John Rayes interest in property investment stemmed from his experiences in the construction industry as he studied Quantity Surveying and then trained as a Chartered Surveyor within a multidisciplinary surveying practice in the City of London.

"I can remember seeing property developer clients putting complex land deals together and found the wider property market more interesting," says John. "So I moved towards the property development sector and got some good exposure to land deals, development and regeneration projects whilst working for a blue chip property development company during the Manchester property boom of 2002-2005. It was during this period that I purchased a two bed flat and got my first experience of renting and directly managing a property.

He adds: "I continued to purchase more property and each purchase enabled me to gain more skill in finding value whether it was genuinely discounted off-plan, investing in a regeneration area or doing a simple refurbishment. I stayed away from the expensive city centre flats market and went for high yielding one and two bed flats on the fringe of the city centre for rental. I also purchased some older terraced properties typical of the North West and then went for refurbishments with a next to the best area strategy. I purchased a rundown two bed half a mile north of Deansgate in Manchester for £52k, then gave it a makeover for £7k and sold it on for £85k."

Although he was enjoying the experience of his day-job John felt that working for himself appealed to his independent nature, so he liquidated and traded all his properties on and as a result his starter capital of £5,000 in 2002 had grown to £243,000 by 2005.