Some four years ago I met with the Scottish Highlands-based investors, Gordon and Marie Thomson at a property development conference in London and caught up with Gordon recently to learn more about their progress. To say I was surprised at their portfolio growth would be an understatement as it has been a trying period for many property developers due to the pandemic’s impact. I was aware that they had been converting a former church in Edinburgh, however what I learnt from Gordon could be prove inspiring for readers.

Before he explained more, I asked him how and why they had gotten themselves into property development, as I was aware that they had been running a successful catering business when we first met in London in early 2019.

“Back in our twenties we were both lawyers but ‘a lot of water has gone under the bridge’ since then as I am now 64,” Gordon replied. “We are both quite entrepreneurial and I seem to go through a ten year cycle with my career choices. With catering we started with a business selling street food and high quality coffee from disused police boxes in Edinburgh and then moved on to doing catering at festivals and farmers markets. We scaled it up and did this for 12 years until Covid came along and that occurred just as we were getting on with building our first property conversion projects.

“Two of our four children have also been involved in the festival catering business which involved providing wood fired pizzas at some 65 events through the year across the UK, and until early 2020 we had created quite a big team. We ran these at festival events as far apart as the Isle of Wight up to the Hebrides in Scotland. However, Covid really brought us down to earth as the music festivals and events just stopped. We had also realised that the concept of artisan coffee sales was not easily scalable and would never make us wealthy, so about five years ago we looked at property investing as an opportunity, just as so many others have done over the years.

“When we met you in London some four years ago we had realised that at 60 the festival business for me was less fun than it had been ten years earlier and so we attended a couple of property education courses with a view to developing redundant properties up here in the Highlands. To be fair to Maria, it was her drive and enthusiasm to learn more as I literally had to be dragged along to attend the initial event.”

So did this process lead you to your very first venture into property and investment? – “No we had done bits and pieces with a few flats and also getting planning approval with some land,” said Gordon. “In 2004 with our four children we were looking for property in the Highlands and converted what had previously been a butchers shop in the high street in Kingussie, which had a flat above and we turned it into a five bedroom townhouse for the family. All in for both the shop and the flat we paid about £45,000 and by the time we had finished, it was valued around 18 years ago at well over £100,000 and so we realised there is money that can be made with property. Today it has been valued at £450,000 so that is a ten-fold increase on our original purchase price.”