The Code To Winning - UK vs US REAL ESTATE, STRATEGIES, UPSCALING, BUY & BUILD MODEL || BEN QUAINTRELL || EPISODE 029

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

2500 PROPERTIES AND £500 MILLION IN MANAGED ASSETS  UK vs US REAL ESTATE, STRATEGIES, UPSCALING, BUY & BUILD MODEL   “It’s not about money. It’s about freedom — the freedom to do what you love, when you want, with who you want.” – Ben Quaintrell   In this episode of The Code to Winning, I sit down with Ben Quaintrell, who shares his raw and honest journey of going from a single investment to building My Property Box — one of the most respected property companies in the North East of the UK, now managing over £500 million in assets.   Ben’s journey is one of resilience, reinvention, and radical decision-making. With no background in property, to mastering the art of buying established businesses instead of starting from scratch, Ben opens up about the highs, lows, and lessons that shaped his path.   We dive deep into the global financial crisis of 2008, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the ripple effects on UK markets, and how interest rates and world economics still influence property trends today. He also importantly talks about strategies that have led to his success, while describing difference between markets in the UK vs here in the US.   But beyond the numbers and assets, Ben shares what winning truly means to him: freedom. Freedom to take care of loved ones. Freedom to pursue passion. Freedom to never have to say “no” to what matters most.   🚀 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: How Ben started his property journey * Why he prefers buying businesses over starting them from scratch * The UK property market through the lens of global financial events * The impact of interest rate cycles — and why we’re just in another phase of a long-term pattern * The importance of knowing your numbers when making acquisitions * Ben’s definition of success: freedom over money * Why so many people are stuck waiting for retirement — and how to escape that trap *Tactical insights for anyone looking to build wealth through UK real estate or business acquisitions *The mindset shift needed to go from employee to empire builder *This is more than just a real estate interview — it’s a masterclass in entrepreneurial thinking, long-term wealth, and living a purpose-driven life.   This is the episode for you 

I did a business studies degree at Sheffield and I had a third year placement year as part of my degree and at the time my housemate was doing the commercial property and I thought wow that sounds pretty cool I wouldn't mind getting into property I managed to get a job at a company for all sandersons and I turned up at the age of 19 my year's placement I finished university and then he offered me a job in 2006 came back and then I worked there rights are 2012 and then 2012 is when I settle my property bots and when full-time self-employed full-time business owner so in the UK you have all these different property strategies which I'll talk through so you get your long-term buy-to-lect which is long-term property management which we do you get short-term Airbnb

management you get land development you get commercial ready conversions you get rent-to-rent strategies I'll always see the positive and everything that's just how my my brain words I'll always see the positives and everything so yes there's There's a lot of compliance, a lot of legality changes, but we welcome them like good, good, good agents, good landlords, good investors. Welcome compliance because it makes the industry better. In my property box, buying the own model. A lot of my time is on M&A, mergers and acquisitions.

So I spend with my CFO and my senior team looking for opportunities to buy property management businesses. So it's all about EBITDA multipliers based on the valuation of how we buy these businesses. of the things I found so impressive is obviously you manage 2,500 properties and over 500 million pounds as well in assets which I found extremely impressive by the way what systems do you rely on in order to try and like scale that massive amount effectively as well so yeah it's a real good question ladies and gentlemen welcome to another episode of the code to winning insights You need today to seize the world tomorrow.

Today we have a very unique and special guest coming all the way from the United Kingdom. God save the king. All right, special guests today. Just a brief introduction of our guest today's name is goes by Benjamin Quintrail. Now, we came and we met him at a real estate summit. We're going to talk a lot about real estate. We're going to talk a lot about like short term, long term rental to let and so forth as well. A brief introduction of who he is.

He is the founder and a CEO of my property box. Also buy and build business acquisition. He manages over 2,500 properties and also 500 million pounds in assets as well. So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, our special guest today, Ben Quintrail. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Excited to be on. I was excited.

I'll tell you told me the bad news. So I'm about to expose him right now. So I met him yesterday. We had a luncheon. We were in a certain section at the Grand Cardone, Las Vegas 10X tour. And he told me he was from Newcastle. I was so excited because Newcastle, just a brief background of Newcastle there, they're a football team that recently won their first trophy in 70 years.

So my excitement, my enthusiasm was over the moon. Only to find out today he's a fake Newcastle fan. So before you give introduction yourself, can you please just give, you know, apologise for lying to me. I am apologised for saying I'm a Jordie. Anyone from the UK who's watching this knows that if you speak to someone international,

especially from the US and you say you're from Darlington, nobody's ever heard of Darlington. But I'll tell you what we're famous for. Darlington is famous for trains. The first rocket locomotive, the first world train was actually developed and made it Darlington so it used to be on the back of a five-pound note on an English still note so Darlington is famous for trains and how far as Darlington from the

from Newcastle about 30 minutes drive so we're 30 minutes south of Newcastle in about 45 minutes north of Leeds and you're no leads I know leads oh I hate leads there are big rivals as well so I never I like them in the Premier League but when I see like the local fans talk about it it's like they're they're dirty kind of like you They're very obnoxious fan base, you know, so better than the Scouses though. Absolutely, yeah, but the rivalry for Northern Football is there and you're a 99th fan. That's right, isn't it?

So you know, you got Man City on your door, there, Liverpool, local rivals you found the corner. Interesting though, north-east of the UK has got more Champions League than the two London has. London only has two Champions Leagues collectively and they're both from Chelsea. 2012 and 2020 the COVID ones. So Arsenal nothing, Fulham, nothing, Brentford, Tottenham. Yeah, Tottenham's awful, but yeah.

Enough about football. Can you give us a brief introduction just about who you are and how you started in the real estate space? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So I'm 41 years old. You can't tell it costs. It's a good moisturiser that I use. But I've done real estate.

We call it in the UK, proper. estate agency and I've done it since I left university so I did a business studies degree and at Sheffield, New York Sheffield United and at Sheffield Wednesday is the other football team and I should do a general business studies degree and I had a third year placement year as part of my degree and at the time my housemate was doing a commercial property and I thought wow that sounds pretty cool I wouldn't mind getting into property so I decided to apply for all the year's work experienced job at the local estate agencies in Darlington or I do guys would say the real estate

agents and I managed to get a job at a company called Sanderson's and I turned up at the age of 19 my year's placement I turned up they could have put me in sales and they could have put me in letting's property management and they just put me into property management that day I did a year there finished university and then he offered me a job in 2006 came by back and then I worked there right until 2012 and then 2012 is when I set off my property box and went full-time self-employed, full-time business owner and full-time running your own property company. Oh, what inspired the name our property books? At the time, it was a bit of a brainstorm. So in 2012, there wasn't loads of businesses, really Facebook was out of course, but there wasn't

really many people with business Facebook pages. I remember sliders, you know, slides are website they literally just come out and I remember being the first business in the area and I had a slider on the website and I was one of the first ones to have a business page I called myself the digital agency and then it was going to be called I let and I box and I property and then yeah it was going to be property box the property box and then I think after a bit of brainstormed family and friends it ends up being my property box or MVP we call it for short and so obviously started in 2012 how many different

branches do you have? So we've got five offices at the moment, but we have a model and I'll talk about it later. So we got private equity back in last year. And the private equity, the VC funds have invested in us in M&A. So we buy property management companies. And one of our strategies is basically to consolidate the businesses. So what we do is we've bought 14 businesses. So we'll buy it, we'll buy a lettings of property management business. Not every time, some of the time we'll then close that office, consolidate their team into our main office. We then cost age on all the synergies for the administration, the accounts. It's called Hub and Spoke is the model, so centralised property management account.

And then the Spoke is the front-end office, so Newcastle, North Allerton, Dahl, into Middlesbrough, Sunderland. And there the front-end offices look after front-end letting properties, leasing properties, and front-end sales. But the centralised property management is all ran from the centralised. headquarters of things. And I know you and I also spoke about it yesterday when I told you that I recently started in the market of short-term rentals in terms of Airbnb arbitrage where it's almost like a form of like sub-leasing

so I don't own any of the property but what happens is that I'll end up getting some properties whether it be like apartments or actually homes and end up like getting a lease there but you end up like sub-leasing as well and I think are you in that field as well in terms of Airbnb Airbnb's taken taking off globally over a lot off

five, six, seven years, but really in the UK over these last four or five years. So what happened was in about 2020 in and out of COVID, we kept getting asked if we managed Airbnb's and it's a slightly different strategy. So in the UK, you have all these different property strategies which I'll talk through. So you get your long-term buy-to-let, which is long-term property management, which we do. You get short-term Airbnb management. You get land development. You get commercial ready conversions.

You get rent-to-rent strategies. different strategies but we kept getting asked if we managed Airbnb's and it's slightly different you know it's like having a Italian and someone saying you should start you know doing stakes or a different type of you know it's a different model and at the time the wife Jane was like you need to do this we're getting asked all the time do we manage Airbnb but it's completely different model so we end up launching a business in 2021 call stay with us with a young entrepreneur I'm friends with is a part of my my no no it's separate it's completely

separate so it was born out of accident so now we managed we manage completely separate to my property but it's called stay with us and and we have got about 130 140 units in that now so is a property investor in the UK you might say right I've got some money I want to invest I want to buy long-term buy to let long term or you might want to go Airbnb now Airbnb the revenue difference you're obviously it's each area and we can do on ADNA you can you can strategize on which is going to make you the most money based on room occupancy and obviously level of rents. But generally on Airbnb you'll make 20% more revenue.

But it's more hassle, it's more reactive. You know, you have 20 people moving in into an Airbnb unit on a Friday night that comes with, you know, boiler's not working, it's wonderful as being cleaned, it's more reactive. Where long-term property management is just slightly slower and it's more like, you know, slow and steady. So there's no right and wrong answer. It's just different investors, horses for horses.

Is that the UK saying horses for horses, right? So some invest in land, some invest in long term property management, condos, apartment blocks, some invest in Airbnb short term. Some of them will do a rent to rent. So they might rent a whole apartment block and then we'll Airbnb each apartment room. There's so many different strategies

and I'm sure it's similar in US. Is that part of my property box? No, I would say the long term more consistent okay the short term is more volatile and it's subject to the market so probably seems to hear you know November December January tends to be the more quiet time for Airbnb in the UK subject to each area so I'm just generalising but then obviously busy times summer time holidays families booking weekends away you know it depends but yeah it's seasonal so it's difficult to predict if

your forecast and your Airbnb strategy you know you'll often use air dna do you know air dna in the US so air dna scripts all the data off Airbnb so if you were like then i want to i want to know exactly what our apartment's going to do in darlington where you can pull off her report that will tell you um you know this is on an average room meant of a hundred pounds a night is 65 percent occupancy from march to september and then during the quiet time it's 50 percent you can then data analyze exactly I mean, it's never exactly, but it gives you a good idea of what it's going to cost. And then obviously if you're investing in this property, your initial outweighs like furniture packs,

decorating, staging. So you can analyse exactly how much money do I need to put it out, what is my return on an investment after 12 months, and then you can forecast it out. And as a real estate property investor, it is a numbers game. You know, a mistake people make often in the new kids, they buy things with their heart. They might buy it probably because they like the way it looks or where it is. but they haven't nailed down the data

and haven't done the due diligence it's all on the numbers it's all on what you return you know what you're going to let it out it's all on the data and that is it you know

and so I want to I've always been very curious the different markets between the United States and the United Kingdom but the first thing I want to touch on is when you started your business how easy was it to try and get

investments or would you already save up to your own form of money or did you get like invest to try and invest in in your company as well before you start it off yeah a couple of different points there so as property investors so obviously i've got a few different hats on so obviously i've got my agency hat on and then i've got a property investment hat on and that's kind of two different things so as agents that manage properties and then separately it's that landlord to a property investors so as a property investor in the UK obviously like any business the one thing is you know you need money to invest and and it's a

A lot of the training courses in the UK that teach you how to use other people's money. And it's about, as you guys know, building profile credibility on your social media and getting yourself into networking and getting yourself out there to show credibility to use other people's money. Now it's not that easy, but generally, you know, you can network with other property investors. You can often network the people that have money that don't know anything about property and they will be looking to invest in an individual. Now, it'll be similar to the US.

What you can offer people, investors, if you want to invest in properties, if they want to invest in U is security, because an investor cares about what money am I going to get on my investment. Is my money safe and when am I going to get it back? Now the safety one, there's so many different strategies, but you can offer charges, we call it first charge,

in the UK. So first charge is what a mortgage or finance company might have. So if you're an invest that's going to chuck you 100 grand, 200 grand, you could say I'll give the first charge on the property if there's no debt on the property already. Another option is you could give them a personal guarantee, PG, personal guarantee, and then if you don't pay them they can technically file for bankruptcy against you. Or you can give them shares in a limited company that I say to the vehicle that owns the property. So as you go through the process, right from the start,

it's about building credibility, making the right contacts, you know, building up your profile. And, you know, if you like anything in business, you know, like we've experienced these last few days

at the conference, you know, if you get yourself out there and you grind, you know, you'll find somebody, you know, you have to get 100 knows to get one, yes or.

And that's what it's about. And a lot of people give up. So, you know, know can you be a property investor in the UK with little money yes you can but there's a lot of work to do and a lot of education a lot of learning and all that I love it to make when I first came to America one of the things I got to understand when you speak about the connections and building your profile building your brand and so forth in America it's not what you know but it's more like who you know as well I

realize that like networking relentlessly getting the right investors getting the right connections, getting the right people, plays a big role in the long run as well because like you're one handshake away from obviously a completely different lifestyle. And so like yes in South Africa and I think most parts of the world connections are important, but I realize that it's almost like it's of utmost importance, especially in this country, more than anything as well. Would you say network is the same in the UK? As we say, you might say it's see yeah. We say your network is your network. Is that saying here as well? Yeah. It's the five people you spend the most time with. That's what's going to be in your own.

Absolutely. So just getting around the people, even now, like Grant mentioned it last few days. It's just getting around them people are doing more than you. Like, you know, if you're the cleverest and wealthiest in the room, you're in the wrong room. You know, you need to keep learning, keep educating yourself, going to the networking meetings, meeting people, asking questions, making mistakes, failing your way to sex, all that sort of stuff. I love that so much. My next question, so when I was like reading about you, studying about you, one of the things I found so impressive is obviously you manage 2,500 properties and over 500 million pounds as well in assets. The question I have for you regarding this, which I found extremely impressive, by the way,

what systems do you rely on in order to try and like scale that massive amount effectively as well? So yeah, it's a real good question. It's not easy, that's why, you know, it's not an easy thing to scale a business successfully and at speed. And we use like CRM, we use a few systems. The main system we use is a CRM system. But it's actually, when you're buying these property management businesses, every single one is generally on a different system. So, you know, we bought a business, we completed on a business two weeks ago called Ready, Ready to End.

They have 309 properties. and they'll use a different CRM system. So we've got to data transfer 309 properties onto our CRM system and then successfully transfer the data and build that into our process of looking after the client, the team and it's not known, the answer is it's really hard. And then the biggest difficulty about growing a business is people and data transfer CRM system.

So yeah, we have a good system, but it's very, you know, It's very systemised and it's all about systemising. But yeah, you are, it's a good question, yeah, it's not easy. But our system, what it allows our clients to do is it allows them to be completely hands off. So a lot of our clients, our perfect avatar client, is a busy business owner that has a property portfolio offer. And that lady or gentleman hasn't got time to manage the property portfolio, you know, manage contractors. So we take that off there.

They're doing their own business, they're busy, but we make it so easy for them so they can actually, you know, log in on the app, login on the system, they can download property reports, income reports, revenue reports, which tends to rentries if there is any, see that all live. So the idea is making the process as slick as possible for the end user. So that is, that is the CRM, that is the system. And every time we brought the new business on, it brings new challenges of course, and that's how we do. And I'm glad you mentioned the CRM, and obviously we've seen, a drastic change in terms of technology and AI and stuff like that. And as like your company as well implementing those tools and are there any like challenges regarding like, you know, technology just improving each time?

Yeah, so there's obviously, there's always challenges and we've always been one of these companies who wants to embrace the latest technology and be the market leader and be the ones that are the first to do it. And obviously AI is on punners now. We haven't implemented it yet. We're looking at all these different systems that moment but I was at a conference actually not so long ago and had a live AI system on stage and the challenge the audience to try and beat it so imagine you

book a you book a real estate company to book a view in ask questions that's what they're trying to do so they're asking the audience try and beat the AI and nobody it was so real nobody could do it it was like or so authentic if you were speaking to a real person you know can I book a viewing on this two-bedroom apartment how many bedrooms does it happen how many bedrooms does it have what's the system and the AI just knew all the answers so it's coming it's going to so we'll be one of the first we prevent it but we are still looking at the moment carpet systems and you know what's so crazy the problem with stereotypes perception is that people often just associate what

they see on TV so real estate in the UK is something that nobody visualizes because all you ever see is pictures of London and you see the city buses and you see the city buses and you see the trains and like London is now becoming the UK what people don't realize there's life outside London because London would be equivalent to like Mike Johannesburg London will be equivalent to like New York you know London will be equivalent to Philadelphia or like Sydney or like all these like all the cities that are rich in history and so obviously overpopulated so you have to adjust how the housing is what's a difference between obviously London and the northeast the way you're from as well in terms of real estate. Great question yeah so this is this this is

identified. So you've had a change of government in the last six months and we won't talk politics, because I'm certainly not an expert, but we've had a change of government, but the previous government, they actually put a policy in called levelling up. So what you've identified there is the north and south divide. So around London, it's obviously very affluent, very wealthy, and the north tends to be more poor and part of the country. And the previous government implement this leveling up. So what decided to do is, in Darlington, actually, would you believe, is to move the government treasury out of Whitehall in London to Darlington, the treasury of the UK government. That is a big, big deal. The Treasury is moving to Darlington.

So it's been going on for four years. I haven't moved there yet, as in like, haven't built the office. It's planning just going through at the moment. But they've moved about 1,500 workers into a local council building. in the area, a local authority building the area, but a building is huge office, it's going to host about two and a half thousand, so it's like Office of National Statistics, Office of Foreign Trade, Office of Business, it's like six government departments, and the idea is it's leveling up, so moving government departments up to the north-east, which then

unfortunately will not force, but a lot of people in London will move if they want to, up to the north-east. And then on top of that, it's businesses that have seened off the east, which then, that government department so for example we've heard Deloitte KPMG we're all looking for offices in that area now so it drives economic growth in the area so you are spot on the money when he said what's the difference there has been a huge gap when there is but the investment in the north now is mega so Manchester is going to be the second London if you go to Manchester at the moment you canvass the cranes in the sky honestly 20 30 40 cranes you look all around the developments you've

needs massive development, massive real estate development, blocks going up. It's super happening all over. The Saudis have bought Newcastle. There's a lot of people investing in blocks in Newcastle. So the north now, I think, will hopefully, I'll never catch up the south, but leveling up, this is what it's what it's worth, to level up the country. So as a north-east businessman, and people who know me, I'm so excited about this for the north-east, because it puts us on the but you are correct over the years it has been a poorer part of the country and I love that so much and I personally obviously you've seen our conversation I am invested as a lot in like the north-east especially like in Manchester because I've been

following Surgeon Radcliffe and like their model of like London of the North becoming the new like you know Manchester Stadium all the investments and like the the population is like drastically over the last 10 years Manchester has become like the new kind of like new money new London kind of like feel as well. So I was excited to ask about that, which kind of segues to like a topic that I want to try and balance and find the differences

between both markets, both the United States, sorry, the United States and also the United Kingdom. So what is the biggest difference in the real estate market from your knowledge, from what you've seen in the United States compared to the United Kingdom? Well, I think there's one, sorry, before I say, I think there's one common thing we've got, which when I spoke to a lot of real estate agents

of last week is one key thing which is exactly same we have a shortage of housing we have a housing crisis in the uk there is in the houses immigration is obviously people have come into the country and the population has grown and we have a huge shortage of properties so what's happened is one area to talk about is um hmo's housing multiple occupation hMO has been born in the northeast now they've been around forever in the UK. What it is, it's a shared house. So as a property investor, it's a really good strategy and anyone in the UK watching this will know HMO's is a really good property strategy. Like Airbnb, it's in like it's a good strategy, a popular strategy. So what you do is you take a large family home. We have a lot of old school townhouses in the north east so you might get six,

seven beds, huge fourth floor townhouse. And what you do is you buy the house and then you convert the rooms with on suites so you might have seven or eight-third HMO. Now a HMO is perfect for a young professional person so they might move to Leeds Newcastle, Darlington, Manchester. Renting a single unit property and apartment is a lot of money for someone who's on the road. So example in Darlington, if you rent a two-bedder apartment in Darlington, you might pay 750 pounds sterling in money. With a HMO shared root professional room you might pay 550, 600, all bills included and you'll be in a unit with other young people or other shared professional people so it's quite cool, quite trendy and it's quite a popular thing. Now property

investors have seen this market. It was a huge gap in the market about two years ago because it's a great investment strategy. So what happens is you would buy this unit now there's a lot of compliance and regulations. So you have to, in some of them you have to fireproof smoke alarms, fire doors. There's a lot of initial outlet to make the property compliant. But what happens is the key, and this might happen in the US as well is, it's one of the strategies called BRR, buy refurbish and refinance.

So just throwing figures out there, you might buy this property for, let's say, 100K. You spend 100K on it, making it compliant and nice and trendy, you put all the cool furniture in, the fire odds all safe. Your out there's 200K. You then refinance the asset,

but because it has large revenue when between roughly speaking between 6 and 12 rooms is the sweet spot and you'll get what's called commercial valuation so when the mortgage company puts the finance on the unit they will base it off the revenue not a comparable of bricks and mortar so the ones here right next or so last year for 150k it must be worth 100k they will look at it's like a least commercial

they will look at the revenue only and then we'll use a multiplier on the revenue. So it means you put 200k in, the new valuation might be 350K. And you can pull 75% out of the value on that. So not only if you've got a unit that's cash flow in, you've made 100K on the exit of pulling the money out of the refinals.

So it's massively popular. So it's been really, really popular. The drawback now, though, is HMOs have been sludded in Darlington where we are, because every popular investing knows this strategy because you get a high return and you get money back out. You might get 100K back out tax free. Interesting.

So that's a long way to answer that question, but HMOs have been borne out of the housing shortage. Now when I speak to the US real estate agents, they all said the same thing. It said massive shortage of housing in the US. And then would you say there, what strategy, strategies would you say are effective in the United Kingdom that would not be effective in the United States?

I don't know HMOs maybe. Do you have HMO? Shared houses. No, no. So shared houses. So maybe that's a solution to the US housing prices, I don't know. But yeah, basically you're getting properties and you're splitting the rooms off and it's like separate.

You almost turn into middle of time. Because there's multi-family homes where people are people. people end up like buying like, let's say like a multi-family and it's like a duplex or a three-plex or a four-plex where it's almost like it's one home in a way, but it's divided in like four different things for like a four-plex where there's like one door we don't have like two bedrooms and two bathrooms,

one door, two bathrooms, two bathrooms, so maybe that is the same effect. It sounds very simple, but like everyone's got their own separate unit and own separate place even though it's like. No, they don't share. Yeah, there are some that they don't share. If you share in situations like that, it's almost like a hostel or like,

it's a bit like student hall. Student, yes, what it says, like student housing. Okay, I've never come across that. I've only come across that in college where I have my own room, probably my own bathroom, but we share like a lounge and we share like a kitchen and stuff like it,

but that's more like in college, you know, so. Yeah, yeah. And then I wanna figure out the loan portion, you know, loans, I know personally for me in South Africa, With loans, they are so strict. You have to get like a 12 month statement. You have to figure out like certain years of experience. Like it's almost like you have to be pinpoint perfect

and it's more risk-averse for like banks and so forth where's in the United States. Like if you just make a certain amount of money, even if you don't have good credit, there's alternative ways and variety of different options to get a lot of different loans as well. So I wanna try and figure out How easy is it for like, let's say,

some guy with financials, and like, maybe 23, 24 years to get like a loan to buy a home? It's not easy. To get a loan to buy a home, it's based on a multiplier of your pay. So it'll be around about three times. Now, arguably, if you were on minimum wage

in the UK is now 24,000 pounds English sterling. So technically, you know, and when I'm speaking to young people in the UK, you know, if you want to get in the UK, to property and real estate and build a poverty portfolio. One of the things I say is, and everyone makes it, is a young person mistake is, you know, don't take on bad debt too young,

don't buy a fancy car because you try and impress your friends on finance, stay with your mum and dad, because most people are fortunate to have a mum and dad, means it's cheap rent, you can live there, and you can use that to save for your first investment property. So for example, if you get a young person who go on 24K you know, they were able to buy an investment property for 50,000, 60,000 in the north-east of England, if I want to. And if it's a first-time buyer, the deposit is only 5%.

So they don't need a lot of money to get on the housing level. Now, if I was a young person now, I would stay at home and I would just build a property portfolio and stay at home as long as I can. But obviously, as a young person, you want to be out on your own and get your own apartment and get your fancy car and go out with your friends, which we've all done. But actually, you have to, as it's saying, an old client of mine used to say, yeah, you need to sow before you reap. And the problem with young people is to try and reap too early, you know, but get a fancy car to quit, get to spend the money on things that aren't giving them. Like Grant talks about passive income, returning on your investment. And that's this, you know, we've all been young, so, you know, I did it as well, you know, I put a little money as well.

But yeah, for young people, the education's out there they can learn this stuff, you know, great podcasts like this, networking, you can learn about this stuff, but you stay at home, you know, for all your money into the investment. And then by the time you're at 2530, you can do some serious, some serious stuff going on

and then you can buy the Ferrari or whatever you want to buy. You know, don't reap too early. I want to talk to you about something. Personally for me, obviously I don't know where you stand on the whole Brexit thing, And I don't want to go into politics regarding this, but I want to share an experience regarding Brexit. I've traded Forex or I traded Forex for nine years.

I don't do it any longer, but I was very big on the fundamental side of Forex. In other words, like news, I'd always watch. At the time, the federal chair was Janet Yellen for the United States. And whenever there's interest rates or the FOMC for the first month, reading the economic policies, I studied financial economic policies.

studied financial economics, I graduated in that actually, but just the historical background. So Brexer 2016 was my greatest one-day gains in my Forex career. So I was watching the news and the votes and everything going on that time. And I give credit to my mentor at that time because he felt like it was going to be pro-Brixit and reading all the economic fundamentals before them, we all, the pair that we were trading was great British pound, United States dollar. Sell the pound, buy the dollar. We went all in on that and he had one trade.

I think he made $130,000 of that. And dollars at the time with South African currency was pretty big. And I made a large amount of money that day as well. So which segues to my next topic. How has policies and government regulations affected your business? There's a lot of change happening and you know I'm one of these people who's like entrepreneur business person I'll always be you know I'll always see the positive and everything that's just how my brain works I'll always see the positives and everything so yes there's a lot of compliance a lot of legality changes but we welcome them like good good agents good landlords good investors welcome compliance because it makes the industry better so as it stands now it's

To be an agent, to be a real estate agent, you don't need, there's no licensing and qualification. You just need your PI insurance and some ICO, some data protection. Anyone can do that. But that problem is that creates a lot of cowboys and, you know, people that are in the industry that bring negatively to it and compliant. As well as landlords, you know, landlords and investors are the same. But compliance is happening. It's started and it started changing. So yes, some landlords that know the UK market see as a negative, they think, oh, there's too much compliance, the government's against landlords, you know, bad tax and all this sort of stuff.

But it makes the industry better. It makes it better for better houses for people to live in. They're higher standards, safer. You know, we have gas safety, is now electrical safety certificates, EPCs, energy performance certificates. So in the HMOs, there's fire regulation. and it's changing all the time but it's for the better it makes people safer

and I personally welcome it yeah some of it like any business you know it can be a bit of pain but you just evolve and you'll learn and often it's an opportunity

in disguise you know there's an opportunity in change an example is there's a new shape of happening in April May called the Renters' Wightville in the UK

they've basically thrown the legislation out of the window and it's all changing all the legal documents. Now the opportunity on the back of that is all these agents we are buying at the moment, these old school agents that come up through a time and age, you're thinking, oh God, I want out of this thing. What's happening? Now there's more change coming out. I want to sell up.

Great, that's an opportunity for us to buy their businesses and bring them in. So, yes, there's a lot of compliance, a lot of change. And it happens all the time, but I'm always positive about it. and look for the opportunity. You know, in business, you know, it's about solving problems, isn't it? You make money from solving problems and, you know, changes in compliance.

It's just new problems that you've got to deal with and then work around. So yeah, the long answer is, yeah, it's here, it's here to stay, but it's for the better. And obviously the reason I want to ask about the consistency of the market there, I've lived both East Coast, I lived in, obviously, Georgia, Atlanta,

I lived in New Jersey, New York, several years in California, the Bay Area, and obviously now in Salt Lake City, Utah. But with the different states I've lived in, including Idaho, the different states that I've lived in, there's always been a variety of different regulations that were very inconsistent, because the United States is different states that are all united to make one country as well, you know. And so the United Kingdom is more consistent, right? Okay. That's right, yeah. So we don't, we have counties, states, counties. So yeah, the local authorities do have different powers. Local authorities, like the local council or whatever, but generally the laws are the same. Slightly different in Scotland and Wales. So the laws are slightly different in Scotland and Wales, but generally in England, they're same throughout. So, you know, for example, how long is minimum term in a tenancy agreement, contract, eviction, time scales, process, all that sorts of it's generally the same so yeah it will be different so obviously right now you have multiple of businesses under your belt

you know and how do you identify or assess potential new opportunities for new businesses that you can acquire as well yeah so with the with the agency my property box the buying bill model so I'm just a lot of my time is is on an M&A, emergency acquisition. So I spend with my CFO and my team, my senior team, looking for opportunities to buy property management businesses. So it's all about EBITDA multipliers based on the valuation of how we buy these businesses. Well, how we find them is it's a mix of different reasons where it's word of mouth, we've got a database of agents in the area, and we just work through them. At the moment it's a bit of an opportunity. You can call it a

because there's all this legislation and reform the industry, there's a lot of opportunity to consolidate. So there's a lot of consolidation in this industry at the moment. And it happens when you speak to a lot of, you know, very experienced private equity backers, it happens in a lot of industries. You know what happened in the travel agency world in the UK 20 years ago where there was all these high-frey travel agents.

Now there isn't any insurance companies has gone through it. So it's just in our industry at the moment there's consolidation because you don't need loads of offices. It's all centralized. So yeah, we look for our business opportunities to buy these businesses and consolidate into our own. And that's what I'm focused on a lot of time. And then are you only going to buy in the UK

or are you planning to buy in the United States? Oh, well, I mean, I'd love to come turn my property box international. I would private equity back. If you want to bronze, it's solidly. Well, let's do it. Everyone who knows me knows I would do it tomorrow. But yeah, my private equity backers, they would laugh because they're all was like Ben, slow down, slow down.

Hey, let's do this. I'll be there at the end of this year. Let's talk to them. I'll show them a bit of my, you know, Airbnb portfolio. I'm trying to start the multi-family thing. I'll try and give them, you know, like, yeah, I'm down and you want to, like, branch out to like the Salt Lake City as well. Keep doing frequent trips down there, you know.

As long as you get me seasonal tickets for like, you know, like the box for Newcastle of the Man United, then we're good after then, you know. But one thing I would say is, in our structure, we have a board, we have a non-exec chair, And so when a private equity comes in, they want to put an experienced chairman on the board to basically to manage the team and make sure basically the entrepreneur doesn't blow all that money basically and doesn't be too entrepreneurial. As entrepreneurs, we're good, but we need we need reining in control a little bit. It's like a lot of risk takers, right? We're risk takers. But it's like now we have the private equity and the structure.

It's like it's calculated risks. So I'm having a transition. And a lot of entrepreneurs know that it's like, you know, you'll do, entrepreneurs make. things work and move money around and do this deal that deal when you become with a structured VC and you have to rain you have to be rained in a little bit and be controlled because it's calculated everything's tracked and calculated and you have to change the way you think and you have to cool down your entrepreneur sort of erratic behaviour and be more laser focused on things we've got fantastic

chairman called Richards and one thing and he sort of taught me from the start was you know then be laser focused on things we've got fantastic chairman called Richards and one thing and he sort of taught me from the start was um you know then be laser focused on the strategy. And that's actually a lesson for, a lesson I went through, for the whole property industry, because when we talk about all these property strategies, Airbnb, HMOs, land development, acquisition,

what you tend to find is in the UK, a lot of people get pulled into them all, so they do a bit of pitch and more, they do a bit of this, a bit of that. And actually, what I learned from Richard is, stick to your knit and do one thing really well and do it world class, rather than trying to spread yourself too thin,

And that is a lesson that a lot of entrepreneurs going through. And speaking about that, I'm glad, like, it seems like there's the structure, but it's almost like a Fortune 500 kind of company with like board, chairman, CEO, and all that kind of stuff as well. So it's exciting, but you're accountable. So it's quite good, people often ask me how it's going.

It's a little bit like, I always say, having a personal trainer in the gym. Now we all know how to go to the gym, but you know you're gonna have a better work out if the personal friend is there because you're accountable to them. You're going to turn up. They're going to push you harder. And it actually, even though it's painful,

it benefits you, doesn't it? That's what it's like, I'm accountable to the board. Now it benefits me because I'm the main shareholder in the business. But yeah, it's tough to push you. You know, you've got to push yourself. So it's that accountability piece, which is, which I find really good and exciting.

Awesome, I love that. And now, even speaking about that, how hard is it for, international investor to perhaps try and acquire a business in the UK being a foreigner. I mean, it's easier for the Saudis and so forth as well. You've seen that with like Newcastle, as matter of fact, our second team, because it's also my second UK team. So we've seen that. But like a normal like investor, let's say they make like one or two million dollars or something

and acquiring a small business. How hard is it in the United Kingdom? No, it's fairly easy. We have a lot of international clients, a lot of property international clients, because the UK market is always a solid market to invest in. And yeah, we have a lot of foreign investors from the Middle East, Japan, Australia, South Africa, that invest in the UK. Because the UK markets, in fair, throughout history, property is absolutely always been rock solid. You know, if you buy a property in London, you know, that's like, you know, that's the safe bet. your money is going to be there, it's a solid investment.

So, yeah, there is a lot of, you know, foreign investors. But it's fairly easy, you know, just setting up limited companies and share structure. And like anything, if you get the correct advice, correct attorneys, correct accountants, you know, surrounding yourself with correct people, you know, it's fairly easy. If you get the right people, probably. I actually about a wrap up right now when I just ask a few questions. It's so funny, like I had a list of all these questions,

and I'll probably ask only five because I just felt like that's what I knew I enjoyed the conversation as well. I want to try and figure out let's say you were to start your real estate journey pretty much all over again

knowing what you know now what would you do differently? That's a great question. I would educate myself faster. I would surround myself with the right people earlier. But when you start off in business or property or business

you don't know what you don't know and you know you think you know a little bit and you might go but it's all about getting around the right people that have done that thing. There's a brilliant book called The Richest Man in Babylon and that is all about asking the person that's done it but they've never done it how can they give advice on it?

When you start off in business, everyone is going to give you advice, your friends, your fair and your neighbour but have they successfully worn a business and got a property portfolio if they haven't, why they give you advice? Just get the right advice of the right people. The mistake I made is I didn't educate myself quickly enough,

so I think I could have done it in a short time if I'd spend more time reading books, listening to podcasts, going to the great network means, and learning from other people, most of the stuff. And I want to try and say probably three last questions, because I'm very curious, with political tension happening around the world, with the whole tariffs and the economic outlook of just international economics, What impact does that have on your business?

The main impact is rates, the borrow money, interest rates. So I think that happens globally. So interest rates like everywhere have gone up, you know, three or four years ago, you could borrow money at one, two percent. Now it's like four or five percent in the UK. Well like anything, if you strategize properly, you know, for example, doing the BRR method I talked about by, refurbish, refinance, if you're recycling your money every time you do a property investment it doesn't really matter the interest way yeah you won't get as much

yield on your rent but you're acquiring an asset pulling all your money back out or most of the time doesn't happen every time and going again and again and again so it's just learning learning that it's just all about learning there's always going to be problems there's always going to be wars and economic problems going on that's just that's the journey but it's just working the way around that and understanding you know how you get around it because everybody's in the same board you know everybody's in the I'm so glad you answered it in that way because we're just going to go to the interest rates. So you answered two questions in one.

So I appreciate that. And I think it's super hard with what's happening because interest rates have been going up for a while. And usually there's a trend when the U.S. has interest rates going high. There's a direct effect. Because I looked at the 2008 financial crisis that happened in the United States with the Lehman Brothers going down. Goldman Sachs almost out and under. like just that just has an effect on the entire world economic you know outlook as well and so I was just very curious regarding the interest rates in the in the because I like I said I follow

when I used to do a lot of trading we have to follow um Asian open British open before we follow Wall Street because you can kind of see our trends kind of go like as well so that's but just but just on that point and you know if you look at history interest rates are you know if you speak to any old school property investors in the 70s or 80s, they will talk about in interest was at 8, 9, 10, you know, high percentage. You know, there's always, it's just a cycle we're on. And at the moment, it feels like the higher. But actually, if you look at the last 50 years average, we're right in the middle. You know, it's not, it's just higher than it was five years ago. So actually, you know, it's just part of the journey part of the cycle of all system.

Well, I can't believe the time has gone by so fast. And I had a few other questions, but I want to ask you the most important question. I ask this to all my guests, the code to winning, you know, insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. In your personal opinion, what is your definition of winning? I think freedom.

Freedom is like, you know, people talk about success, people talk about money. People are in business, might say you're money obsessed, but actually it's freedom obsessed. Freedom is being able to do whatever you want,

whenever you want to do it. Well, that's like, you know, look after really parent, take your children to something you want to take them to, take them away on holiday, freedom to do whatever you want to do. And actually, this is the same way saying that you care. If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And if you love business and property and people like I do, I'm just loving this whole thing, this whole journey.

And that's freedom to me, I'm doing what I want to do. So I think winning is all about doing what you want to do. And I think so many people get stuck in jobs, I don't want to do. We're chasing this retirement. Oh, I can't wait until I retire. I can't wait until I stop working. You know, so I think, for me, it's loving what you do and freedom. If you could, like, let the audience know, if they want to try and get a hold of you for, like, advice or anything, what's your Instagram handle or, like, whatever you want to try and share with the audience with us as well? So, yeah, if anyone would like to get hold of me,

my name's Ben Quintrell. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, old school, I still like Facebook. Hopefully not my space. Yeah, no, not my space. I have my property box in the northeast of England. If you just Google my property box, you'll see my name come up and on YouTube and everything. So yeah, if anyone in the US, anyone in the world wants to talk property, business acquisition in the UK, please reach out and get in touch. The code winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Ben, great honor.

Thank you so much, sir. Have me. Thank you.