it into service accommodation for contractors, perhaps, or look at social housing or supported living. So there are ways to sort of monetize that differently. to the way you were expecting to do it. that's, you know, one of three of the lessons I learned from that one. I've got another one in Darlington. And I think the biggest problem there has been I've had a builder that really wasn't up to standard has taken far too long to complete the project. So a project that was supposed to take six months has taken 19 now. So I came to the end of my bridging loan. Luckily, I'd refinance, refinance another property. So I was able to pay back the bridging loan. But if I hadn't, oh goodness me, I'd have been in real trouble with that one. And you're in snagging, just going on and on and on. And then you're getting people in to do your snagging. And then you find out that actually someone's been sleeping there, you know, and they've been using the keys and they've given them to someone else or who knows, or someone else has found out the code to the lockbox and is sleeping in that house, you know. And so it goes on. you know, these things when you're such a long way away from your properties as I am, I thought it was going to be fine. it's great yields up in the Northeast. You know, someone managing it all, it's all going to be fine. Well, actually, I've spent far too many hours driving five and a half hours up there and back. And it's, yeah, it's been a real lesson for me about investing such a long way from home. It isn't plain sailing and you will find yourself going up there. If you want to manage your property properly, you've got to go up there. People say they're doing things, you go up there, they haven't done it. You're like, what's going on? Or they do something and they don't do it properly. And you need to be there to see that because it's your property, it's your money. And nobody cares about your money or your property the way that you do. So actually being such a long way away has become a real pain actually, especially at the pro... point where you're trying to get things finished and let. I've got property in Derby that is now finally fully let but that took a long time to get fully let and that's because Derby is so saturated with HMOs and again people don't talk about that. You know, it's amazing it's going Article 4 you'll get an incredible valuation it'd be wonderful. Yeah, and everybody else has heard that same story and everyone else has rushed up there and everyone else is building HMOs and it's like, wow, okay. Suddenly, you know, there's 150 rooms and 60 people looking. And, you know, I think over time these things sort of settled down, but certainly that took a very long time to let fully. The builder on that project went bust and said he'd finished the property, but... Really, I've spent another nearly £20,000 finishing it, actually. know, loads of things you haven't finished, loads of things. I mean, there was like a washing machine and I got a tenant and she went to use the washing machine and oh, the washing machine's not working. I oh, that's weird, is it plugged in? It wasn't even plumbed in. The plumbing wasn't even there. The builder just shoved the washing machine into the gap and pretended he'd done it. And so on and so on and so on. issues that I've had because the builder went bust and he was a bit of a cowboy. It's been endless. My first tenant in their brand new HMO reported that she had bed bugs. Well, obviously they weren't there from me. She brought them with her. So suddenly in a brand new HMO, I've got a bed bug infestation. So, you know, that's, that was fun. And then, and then when I did finally get the place fully let, one of my poor tenants died which was absolutely awful. Not in the property, I'm well not happy to say it's just not a happy situation but the poor chap died and you know suddenly you've got a room that's full of his things and oh it's just so tragic and awful and you know makes you really really sad. And then my big property in South Shields which is two HMOs side by side. um When I moved in, well, when I finally got the keys and went round there, I found that a tenant had been left behind, effectively. She had decided not to move out and she's still there a year later, partly because I felt so sorry for her. She's a vulnerable lady and um didn't have anywhere else to go. And so I sort of took pity on her and let her stay. But of course now, I'm... need to get her out. So all you're doing with things like that being kind and soft is you're just kicking the problem down the road and eventually you're gonna have to sort it out and probably when you can least afford to do it as in time wise. So you know I've allowed a situation to uh linger that I should have sorted out a long time ago but every single one of these is a lesson. So you know if I were to do an HMO tomorrow... I would have a very different approach. I would do completely different due diligence and um it wouldn't be up in the Northeast. Which means I'm not probably going to do any more HMOs because trying to do an HMO down in the Southeast means you're going to leave too much money in. So it's very difficult. you know, I understand why I did what I did, but equally, if I were to do it again, there are many, many different things that I would... make sure we're in place before I embarked on that. So yeah, those are just some of the issues. On the plus side, you know, I've had some other great valuations and pretty much got all my money out of two of those properties. And, you know, the final one, because I've taken so long to get there for various reasons, I've now got a completely different idea about what I'm going to do with it when it's finished. So, you know, you... you learn and you learn and you learn and you change and you grow and and you know it the main thing is that you keep learning your lessons and and don't feel completely daunted and flattened by it all because it can just flatten you that's a whole list of things that have gone wrong for me that you know could quite easily make you give up and you know want to cry and you know there have been a few nights when I've wanted to cry and you know last year I I really felt that um all these problems, they were just piling up and they were getting on top of me and I just wasn't enjoying my life anymore. And I was thinking, goodness, this is not why I started this. So I had to have a proper word with myself and say, right, next year, as in 2026, I'm going to change my attitude to this whole thing and I'm going to design a life that I actually want to live. And so far, so good with that. I've changed my attitude. much more positive, partly because I'm seeing the bigger picture and really holding on tight to that bigger picture, but also just learning to deal with the stress and the uncertainty and like I say, the unexpected phone calls where, you know, something's gone wrong and it's going to cost you this, it's going to cost you that. You know, it's just getting used to that, getting em prepared for whatever comes your way. so that it doesn't knock you sideways all the time. yeah, getting back into making films again, and I've been doing some coaching as well, and just starting to enjoy my life and get back to living again. it's been a long process since my divorce happened, to now it is a process and some things just can't be rushed. that's what you get. Amen. They've all been your teachers, all of them. And as I as I said again, like the resilience that you showed, do you know what you said to me the other day and I and I and I think we should say it now 'cause it's it it just speaks so true and I think it will really help the listeners, is you said to me, Choose your hard, didn't you? So explain explain to everyone what you mean when you say choose your hard. Look, everything's going to be hard. Earning enough money to have, you know, to have £1.8 million in your pension would be extraordinarily hard. Doing property is hard. You know, there are no shortcuts. Nothing is easy. Everything is difficult in its own way. You just pick the hard that you want because it's all going to be hard. Every property strategy you choose will be hard. And it's just up to you, what's your appetite? What can you cope with? What can you put up with? What are you prepared to put up with? Mm. But you know, more than that, I think when we're talking about choose your heart, I think it's also staying exactly where you are and choosing to do absolutely nothing with your life is also choosing hard. So for example, the conversations that I have every single day with women is they say to me, I tell you what I get a lot of actually, I get a lot of Athena, I've been in the NHS for twenty years and um, you know, it's groundhog day for me and I really want a different life. Um, you know, that to me is hard, right? So therefore let's choose a different hard. Athena, I'm a teacher and you know, I really, really now want to wanna get away from teaching and I want to do something else. Okay, that's hard. Choose a different hard. Athena, I've been working as a police officer for the last eleven years, you know, and this is what's happening to me. And I'm working in this, this, this, this. I want something different. Okay, choose your hard. So my point also, Lucinda's point is, is doing nothing and staying exactly where you are and being unhappy is also very hard. What if you just change your heart to be my hard is actually the fact that I now need to go and educate myself in property and need to push myself forward every day? Look where you could be a year down the road, two years down the road. And Lucinda makes an excellent point, which is anytime I speak to Lucinda, and I will say this on on your behalf because I think it's quite difficult to talk about yourself in this way. I I can never talk about myself in this way, which is And by the way, as women, we should. I think that's definitely a thing that we all need to do, is we need to big ourselves up more. But you know, when I have conversations with you and you say, you know, this is what's going on at the moment, here's the problem, this is the situation, you say, but don't worry, I've got it all under hand. And I say, Is it all gonna be okay? And you say, Of course, it's all gonna be okay.

And you're right, I really think it's to do with, and you know, I talk about this a lot: 43:53

subconscious, the mindset, to really say, What are the solutions over the problems? Don't bring me more problems. Bring me solutions. You know? And I always say that to people. I always say to people in my team or anything, never ever bring me a problem. If you're gonna bring me a problem, you need to have a solution attached to it. So you say, Athena, this isn't working, but here's a solution. Athena, this isn't this isn't gonna be what you think it's gonna be, or this isn't the cost that it's gonna be because you know the down vows come in or this, this, but here's the solution. And I'm like, great. You know, that's how I operate. And I think that if we all just operate with that and we can move forward one percent every day, that's the best way to do it. So choose your hard, do not just stay still in life. Yeah, and you know what? I was thinking the other day, you know, on the days when it's really hard to think, oh, why did I do this? You know, when I'm not focusing on the big picture. Why did I do this? Why didn't I just take that money and buy myself a nice house with no mortgage, blah, blah, blah? And I thought, well, just take a step back from that. If I'd bought a nice house with no mortgage a couple of years ago, and I would have had very little cash left over and still no income. you know, and no pension or very small pension. And that probably would have gone down in value, like quite a decent amount. Where I am, the properties have come down surprisingly much. um So I'd been in a property that was worth less than I paid for it, with no pension and no prospect of ever earning enough to have a 1.8 million pound pension. So, you you've got to just kind of um accept that, you know, you make your choices in life based on the information that you have and you go into it with a good heart and you've just got to stay optimistic. You know, you've picked your heart, great. Now stick with it and be optimistic because when I was making wildlife films, you had to be optimistic because you're going out to film something, you've no idea if that animal's going to turn up. You'll no idea if it's going to rain for two weeks and you're not going to get anything. You've got to go into everything believing that it's all going to work out because with property, it usually does. Add enough time and it all works out in the end. And you know, you can spend your life catastrophizing and thinking, Oh no, what have I done? Because you're dealing with today's problem. But in a few weeks time, that problem will be gone and it will be sorted. the path will be clear again. So you've just got to stay optimistic. Just keep on keeping on. The amount of times I just say to myself, keep on keeping on. Because, you know, just put one foot in front of the other and just keep going. And it does all work out in the end. It's just today's problem. Exactly. So we should say that you're obviously based down south, you're you're Winchesterway. These properties are of course up in the north. You know, we if we if we were to sort of like I wanna give really good advice now to people who are at the absolute beginning of their journey. So Usina, remember when you listened to the Garsman Property Podcast for the first time and you were like this was the podcast that got me on the journey, that got me to where I am now as it were. Imagine that you are speaking to a person that is on the way to the office, taking the kids to school, they're literally on the cusp of wanting to get into property, knowing they want more, knowing that this is, and they finally found the Girls on Property podcast. What advice would you give to them now if they've got a little bit of money, they're starting out, they're thinking where to invest, how to invest? What is your advice to them knowing what you know? I think the most important thing is knowing what you want from property. In my case, approaching my 60s, I knew I needed cash flow, I knew I needed effectively a replacement for my pension. So that's the first thing you have to do, is work out what your strategy is. If you have no intention of leaving your job, you love your job, but you want to create some wealth for the future, say you're in your 30s or whatever, you've got your job. maybe married with husband, they're working, things are going well, you can afford to buy something in a nice area that you can do a BRRR on and then just allow that wealth to accumulate within that property and you could do that three or four or five times over say a period of a certain number of years, four or five years and just watch that accumulate because you know that that's actually a nest egg for the future and at some point you'll sell those properties. and take the capital growth out of it. So, you know, those are just two examples. There's all sorts of other ways you can do it, you know, and you can get into doing rent to rents and deal sourcing and flips, et cetera, et cetera. But it's like, how much time do you want to give it? What's the end result you're looking for? And how old are you? How much time have you got? So it's really just pick that strategy that works for you. And you can do a lot of research yourself or get yourself a mentor. you know, find a way to really nail down that strategy and then once you've got your strategy and you know exactly why you've got that strategy and you know exactly what you want from it, stick to it, do not deviate, just keep going forward, forward, forward, forward. Hmm, great advice. I'm just gonna add something to that if if if that's okay, which is so I always talk about, which is what you just said beautifully, which is this notion of resources. And whenever I whenever I mentor or I talk to any of my girls in the accelerator program, the mastermind, the one-to-one blueprint course I do, I say, right, let's put you in the middle and let's write down all of your resources that you have around you. And I and I really, really encourage anyone who's listening to this podcast right now to go and do this action step. almost like brainstorm what your resources are. You know, who who have you got in your team? What skills do you have? What have you learned? What are your transferable skills? And then and then really think from that, right, how can I use these? And you just made a great example there about really thinking to yourself about what it is that you actually want out of property. And the example I'm going to give give of this is is a couple of things. The first one is is I see so many of you in my DMs on a daily basis. And some of you are going to laugh because you'll know that I'm talking about you and I'm referring to this, right? Where you all message going, Athena, I don't know what strategy I want to do. I don't know what strategy, strategy, strategy, strategy, strategy. And you all know that I come back at you and I all say the same thing to you, which is, I do not care about your strategy. I don't care about it, start with yourself. And you'll go, but I don't know the strategy. And I go, I don't care, start with yourself. And I have this conversation on a loop, on a repeat. I might as well just start recording myself doing this. So you're gonna listen to this, listen to this. And this would be my advice to you. It does not matter about the strategy. What Lucinda just said was brilliant. It matters about what it is that you actually want out of property and it matters about what resources that you have. And the reason I think we get so conditioned into wanting to understand what strategy it is we want to do is because if we think about the education system from when we were in school, right? You had to choose your GCSEs, you had to choose your A levels, you had to choose what subjects you wanted to do at university. So therefore we then feel that we have to choose the strategy. So we therefore say, okay, Athena, I don't have a lot of money. In fact, I've got no money. Therefore, I'm going to go and learn about rent to rent. I'm going to go learn about deal sourcing. I'm going to go and learn about property management. And I'm going to pay two and a half thousand pounds to go with these property education companies. And I'm going to come away going, right, I've now learned about rent to rent, two and a half grand, thank you very much. I've now learned about deal sourcing, two and a half grand, thank you very much. I've now learned how to become a property manager, thank you, two and a half grand, thank very much. You're now What you seven and half grand down and you're like, I still am no closer to knowing what the hell it is I want to do with property and my strategy. No shit, Sherlock. It's because you literally did not start with yourself in terms of what it is that you actually wanted. And you could have saved yourself seven and a half grand in doing so. So I know I So let me let me give you an example of this. I was mentoring somebody the other day and I said to her, What do you want out of property? What are you looking for? And she said to me, I want to make two and a half grand out of property. To replace my current my current salary. I said, fantastic, let's run with that, shall we? How are you gonna do that? She said to me, I want to do rent to rent. I said, okay, let's talk about that, shall we? You want to do rent trend? I said, Do you know much about rent trend? She says, No, not really. And I said, And I said, okay, well, we talk you through it. And this is we had obviously a 90 minute call. I'm about to do this in about 30 seconds for you. Okay. So obviously I spoke a lot slower than this and explained a lot more than this. But essentially what I explained to her was that on average, you make about 500 pounds per calendar month on a rent trend HMO. On average. Sometimes it could be more. I don't recommend doing less than this. And that's about six tenants per property. Okay. So I said to her, okay, so if you want to make two and a half grand a month, you need to have five rent to rents because you're making £500 profit on each of those. She said, Okay, so you need five a month. Each of those has probably got about six tenants on them because the six-bed HMO in Bournemouth cash flowed me about five hundred a month. So you've now got 30 tenants. So you're now dealing with 30 tenants and And you're now dealing with five rent-to-rent properties with a full-time job. How does that sound to you? She says, That sounds like absolute hell. And I said, So therefore, there's no point you going and spending two and a half grand to go and learn about rent-to-rent because you don't have the resources in terms of time to manage 30 tenants and five properties. Shall we look at something else? She said, Yes, let's look at something else. So my point is, it is not about just the strategy, it's about understanding your resources and your time. So I just wanted to give that resident just because I I have this conversation on a daily basis in my DMs. So I just wanted to give it to the podcast so that when you come back to my DMs, you can ask me different questions or ask me more about this. That's all. Well, the reality is that, you know, property education companies are not going to tell that lady that actually it's going to be Mary Hell managing all those people. They're going to make it out to be, yeah, you know, you just, you know, just have the odd call and once they're booked in and you can have a letting agent or whatever. And they make it all sound so easy and it just isn't, but they don't tell you that stuff. thing is right look I I managed to leave my full-time corporate job by by starting my rent trend business and growing it and building it up and that is how I did it in under a year. It is possible in order to start it and grow it and build it yes but it takes absolute dedication to it. It takes you to have a full time uh job because let's face it the usual reason you're doing something like rent trend is because you don't have a lot of cash flow right and so you have to keep your job you don't have an option to leave your job. and in doing so you're therefore working on your lunch breaks, you're therefore working in the late hours, you're therefore conducting the viewings on your Saturdays and your Sundays, probably while you've got children who need to go off to gymnastics and ballet, I've got no doubt. So what it is is just understanding that. And one of the things that I always try and encourage people to do is to think to yourself, well, what if you just did it differently? What if you looked at getting an investor on board who, believe me, will probably know less than you because you've could you consume so many podcasts and education and everything like that? And they won't know very much. Why don't you say, look, you be the bank, I'll do all of the work, and you work together to get a bi refurbished rent with finance property, a HMO, a flip. It will take substantially less effort from you, but probably would make you more money, to be honest with you. So again, it comes back to your resources, who you are. And again, if you want to have this conversation in more depth, I'm more than happy to do that. Just drop into my DMs at either Garzman Property or Athena Dobson underscore official. But It's just important to recognise where you're at and what you have around you. Would be our advice. Yeah, and it's back to pick your heart. You know, what do you prepare to put up with? What's going to freak you out and what's going to be actually perfectly okay for you? You know, everybody has a different approach to life and different experiences. And some people love dealing with tenants and love dealing with people. Brilliant. Fantastic. Lovely. You go and do that. You know, for someone else, it might be their idea of hell. So, know, just pick your heart, pick what it is that you are actually good at, what you enjoy, and what you're prepared to put up with. But it's all going to be hard. And and let's face it, taking on the properties in uh winter when you first start out is different to taking on the properties in summer when you first start out. So for example, when I take take on my took on my properties in winter, I knew that I was gonna be getting messages daily, weekly if not daily, about the boiler. Mould was a massive one because they don't ventilate, because it's cold and they wash their clothes inside. Whereas in summer they just wash their clothes outside. So we don't have issues with mould. We don't have issues with the boiler breaking because they don't put the heating on. So if you're also starting out now, for example, you're in the summer months and you think this is lovely, this is nice and quiet, you know, brace yourself for winter. And if you're gonna start off in winter and you're listening to this podcast in winter, don't worry, better days are to come. It gets easier and we go through the cycle of life. So it it it it it all works out well. So Lucinda, what what would we say then for for the listeners, if we're thinking, okay, so what about this notion of somebody saying to both of us, Right, I have this pot of money, but this pot of money doesn't go as far as I want it to because I'm based down in the south. And I hear the gurus talking about this notion of turnkey solutions up in the north. Um I can work with a person, it will all be um taken care of up there, you know We we've already said the issues with doing that in terms of you ending up managing it yourself and everything. But what advice can we give of how they could, for example, actually invest in their area? What's some solutions? Well, I mean, if you do want to go for somewhere that's a long way from home because you're looking at yields and actually, you know, there is less investment upfront and you'll probably leave less money in that property because they're just cheaper. And yet the rents are not in line with that in terms of how much cheaper they are. the rents are still reasonably good, a bit lower, but not as much lower as the house prices, if that makes sense. I think the key takeaway for me is spend more time researching the people you're going to work with than the property itself because the property will be the property and you know there's all sorts of due diligence we've talked about that and making sure you pick the right area that you know this demand for the strategy that you want to do but honestly it's the people so the head of Pixar was once asked what would you rather have a brilliant idea or brilliant people and he said or brilliant people because you can give a rubbish idea to brilliant people and they'll make it amazing. But you give a good idea to rubbish people and they'll screw it up for you. So it's actually the people that you work with, whether it's the builders or your project manager or whoever it is that you surround yourself with to make that project work. I would say do more due diligence on the people that you work with than the actual property. And you know, I stand by that. Going forward, I would spend ages finding the right people to work with. And that could be investors as well. It could be brokers, all sorts of different people in your power team. But really, really research them. And that's more important than the property. Issues of properties can be sorted out. But a great property can be ruined by rubbish people. Or it can take twice as long. can totally destroy your projections, your cash flow, everything. Undoing bad mistakes costs twice as much, you know. Yeah. really good advice. And I love that. I absolutely I love that Pixar said that as well. I'm gonna really hold on to that. What a great what a great line. I love that. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Always, always. And and then what about from like a financial standpoint? So, you know, let's say that somebody's got let's call it like fifty grand, right? And they're based in the south. They've got fifty grand, just a bit more, like, you know, fifty grand should not be snubbed at at all. That's somebody's life savings. But obviously it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. So let's say that somebody goes through Cinder, I've got fifty grand, I'm based in Bournemouth, Winchester, Dorchester, wherever it is. You know, what what can they be doing down south then?'Cause obviously they're probably not gonna have enough just to get the deposit. So what what could they do? you probably need some investor finance as well. But, you know, I would think I would have said flips, because obviously, you know, down south, that's a great place to do flips. But at the moment, that's tough. That's really tough, because we just don't know what's going to happen to house prices. And there's more, you know, there's more supply than demand at moment. So That would be tough, but a BRRR, there's some bargains out there now. So I would do a BRRR if I was what I'm going to do next, to be honest, is that's going to be my next strategy. That and title splitting and lease options, preferably combined. So yeah, lease options are a good one. Be very careful about who you choose to train with on that one. But yeah, lease options are very, very good. ways. They're not easy to get. So again, pick your heart. You know, you might have to speak to 50, 60 different property owners before anyone will give you a lease option, depending on what you're trying to do. And you know, title splitting is a really good strategy. And sometimes you can get to a point where there's no money down at the point of purchase because you've added value by title splitting. you know, that's Rachel Knight's territory. And you know, she'd be the one to go to for training on that. I know you've had her on your podcast before, she's phenomenal and incredible training on that one, which I've done. uh yeah, so I think it's, it's, it's, you might need some slightly different strategies. You know, I wanted to do HMOs. I knew I wouldn't be able to get enough HMOs down south with the money that I had. So I went to the Northeast. That's come with its own problems. But once those problems are ironed out, think ultimately it will have been a good strategy for me. But it's just been, you know, just a really tough two and a half years getting that over the line. Yeah, so. think what what I would say, because obviously, you know, I'm I'm down south. I think I think a couple of things I would say. Number one would be is there are different ways in which you can finance. So obviously investment finance is one. You can bridge. I've seen people bridge really, really well. I just had Carla Eve on the podcast recently. She was talking about about the fact that she bridged on her HMO and did really well out of it. And she actually managed to do a bridging not just on the property itself but on the build as well. So that's an idea. yeah. Exactly. So there's that option. Of course it's expensive, so it's just about really understanding the risk and calculating it into it. I think for me, I think I think the advice that I always give to everybody, always, no matter where you are, is the money is made in when you purchase, when you buy, not so much when you sell. So if I was going to be investing down south, it is really at the moment looking for those motivated sellers that really just want to get rid. Like that they're either Um, going off on travelling, or the renters' rights, or they're, you know, they're these sort of I shouldn't stereotype, but let's just say a certain type of stale, pale, white male that wants to leave the game. Let's just go with that one. And you can pick up some absolute bargains that are really, really sort of low market value, especially if you can buy in cash, especially. Um, and I think that that's where the money is. I really do. So, for example, I've seen some really amazing auction properties that have really come up. Course, just make sure you've got a really good power team and you're looking at auctions from the solicitor documents, the legal pack, get yourself a solicitor that specializes in auctions as well, would be my advice to you. But you know, I if I was gonna do it again, for example, I'd tell you what I would do if I was down south. And this is my opinion, my my my preference. First of all, this is probably something I'm actually gonna end up doing. So if I'm gonna do it, I'd probably end up actually living in the property itself down south, so that when you actually go to sell it, there are no capital gains tax on it. So you'd buy yourself a a rundown property that you're like, right, it's a one bed, a two bed, and you're gonna add value to it. So you're gonna turn it to a three bed, a four-bed, whatever it may be. And actually live in it. Like live in it, do the work, and then probably sell it in about two to three years one once the market is is is rebound. So see it like the stocks. You're literally going to buy in low and then you're gonna sell when when the stocks go up. And and right now that's what I would look to do. Now I'm currently not looking to actually buy anywhere to live in at this moment in time because I probably want to travel the world for the rest of this year and to work anywhere that I can. That's the life that I set up for myself. But if I was going to to to now buy to live, I would a hundred percent do that and make my actual residential my investment because you don't need a twenty five percent deposit, you only need a ten percent deposit because you're gonna live in it, and you don't get the capital gains tax at the end. And I think that could be for the South. when you you're looking for kind of the capital appreciation, the longevity of it, I think that would be the strategy that I personally would would now go down and and and do that. Interesting you should say that Athena because you know obviously when I got my money I didn't buy a house I put it all into doing property but now I'm at the point where I'm getting that money back out finally from the end of the sort sausage factory that I've created I'm actually going to get my lump sum what's left of it out around about sort of November December time and that's exactly what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be buying rundown property adding value through a refurb, sitting on it for a little while, selling and just keep building up. And hopefully I'll get to a point where that house I could have bought, you know, back in the day when I first got divorced, I'll have a house worth at least that much and my property portfolio. That's the plan. That's the big plan. And that is how it works. That is beautiful. I absolutely love that. Do you know we can talk we could talk for hours because it's me and you, you know, and we we could we could really do this because I think there's just so much I think there's so much added value to give. And these are the types of conversations that I love having. It's just real conversation, lots of value. My final question to you is is is this really? Number one is is is there anything else you want to to add just before We we sign off on this episode. I think, you know, a mantra that I've been sort of reminding myself of is that pain in property is inevitable, but suffering is optional. What do I mean by that? Yes, shit's going to come your way, excuse my French, but you don't have to feel awful about it. You just have to get on with it, sort it out, get it off your plate, move on. Don't sit in that pain and suffer. because you know, it's just going to happen. It's just going to happen. Get used to it. Get over yourself. Get on with it. Move on. Don't sit in suffering. Don't have to do it. it. Yes, love it. Okay, fabulous. And do you know what? I am gonna ask you this question because I ask it to everybody else, then I and I wasn't sure if I was gonna ask you, but I am gonna ask you because I don't think I've ever asked you question before. So is it? I'm nervous now. I no don't mean that. So I've I've asked this question to every person who's come on the podcast, which which you might know actually. and it's a question that got asked to me about like seven months ago, eight months ago on a podcast, and it literally stumped me in my tracks. I I thought, what is the answer to that question? I sort of sat for two minutes going, What is the answer to it? So I'm gonna ask you this question and then you can decide what well your answer is, which is what is one question that nobody has ever asked you that you wish that somebody would have asked you. Well, when I first got divorced, somebody said to me, you can do anything you want now. What do want to do? I went, oh my God, I don't remember the last time I asked that of myself, let alone anyone asking me, what is it you want? But that is the most important question. What do you want? Because until you know the answer to that, you don't know where you're going. So just make sure you know the answer to that question and then when you've got it, you just hold on really tight to that answer and you go in that direction. You know, isn't that a beautiful, beautiful question? So I've as you know, I'm I'm going down this um journey of subconscious learning at the moment. And I I'm I now I meditate um and I and I sit very quietly. People who know me really well, like like yourself, will know that I'm usually go out a hundred miles an hour. And what's been beautiful for me is I have sat in so much stillness recently, a lot of stillness. And I literally ask myself that exact question. I say, What do you actually want? And we do this as part of the vision to victory. It's the first question that's asked, is you know, because you came to the workshop. So the first question we ask is, What do you want? And the second question we ask is, What else do you want? Go deeper. And it's such a powerful question, I think, really asked, because it uncovers so much within relationships. Yes. um your professionism, within your personal, like who are you? What do you actually want? And I think it's such a powerful I think the most powerful telling is when a person says, I don't know what I want. And I then say, So how do you know where you're going if you don't know what you want? And it's the simplest question and yet the hardest question because we just don't stop and ask ourselves that often enough or ever. In my case ever. You know, you're so busy being, you know, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a colleague, you know. You're on a hamster wheel, there's a mortgage to pay, there's bills, there's rent to pay, whatever it is. And at no point during that conversation with the world do you actually go, but is this what I actually want? And it's just so important to ask that question because we get so caught up. Well, you started off by... you know, talking about Instagram and how everybody's doing this and they're doing that. And you think, I want that. I want that. I want that. Do you really want that? Because you don't really know what those people are doing. You don't really know what they're going through. You don't know what's going on behind the smile. You know, everything can appear very wonderful. And you think, yeah, I want to be like that. But you just have to stop and go, no, what do you, what do you? as an individual want, you may not want money. You may not want, we all need a bit of money, but you you may not want much money. You may not want to live in Dubai. You may not want to have six holidays a year. You might be a homebody. You might just want a little flat, something that you can just call your own and have a cat. I don't know, but you've got to decide what it is that you want and, you know, take some time to really think about that. It took me a long time to really work it out. You know, and I think we're always going to be on a journey to knowing what that answer is because, you know, things change, you change, but you've got to sit with that question for a decent amount of time. Don't, don't go with the first thing that comes into your head. Take your time, really work it through and then you'll know what it is. And then once you know, you know, and you're off and you're running and you're going in that direction. I love it. Do you know I'm gonna pass on my final words, which is what um mum tells me all the time and she's here with me in Spain at the moment, she came to visit me. And I'm gonna leave you all with Mum's parting words today. She says to me, Athena, when you know, go. She says, When you know, go, but not before then. And that's my parting words for everyone today. From Mum. Love your mum. She's fabulous. Let's think that I've loved today, I can't wait for everyone to hear this episode. Full of value. Where can everybody get in contact with you?'Cause trust me, they're gonna wanna message you. So where are they finding you? I'm on Instagram as Lucinda's real property. Yeah, Lucinda Axelson, you'll find me there. I'm doing a bit of coaching uh for storytelling, because storytelling is what I've always done with my life. And I think it's really important now with everybody using AI all the time to write their Linkedins and WhatsApps. uh Instagrams that actually authenticity really matters and honest conversations like this really matters and that's the thing you're so good at Athena is is you know really getting to the heart of things and getting that honesty out of people because it's a safe space you know and you you support us and we know that if you know if we get any sort of flak for something that you know we've got this whole network of amazing women around us to kind of keep us feeling safe and secure. But you know, get out there, tell your story like I've just done. You know, get out and tell your story and be honest and be authentic. Don't pretend to be anything you're not and don't get caught up in wanting something that other people want, but you don't. Well said, beautifully said. And as always, guys, I'm Athena Dobson underscore official, girls and property on Instagram as well. and we kick off actually, we've literally kicked off today when this episode comes out, the five-day money challenge for girls and property. So this is how to make a thousand pounds in five days, and I'm doing it with Sarah Poynton. So many of you, based on the last webinar, have already showed me your stuff being on vintage, you at the car boot sales, all the stuff that you're making money-wise, which I'd love to see. So today is day one. We literally went live at 9 a.m. this morning, in line with this podcast. So it's not too late to join. Come and join the community and come and be part of the five day challenge, how to make a thousand pounds in five days. We are now at 145 members up within the community, which is incredible all over the UK. We do two calls a month, we do five day challenges, we do local meetups. And just to let everybody know, July is the last month you can get in for £30 a month. From the 1st of August, it is increasing to 40 pounds plus VAT a month. So if you want to get in before the price increase, get in now, get involved. It's never a better time to do it with the five-day challenge. And if think about it, see it like this. If you were to give me £30 and I was to give you, say, a thousand back, would you do it? I think everybody would. So see it like that. Um, right, Lucinda, thank you so much. Can't wait for everyone to hear you. And let's go and make some money and go and be fabulous and just go be good. Do good, be good, be happy, and always think about what we want. So thank you for today for coming on. All right, ladies. Love you lots. See you soon. Have a great week. Bye for now.