Hi, I’m Susanne, and there’s nothing in my life’s history to suggest I’d one day be going down the route of becoming a property investor. That kind of people wear suits and have professional pictures of themselves taken whilst standing in front of a large, modern office building with mirrored windows, shaking hands with another white man in a suit, don’t they?

Well, I’m no white man in a suit. I’m a university lecturer teaching criminology at a London university. I worked in policing for over a decade. Apart from the vague dream of one day wanting to own lots of properties in lots of places and countries that I could use myself as I pleased, and rent them out at other times, there was no ambition in me to be doing any of this. And is property the right investment strategy, anyway?

Well, then I separated from my husband last year and the divorce is now going through its final stages. I moved out of the 4-bedroom marital home, which was a new-build, and am now renting a 2-bedroom flat. There are two reasons why I wanted him to keep the house - I earn about 60% of what he earns, so I wouldn’t be able to afford the mortgage on my own, nor to buy him out. Also, I wanted to start afresh in a new place to call home without any memories of him in it.

When he bought me out of the house and I got my half of the equity, I knew I would need to double it in order to put it down as a deposit to buy something of equivalent size. Times have changed - we bought the house off-plan in 2013 for around £227K, on 2021 it was valued at £321K. It’s now been over a year since I moved out, and to buy an equivalent home with 4 bedrooms in my area would cost over £400K. I deliberately moved close to the school I want my children to get into as it’s a really good one. Still only about 2 miles away from where I used to live. So, I’ve downsized significantly and have this 2-bed flat, where my girls share the larger bedroom when they’re with me, and the other bedroom is my office and also has our wardrobes in it. I sleep on the couch in the living room. It’s so uncomfortable that I got a 10cm-thick foam mattress to cover it.

With my salary of around £39K from the university and house prices rising by 10% every year, I just don’t think I’ll be able to grow my deposit much, if at all, with my salary alone, and with what he’s paying me for another 4 years in maintenance. I’m already noticing I’ve got less left over per month now than I did a year ago, with prices of everything just going up.

But, I have a very positive mindset and a lot of determination, and my situation simply dictated that I do something to get myself a proper home for my children, and not rent someone’s flat forever. 

I then saw some information on social media about a free property investment seminar, which led to a 2-day training event, which then got me to sign up to this really(!) high-ticket property investment training program. Honestly, it costs as much as studying at university. And I’ve got 4 university qualifications already. But not in property investments.

Paying a lot of money for something definitely gets your motivation into the right place. I haven’t told my parents how much I’ve spent on this training program. I don’t want to tell them, until I’ve got something to show for it. And that is what I’ll need to be working on. 

And so it begins 😋