Those of us with young children or grandchildren will be well aware that it is those who pay attention to ‘detail’ that are far more likely to go on and become achievers in life.
Property investing is no different and in my experience many landlords, investors and developers often fail to achieve their desired goals because they do not treat the business of property investing seriously enough, take too much for granted and often ignore ‘detail’. The rewards to be gained from successful property investment are glaringly obvious; in what other sector can individuals create annual investment returns with such a relatively low level of risk?
This month’s investor interview is with the Brighton-based Stuart Scott, an entrepreneur who recently gained wider recognition within the property industry with his award-winning success at the 2018 Property Investor Awards.
We previously featured some of Stuart's work in this magazine a year ago, when we looked at design-led HMOs with Julian Maurice. So I headed down to Brighton and Hove on the south coast to meet up with Stuart and to look at some of his current projects. His background is that he had previously built and sold a number of businesses including a design/marketing agency and a product design company and explains his reasons for choosing property.
“After the sale of the last company I decided to pivot my life with the aim of spending more time with my family as I did not want to be a part-time dad. I saw a gap in the market around three or so years ago to disrupt the professional shared living (HMO) sector, to re-imagine the product and to transform the customer experience.
“When I ran my design companies, I would hear employees complaining that they could not find suitable city-centre accommodation locally and what they did find, they did not like. I looked around and was quite shocked at the poor standards of much of the local HMO offering. I felt I could disrupt this out-of-date model and provide a new type of design-led shared living accommodation in my local area.
