The Vault with Financielle - UNLOCKED: The Truth About Property Investment

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Send us a text💸 Welcome to The Vault Unlocked – a special bonus series of The Vault Podcast, where we deep dive into the big money topics no one wants to talk about.Today, we’re tackling one of the UK’s biggest money obsessions: property investment. We’ve all heard that buying property is the ultimate way to build wealth—but is it really as easy (or profitable) as it seems?In this episode, we’re breaking down:Why property is seen as the wealth builder—and if that still holds true todayThe real costs of being a landlord (spoiler: it’s not just collecting rent)Whether flipping houses is as glamorous as it looks on TVHow you can invest in property without owning a single brickBy the end, you’ll know whether property investment is the right move for you—and exactly what you need in place before diving in.💬 Have a topic you’d love us to unlock next? Email us at [e-mail]👉 Subscribe to Financielle for honest conversations about money, and let’s rewrite your money story together.The Vault is an entertaining yet thought provoking podcast that answers our community’s dilemmas and confessions surrounding women and money.Visit https://www.financielle.com to download our app.Watch the podcast on YouTube.Follow Financielle for more:▶︎ TikTok▶︎ InstagramAbout Financielle:Financielle is a female focussed finance app helping women to take back control of their money, ditch debt, increase savings and invest in their future.Recorded and Produced by Liverpool Podcast Studios▶︎ Web ▶︎ Instagram▶︎ LinkedIn

Welcome to the Vottle Mock, where I take a deep dive into money topics that no one wants to talk about. I'm really excited to do this episode because we are asked for it quite a lot. I think it's an area that so many people are curious about and intrigued and they've heard this and they've heard that and it's definitely an aspirational part of wealth building for lots of people and that is property investment. Now there are thousands of hours of podcasts about property investment usually by people that might sell you magic courses into how you can build a property empire with no money down. And by the way, their course will teach you how to do it.

And they're kind of selling more courses than they actually have houses. And actually people that had built up property portfolios or empires even during real boom years for property where you have low interest rates, rising house prices, and it can be really tempting to think I would like that too. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I myself am a landlord. Lots of you do know that I own a rental property. I own one and that's part of my diversified investment portfolio, but I certainly am not a seasoned landlord. And so I think I want to caveat everything I say in this podcast with a couple of things. Caveat number one is I'm definitely not trying to discourage or encourage people to invest in property.

I just think there's a lot of misinformation, a lot of jargon, and actually it's something that's reserved for the wealthy or people with, you know, big pockets. And so I'd like to break down how it could work demystify some areas but give people the things that they should be thinking about if property investment is going to form part of someone's you know investment strategy and wealth building strategy and I guess another caveat is if someone is interested in property investment often it does involve debt, it involves a mortgage. These are high sums of money for a high value investment. For most people a property is the

most expensive thing they'll buy in their life and so I think people should be really mindful about where they would be in their journey if they were to do something like this and kind of how confident they would be doing it. You know, for decades property has been seen as the ultimate wealth builder in the UK, especially those of traditionally more limited capital means. So let's take your typical family in the 80s, 90s, who might have bought the family home, eventually paid it off.

And we've just seen an astronomical rise in property prices and their wealth has come from that. These are people that wouldn't have had high paying jobs, they wouldn't have been deploying thousands upon thousands into investments. They simply are a product of timing the market in a particular way, entirely caused by the look of when you needed to buy a home and the fact that you were able to buy a home in the first place, not because you specifically timed it intentionally. We're going to look at why people see property as such an important investment, the different ways that you can invest in property, and the real costs and risks involved.

So if you've ever thought about buying a property to flip, becoming a landlord, or just investing in the property market generally, this episode is for you. You know, I'd love to think that by the end of the episode, you would have a clear understanding about how on a high level this works. And if this is for you, what you would need in place to plan for it. And I guess just an extra caveat that I don't want to rain on people's parade. And I think some people definitely get the vibe from me that I'm not for property investment. But what I am for is honesty and transparency and really lifting the lid on financial concepts. Remember, that's what we do here. Like we want to reveal

the warts and all, not just like the Instagram side of, you know, being a landlord and having a property empire. It might not work for everyone for a multitude of reasons, but in the right scenario with the right financial stability and the right foundations, it can be a really good way to diversify your portfolio of investments. I feel like I am full of caveats, right? But another thing that I'm not gonna get into is the economics at play. Just because it's all a theory,

lots of people have differing opinions on what causes property prices to increase, the likelihood of them happening again. And there's so much speculation that it's like, that's for a different broadcast on what causes property prices to increase, the likelihood of them happening again. And there's so much speculation that it's like that's for a different broadcast and it doesn't really matter for what we are doing because just like the stock market, when we talk about investing in stocks and shares, even though we have history to tell us that the market's gone up X percent over how many years, it doesn't mean

that that's gonna happen in the future. We just all take a calculated risk that it will. And it's the same with property prices. The hope is that property will at least hold its value or increase, but there's no guarantees that it will. I just want you to know just enough so that if you or you and a partner or even a family member

decide in the future that you would like some investments in property, that you can plan for it in a mindful way and build it as part of your long-term wealth building strategy, especially when, from the financial playbook, you're in the growth stage. Okay, let's get into it. Before we talk about the how, let's talk about the why.

Why does investing in properties seem like the ultimate money goal and a real symbol of wealth, not only in the UK but globally? There's definitely been a cultural fixation on firstly, home ownership and that that's a sign of success, as well as actually it being a sign of security. You know, a British man or woman's home is his or her castle and I think that's so embedded in our culture.

But you know, property ownership comes with receipts. There has been so many historical price increases that it's hard to ignore. As I said, so many people built the core part of their wealth just by virtue of happening to own a home and that home increasing in value over the years. I saw a stat that was there's been 2534% growth in the last 50 years to be specific. The average house price has increased, millennials and gents don't listen to this, from £1,884 in 1953 to £265,240 in 2024. So if you'd have bought that house that's the return you would have made on it over a 50 year period.

But you can see why property is a way that people can grow their net worth without doing much else other than just pay down the debt that's on it and hold it. Every time I think about property investment and think about why people get so excited about it, I just think monopoly. I don't know about you,

but most families have that gaming moment where we get the monopoly board out and people get ambitious and they want to, they land on a particular property and they want to buy it and they want to buy the hotel, they want to buy the multiple houses and then the hotel and everyone gets carried away and people are having to put charge rent to each other and it's the mimic of the real life and people get so excited that I do think people get carried away with this concept of property investment, but also just they romanticize it.

But I guess what we can all agree on when it comes to property investment is that there is a high barrier to entry to get onto the property ladder when it comes to property investment. In fact, there's a high barrier to entry to get on the property ladder in the first place for your home.

It's expensive to invest in property. It really involves a high upfront cost compared to other investments that you can make. You know, you can invest in ETF with a pound. You know, you don't need a lump sum of cash to start your investment journey like you would in property. I think the other barrier to entry is the fact that it is a business. It's not an easy wealth hack that's passive income and that you just buy some property and it suddenly gives you an income and builds your wealth. It's a business. It takes someone to be able to understand income, outgoings, tax, managing people, managing practicalities, managing crises. That's a high barrier. That's not something for the faint-hearted. And I think a lot of people forget the practical side of being,

you know, a landlord essentially. And also it has extreme illiquidity and what that means is if your capital, your money is deployed into a property investment, it is really hard to get it back out again. Aside from remortgages and things like that, just being able to sell the property, if you need money quickly, you either need to sell the property at a loss

to know that you can definitely sell it quickly or you're not gonna be able to. These loss to know that you can definitely sell it quickly or you're not going to be able to. These are not challenges that you can't overcome, but I think it's easy for people to skip over the hard work that's involved in setting up this kind of scenario and jumping straight to the let's have a property investment portfolio stage. Now we're going to have a little think about the three main ways that you can invest in property. The first is property flipping. I think this is the classic way to make money in property. You buy a house, maybe that no one wants, maybe that needs a little bit of work,

definitely an undervalue if you can. You renovate it, whether it's just some high level cosmetic, cause they call it interiors renovations, or whether it's structural, whether it's like full rip everything out and start again. And then you essentially turn that around quickly and sell it again for a profit. Now a massive hack, by the way, is to do this with your own home.

So if you can do all of those things, but you do it on your own home, then when you're ready to move on in the right time period, you won't have to pay capital gains tax in the UK on any increasing value, it's just yours. So lots of people have done quite well by not necessarily even moving up in home everywhere, but pocket that value by the same size house,

do this rinse and repeat. And for those people that love interior projects and they're really handy, that's such a good way to either move up the property ladder or make money. But generally, if a property flip is not your personal home, you'll have to pay capital gains tax on any increase that you make. There's some differentials and CGT rates change and allowances change so again definitely important to check the specifics of your situation with a tax advisor with your accountant but in principle you will have to pay capital gains tax on any sale. The reality is we've all seen the TV programs and people make it seem quite easy sometimes although actually on some programs it was part of the banter and the entertainment that they would just really embarrass

the people actually doing it. I mean, Sarah being his resting bitch face is amazing and is like burned on my memory of when you'd have to complete, build a novice is a couple saying, yeah, we just fancy putting like our life savings into renovating this property and doing it up. And you just sat there going, this is great TV,

cause this is crazy. You know they don't know what they're doing, they're changing their mind, they're making slow decisions. She was always really really good at kind of spotting who knew the stuff and who absolutely didn't. But flipping is high risk. There are obviously some benefits to it. There's always the potential for good returns if it's done right, especially if you're handy in the building trade or if you have a really good network in the building trade, if you have a particular skill set that you can kind of swap your skill with someone else

or that you could be a really good project manager. One or more of those can really help and that's kind of like the secret sauce if you are gonna get into property flipping. You can get a return in a specific period of time like the quicker you can flip it and sell it and then you can kind of get your cash out of your investment into property flipping. You can get a return in a specific period of time, like the quicker you can flip it and sell it and then you can kind of get your cash out your investment and for a capital sum to turn that around quite quickly

that's impressive. Usually we would leave our money either in a rental property or in the stock market and we wouldn't be pulling the capital sum out. And with flipping you don't have the commitment of being a landlord, it is far more a renovation project or a turnaround project. Even though some people renovate a house to become a landlord, it's a bit different than flipping. But as ever, the cons are many. As we said, this is super high risk, especially if you don't have the expertise. But even if you have the expertise, overlying market conditions can really help to highlight how risky this can be. Coming back to the Serebini world,

so many property investment enthusiasts relied on just the market going up anyway for their returns. In fact, often I remember them showing that property prices increased 10% during the filming of the show, and actually they'd have made extra return if they'd have just bought it and done nothing with it or bought it and rented out for a bit.

You know, it wasn't always the work that made the difference. In current market conditions, property prices are kind of staying put, maybe going up in some areas, but they're not massively going up. And so you couldn't flip and rely on increases in property prices to get your gain. It would have to be buying gain at the right price, which would have to be an undervalue. You do not wanna play market value for a property. And then knowing that you can add value

whilst managing costs to make sure that there's a profit in there at the end of all that work. And the other element to this in terms of market conditions is things like cost of materials or availability of builders, availability of supplies. Because post-COVID, for example, we saw a massive issue with prices of steel going up, you know, not being able to find bricklayers, like loads of different issues that can massively affect you when it comes to the timing of your investment. On that basis, you know, another con is that fact that it's really easy for costs to spiral.

Renovations almost always go over budget. There's always a contingency and it always gets eaten up. Sometimes it's poor planning, sometimes it's the unknown and even if you had a contingency, as I said, you can kind of use that. That could be the profit that you were expecting to make and you needed to put it into rebuilding the wall or replacing something in the roof

or doing the electric safely. It's so easy for these costs to spiral, so it's something to consider. And as we've mentioned, capital gains tax will apply unless it's your personal home. So it's something to think about. I think for those of us that have been in a market in our country where property prices are booming, it's really, you don't want to miss out. It's a bit like the gold rush and you want to get on board. Does feel like we're in a space in lots of economies where that isn't happening. there's not that get rich quick, urgency, don't miss out kind of vibe.

But at the same time when it comes to property flipping, as with everything, with all investments, cash is king. And so if you are someone that fancies buying a property to renovate it, especially if it's your personal home, because as we've said, typically it would be a tax-free gain. You need cash, you need excess money. So if we pause a minute there to really think about what we wanna do with the financial playbook, we wanna get you to grow. We don't want you playing around and survive. And quite frankly, we don't want you staying in build

because you're missing out on so much opportunity when it comes to putting your money into things that grow your net worth and these things take money. So the people that can participate in property flipping are people with money. So do you want to sit around and just save to spend and save to spend and save to spend? Or do you want to get to a point where you're building up a pot of money to decide to invest? And it might be that you tick the boxes for an appropriate property flipper,

but you're gonna need money to do it. And the less leverage or debt you do it with, because some people do use debt to do property flips, the less risk in that scenario. Would love to hear actually of any experiences you've had with property flipping, either in your family, horror stories where it went wrong, or success stories, I'd love to hear more of it.

It's definitely something that we hear a lot less of now the market is more stable and we don't see those natural market increases. The next type of property investment we have coming up is buy to let, AKA becoming a landlord. Before we get into this, you will definitely have heard those scammy, property investment guru courses,

like get someone else to pay down your mortgages. And it's, you know, it's very icky. And in practice, especially in the UK, it doesn't really work like that. Being a landlord isn't just about collecting rent and using that rent to pay a mortgage down and then eventually you own a home and eventually you own a property mortgage free. It can be, but there's a lot of nuances to that scenario.

Being a landlord or having a rental property is a professional arrangement, it's a contractual arrangement. And more importantly, there's a lot of legal obligations, not just pertaining to the rental contract that'll be signed between you and a tenant, but also to them legally in terms of health and safety and in terms of respecting their rights as tenants.

Some of the benefits of being a landlord when it comes to property investment are, firstly, the potential for monthly income. So if someone is, and they don't always, but if they do pay their rent, then that's monthly income for you. Now, obviously, this is's monthly income for you. Now, obviously, this is the net income

that we're talking about. So this will be after property taxes, after the mortgage, if there's a mortgage on the property, and after any other expenses, it could even be like agency or management fees. Being a landlord, you actually also benefit from the capital appreciation of the property. So that's happening in the background as you are running your month to month

rental business essentially. People often also use leverage aka borrowing and using a mortgage on the property to get a higher return than they would if they were just kind of traditionally investing and I'll kind of, I'm going to explain this. So leveraging property means borrowed money, so the mortgage on the property. What leverage does allow you to do is control a large asset with a small upfront capital sum, so a small pot of money.

Now not a small pot of money, because we've just talked about how it's a high pot, but I guess what I mean is, you know, if you were going to buy a property for 250,000 pounds, you may only need 50,000 pounds down payment and then you can borrow 200. So you get control over a 250,000 pound asset for 50,000 pounds down.

And actually on that example, if the property value rises by let's say 10%, so the property is now worth 275,000 pounds, your equity in that jumps from 50,000 pounds to 75,000 pounds. You have that whole 25,000 increase to yourself. So you've just had a 50% return on your cash investment. And this is where they get you. I'm gonna be very, very clear.

This is where the people that benefit from property investment courses and stuff like that benefit because they use leverage as a way to say, you will need to put a bid in and you can get a lot back. And this works if everything is hunky-dory. If nothing goes wrong in the market, if nothing goes wrong in the property,

if nothing goes wrong anywhere, this is the maths equation, but leverage also works the other way. What happens if property prices fall? If property prices drop 10%, so the value of the property is now 225,000 pounds. The mortgage debt remains at 200,000. You don't get to decrease the amount you own the mortgage, you still owe 200,000.

But your equity has actually shrunk from 50,000, which was the deposit that you put down, to 25. You have just borne the loss of that 25. Not the bank, they don't care. They've just got their 200 grand mortgage and that's all they want. So just how leverage can amplify a gain, it can amplify a loss as well.

And transparently, my personal view on that is that's just extra stress that we don't necessarily need in our lives. This is not a model that you just put on a spreadsheet and pop it out the other side and say this is going to work. There's also the risk of negative equity where actually the value of the property falls below the mortgage that's on it. And so then we get into a real highly pressured financial scenario where banks

could get involved and everyone's a bit nervous. It's not as simple as like things are all great. It's risky. Some other things to bear in mind if you're thinking about having a buy to let is it's a high barriers to entry. You need obviously a deposit as you would if you were buying a property to flip,

but typically you would need 25%. A lot of buy to let lenders require you to have that. If it's something that you really wanna do, speak to a regulated mortgage advisor because they can help explain the buy to let mortgage market. This is not like the mortgage on your home. The percentages will definitely be higher. The deposit requirements will be higher.

They'll look at what other assets you have. So they'll look at whether you already have a home and then look at see kind of can you afford the extra payments when it comes to the rental mortgage too. So many ongoing costs. We've talked about a few of them, but things like obviously taxes, mortgage, landlord's insurance, especially from people don't pay,

letting agents, management fees, and the often one that people forget about having an emergency fund for your property, because you are responsible if things need doing, especially the need doing legally, nevermind morally, but legally, you need the money to be able to fix the things that could be dangerous, could be broken, could be a basic human right,

could be just the right thing to do. You do need to look after the general upkeep of your property, and that takes an emergency fund. And so this is again an example of where extra cash is needed to, I would say like adequately participate in this kind of area of property investment. Another thing people don't often know is when it comes to property investment in the UK

on a traditional buy-to-let where it's held in your personal name, is that you're taxed from an income tax point of view on the income the property receives, so on the rent, not on the money you have left over once you've paid all of your typical expenses. And a normal business doesn't work like that, you pay tax on the rent, not on the money you have left over once you've paid all of your typical expenses. And a normal business doesn't work like that, you pay tax on the profits.

So this has a lot of different consequences. Again, I'm talking about your personal name and you can have a rental property in a corporate vehicle. Again, you need to take proper accountancy and legal advice on the right structure if you're gonna do it. But on a personal level, that rental income, for example, that rental income,

for example, my rental income on my property counts towards my self-assessment tax return, counts towards my income. Even though there are some allowances, they're nowhere near as fruitful or as helpful as they were. For those people that kind of have a higher income, it might be pushing you over and above

being entitled to child benefit. It could be impacting your personal allowance because you're kind of getting up into those higher earning levels, but really you're not seeing that money. So much of it is probably going on the expenses kind of that are being used to operate that rental property.

And I guess lastly, it's just not as passive as people think. You have to be an active and responsible landlord. You need to keep up to date with legislation. You need to make sure you've got a safe and stable home for your tenant. You need to make sure they pay. You need to make sure you've got a safe and stable home for your tenant. You need to make sure they pay. You need to make sure they've got everything they need.

You need to make sure that you're doing your taxes properly. You've got all your documentation. It is a business and it's not for the faint-hearted. And you have to factor all that in to the possible returns, whether it's on the monthly income returns or whether it's on the growth and value of the property. I often hear people have these nice lofty dreams about they'll buy a home, a starter home and then they'll keep that and they'll buy another one

they'll rent the first one out and the funny story is I did that and it's not the right thing to do especially because and as I kind of learned as well legislation can change and tax can change. And so whatever works now may not work in the future. When your first home is bought, it's bought as a home, it's not bought as an investment, it's not bought as a business. Now it could work out that it happens to be the right kind of home to rent out in the right area,

costs manageable, loads of different, like it could be a good choice, but that's like a lucky thing if it is. If you bought it to be a home first, not with, you know, investment in mind, you wouldn't necessarily know of the rents that you could get in that particular area. And knowing that you get the right yield on, you know, knowing that you get the right return on the money that you put down. I do get asked this question a lot, you know, Laura, why do you not like property investment so much or why do you dissuade people from doing it when you have one? And I am totally transparent, I'll be honest with you guys.

My wonderful family member lives in my house and because I'm very lucky, but I've worked hard, I have a diverse portfolio of investments and I don't need that capital asset. And so it is growing in value and my family member pays market rent and I pay tax every year on that. And it kind of, it washes its face

in that it makes a little return. And I built, basically I pay the tax and I build up a little pot for the house, basically I pay the tax and I build up a little pot for the house. And so when things need doing and we need to do stuff or if an emergency happened, it's not from my personal emergency fund that I can go, but it doesn't send me lots of riches.

Again, it's going up in value, which is helpful, but it's kind of, it's absolutely nice to have. I say this because people so often don't do the maths. You know we it fits in our portfolio because it gives us that exposure to property as well as we've got obviously our investments in the markets but my family member would completely understand if I said we've had a change of circumstance I really need to sell the house, we need to get the equity out of it to do X, Y, and Z, that person would completely understand. And we have a really open relationship on that basis. But again, we work really hard to make that an investment and a diverse investment.

But it certainly doesn't mean that I go around, telling people on Instagram, buy my course and let me help you out to be a landlord because the reality is very, very different. Like I take it very seriously. And because of the work that it could potentially involve, especially if it's not a family member, the potential for people to not pay,

because I've heard horror stories of tenants just literally not paying, needing lots of applications to court to get people evicted, properties being absolutely ruined, especially when people have bought quite a cheap property in maybe not a desirable area. So again, the big thing with property investment from a buy to let perspective for me is

if you are thinking about it seriously, it's a business. And so as I always say, model it, get your spreadsheet out, get your pen and paper out. And like I've done this before because I have considered before, you know, buying another one, it was probably pre-financial actually. And then we decided not to. And if we'd have done it,

we'd have structured it differently legally. We would have bought a different type of property in a different place, we would have been all over the numbers to make it viable, we would have built up the biggest deposit possible to make sure that we either didn't need a mortgage or we need a small one as possible. Especially at the moment when you're at the mercy of interest rates you can really see how an increase in interest rates can just wipe out the return on, at least the monthly income return on a property investment.

So it can work, but it's not easy. It takes a lot of thought. And sometimes you do all that work and go, okay, maybe at some point, oh, okay, no, it's not for me. Some people are very happy to deploy instead of money into property, they own the home and then that's it. And then it all goes in the market

and it's completely passive. Yes, there's ups and downs and yes, you may not get as big of returns from time to time, but you're not having to think about all the different things that come with becoming a landlord. Those are the two main types of property investment. There's the property flipping and there's the buy to let investor,

but there's a sneaky other one that I do wanna touch on. And this is a way that you can actually invest in property without actually owning it. And this is through real estate investment trusts. They're really popular in the US, but we do have them in the UK as well. And they just offer this ability to benefit directly from the property market without direct ownership

and the responsibility that does come with that. So how do they work? Instead of you having to go out, find a property, deal with the logistics, put your deposit, handle the tenants, you invest in a real estate investment trust. So essentially it feels practically like you're investing in the stock market.

You put your money in and the real estate investment trust is essentially a company. So you buy shares in that company. And they manage properties. They manage properties like shopping centers, office buildings, hotels, even apartments. These properties make money from rent and real estate investment trusts have to legally pay out 90% of the profits. They pass the money back to you investors as dividends.

So with this sneaky random option that not a lot of people have heard about real estate investment trusts, there's no headaches of actually being a landlord, there's a really low barrier to entry. You could invest 50 quid, 100 quid on one of the more popular investment platforms that we have here in the UK and globally. You can cash out any time as long as there's no specific rules around the type of real estate investment trust you invested in. You don't have to wait for them to sell a property to kind of get your money back.

And in some cases, they can provide a regular income. As with all investments, there are still drawbacks. One of them is you don't get the physical keys in your hand, you don't get that dream, you don't get the buzz that sometimes comes with some elements of our wealth building journey. You don't have control, so you don't have the ability to make decisions about that property.

I'm pretty sure you won't want to, but you just don't have that. Returns completely depend on market performance as well. So if the company doesn't perform well, then, you know, dividends may be small or not at all, but that's a sneaky one. And why I like to talk about real estate investment trust is do people want to invest or do they like the idea of being a landlord? Cause I think they're two different things.

And one is like a Hollywood movie vision of being a landlord sometimes. And the other is the more practical, do you want you want a return and what's important to you, and I think having a list of what you would like, do you want an easy life, do you want passive, do you want low barrier to entry, or do you want more control and more choice and to play that game, and you can decide what's right for you,

and you know, at least knowing why you're going into it. I do wanna make a point which I don't need, I need people like south of Birmingham to tell me about this, right? Because in the north a lot, I hear people say that they're, oh, my property is my pension, our property is gonna be my pension.

People don't invest in pension, they say, oh, I'll have my house. It always worries me because I really think people, one, don't get and understand the financial benefit of investing into a pension, the tax benefits, especially in the UK. The more diverse divide risk traditionally if you invested in a you know a low risk and widely spread pension. But if your home is your only asset at pensionable age one where are you going

to live because if you have to sell the property to get access to cash to live then you still have to have somewhere to live. You need to be able to sell your property at the right time for the right price to know that that can cover the expenses that you need in retirement. And I just don't know if this is, it's just an old school way of thinking. A paid off house is absolutely the dream, but it's not the pension, it's the home.

Your pension or your retirement or your investments is what you have to live off. And so if you have anyone in your life that ever says that, just have a little chat to them and say, what do you mean? You know, and poke them a little bit on it. I'm all right if you do that. Don't physically poke them, but you know, chat to them about that and say,

because I hear it so often and I hear it of a particular generation sometimes, but definitely it's a Northern thing. So for this one, we definitely niche down. I wanted to talk about the high level concepts of property investment. I would love to know that I answered the questions that you have in the back of your mind

or help to kind of dispel some myths and bring to life the realities of what it's like if you want to invest in property. I love the aspirational, if people want a property portfolio, if they want an empire, if they want one rental property, if they want a holiday home that they Airbnb out,

all these different things. I love the ambition and I want you to aspire to that. But at the same time, it is bonus stuff. We have to take care of the basics. You need emergency funds. You need to avoid consumer debt. Ideally, you would buy a home, if that's for you in the right area, where you can have this security and stability.

And you have a really good retirement investments pot that is well diversified. And then, and then, and then, and then, and you have a really good retirement investments pot that is well diversified, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then we come onto having excess cash to be able to deploy into things that grow your net worth, and one of those things can be, if done in the right way with the right advice, property.

But at the same time, I do not believe you're missing out on a get rich quick scheme, and you have to do things recklessly and borrow loads of money and get involved in this big scheme because you're not, like there's a lot more to it and the people that do this do it very, very well and very, very seriously.

And there are way more horror stories of people rushing into it and doing it without good financial foundations than they are otherwise. So is property investment the key to wealth? Well, we've not answered that today but what we have hopefully done is lifted the lid on an area of wealth building and personal finance that you may not have known all this about.

So hopefully it was helpful. Anything we didn't answer, get it over to us in the inbox, the vault at financial.com or DM us or community messages, because we'll cover it in a Q&A if that's helpful. But there we are, I'll leave it there. Have a great rest of day. I'll speak to you again one on one next Monday. Obviously, we'll be able to listen to The Vault on Thursday with the girls.

And just a disclaimer, The Vault Unlocked is a lighthearted chat around money topics. It is not financial advice. Bye bye.