Ep431: Julie Talbot – Establish Rules to Live By

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community we know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you have got to reduce it. To join our community go to my worst investment ever.com and receive five free benefits. First, you get the risk reduction checklist I created from the lessons I've learned from all my guests and my goodness that is super valuable. Second, you get my weekly email to help you increase your investment return third, you get a 25% discount on all a Stotz Academy courses. Fourth, you get access to our Facebook community to get to know guests and fellow listeners. And finally, you get my curated list of my favorite 10 episodes fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a standards Academy and I'm here with featured guest, Julie Talbott. Julie, are you ready to rock? On? Yes. So let me introduce you to the audience. Julie Thomas is growing a UK property portfolio from Abu Dhabi, where she lives with her husband and twin daughters. She's completed 25 property projects since 2017. And ladies and gentlemen, listen carefully. Two of her rules are she doesn't fly back to the UK. And her phone doesn't ring. Julie, take a minute in Philly further tidbits about your life.

Julie Talbot 01:37
Oh, yeah, well, it's rules. It's rules driven, really, I am. I've been a landlord since 2009. When we first you know, moved over to, to Abu Dhabi, and bought a few houses before we moved over here. And then so yeah, that's what I'll you know, that's what I'll do. I've exited corporate husband has the cat job. And there's a big gap of time, which we'll cover later. But these days, life's very much about being you know, present to the kids and growing the portfolio, but making it fit into life and just keeping things simple, you know, want to be spontaneous with the family and with life. And just making sure that you know that the property goals and everything fits in, fits in fits in around that rather than work between work and life.

Andrew Stotz 02:32
I mean, I think that's one of the things that's really attractive about your lifestyle, and the way that you built it, you know, other people are shooting for different goals. But for the listeners out there that are saying, I like property. And I also want to balance that lifestyle. I think that you know, getting to know you and what you're doing is, you know, a great idea. And, by the way, for anybody that does want to connect with you. What's the best way? I think we talked about that earlier? Facebook is the best way? Yeah, yeah. On Facebook. Yeah. And we'll have the links to all that in the show notes and any other things that we come up with as we go through the discussion, so well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Julie Talbot 03:24
Oh, gosh, okay, so probably starts 2007 I exited corporate world, and, and wanted to start my own business, and took a few years to figure out what was tried a few things, and realized in 2009, that it was property. So it's in training, just realized that, you know, I would want to be a professional landlord, I could just see how that model worked. How could grow the portfolio, it really sat Well, with my values, I've been brought up in rental accommodation. So I just ate just pressed all of my buttons. So, you know, got some education, did some training, you know, worked with the work to the coach and bought a few houses quite quickly, within 2009. And that was one of those crazy years where, you know, lots of stuff happens, right? We got married, we decided to move overseas and my husband's work. And I was just like, right? Well, yeah, I can just keep on repeating what I've done this year, year on year.

Andrew Stotz 04:24
That's the beauty of this podcast. listeners are thinking, yeah, what could go wrong?

Julie Talbot 04:30
I'm treating my model of bought a few houses, I'll just buy this number of houses every year for the next few years. I'll just repeat what I've already done. And so move overseas. And, and at that point I made an assumption, I suppose, which was that I couldn't matter two things. Firstly, I made an assumption that I couldn't carry on doing it as I had been doing it and which was you know, viewing the houses myself and all that kind of thing. And I assumed that because I was four and a half 1000 miles As a way, and because I didn't want to be flying to the UK, I assumed that I would have to work with somebody on the ground to do stuff for me. So give away, you know, some of my, you know, choices about exactly where I wanted properties and stuff like that. And, and also, the third thing that I didn't do well, now I won't quantify didn't do stories and so I started to work with somebody else to help me to help me grow the portfolio so that I didn't have to fly back to the UK. And, and, and I ended up also, they found me a few houses, which fell through for different reasons, you know, they find me one, I'd say yes, and then another buyer would come in, and you know, and then find another one and the same. So I started to feel bad that they were doing stuff for me and weren't getting paid. And you know, it was all their time. And they got paid when I completed on a purchase, right, and suddenly came up with something that you know, something else that met my criteria, so we started to move on it. And it wasn't my usual type of profile of property. And it was a small block of flats I've normally bought, you know, family houses, which a small block of flats, I just thought, Well, you know, it meets my criteria, it's been my area. And we agreed to sail, but for various reasons ended up not buying them all at the same time. And so the vendor held one I bought to someone I was working at the time, but bought another one. And then we went to complete on August 3, one, and a few months later, and a few things happened. And they had there been a misunderstanding somewhere in this chain of people I didn't know about on the price. And the vendor thought it was one price and I thought it was another and you know being being overseas, it changed things in terms of in terms of lending we could get so we ended up in this position where I owned, I owned one flat of someone I was working with the flat and the owner on the first lap. And we it took us 10 years to fix that. And so I spent a lot of time under the table crying, I didn't know how to fix this problem. And I ended up causing buying for seven years because I was just couldn't just, you know, felt embarrassed about it. I didn't talk to anybody about it. I felt really ashamed. Like I just kind of couldn't believe that ended up in this position, really. And so yeah, I spent seven years just knowing it was a problem approaching the vendor every so often to say, look, you know, can we agree a price. But he, in this chain of people who've been involved in the sale, he'd said he'd wanted to sell for one price. And somehow, I've been told that he was selling this third unit for a different price. And there was so far apart, we'd have a little joke and negotiation, but we couldn't even we couldn't even agree. So every couple years, we'd have a little laugh about it. We're never gonna Greece would come back. And so it was only around 1010 years later that we, you know, just started to get serious because it needed to be owned by one person.

Andrew Stotz 08:22
How do you explain why just for the amateurs like me? Why does it need to be owned by one person? What are the complications that that causes,

Julie Talbot 08:33
I suppose it doesn't need to be, you know, need is probably the wrong word to use, but for it to be the best, you know, fit to be the best asset, you know, as an investor, you kind of want to own the block, if one person owns one another person owns another, then you know, if one of those people were to sell them to somebody else, then you've got you know, a communal area, things to to handle. Whereas if you own on the block, you're just having a conversation with yourself, but we're not going to do things. So it's a better investment opportunity if you're owning.

Andrew Stotz 09:06
Right, all of it. And we were able ever able to unravel that.

Julie Talbot 09:11
Yeah, so it's interior. Sven the other worst bit was it took two years once we agreed, maybe it was just shy of two years, once we agreed a price and you know, to move forward and everything. It then took a couple of years to unravel it and to fix it because we then found out over the years that there was in the UK that some properties are leasehold and then it tends to be a freehold or above that. which normally the same person but can be different people. And there was quite a complicated lease chain involved quite a complicated lease chain involved, which again was another thing that just sent me into fitzer tears because I didn't know how to fix it and when I seem to ask anybody how to fix it, nobody else had come across this, this type of thing. situation before. And so yeah, all around, it was just everywhere I looked, it was just like fire, fire, fire fire, like, it was almost too easy to stay in the same situation because moving forward was just like everything seemed

Andrew Stotz 10:14
unsolvable. Can you remember a particular day, maybe when you were talking to your husband or when you were sitting all alone, or you were talking with a friend or whatever that it was like the weight of it all kind of really hit you.

Julie Talbot 10:29
So many days. Well realize other things that hadn't hadn't realized about the deal. And I was there was one day when I found, oh, realize the complexity in the leases. And I guess what changed was I had a bit more knowledge as the years have passed. So when I went back to look, and I saw all these, and I just thought, that's, that's not right. There's never normally that many. And that was the day I realized there was something else that I had not realized had been a problem in this whole situation.

Andrew Stotz 11:05
One more thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So let's go through the lessons that you learn, because I know now you're very successful. And, you know, I think the audience really can benefit from what you learned.

Julie Talbot 11:21
So what's it? Well, I mean, really, really distilling it, and not being property specific. You know, you don't know what you don't know, that was the first thing, you know, I, it seemed like a logical thing to go into, you know, buying houses just to be flats. Yeah, surely, it's gonna be the same. But there was so many bits that I didn't know, we put, you don't know what you don't know. Right. And, and another one, I think, is that your perception is your reality. So I've made a really big assumption, which was, I'm 1000s of miles away, I can't grow my portfolio in the way that have done so far, the way that I've started to, I need and therefore that led me to assume that I needed to work with somebody else, I didn't even take a moment to check in on on any of those assumptions. It was just an assumption. So my perception was my reality of how to work. And another thing I learned is that, you know, if you, when you do anything new, just the value of being connected with somebody who's who's done it before, or who's been through it. You know, when I, when I bought the first few houses, I'd had the mentioning and the education. And as I took this step into something that was a bit new and different, I wasn't still working with the same, you know, the same people. So I was thinking I'd be okay. And, and so when Pete gorebyss, coincidentally, I ended up working with somebody who just knew and got all this. So, you know, I really learned that when you're doing something, and, you know, in your entrepreneurial, there's not always a training course. But all these things, it's like we you know, now I'll always reach out to somebody who's doing what I want to do. And you know, I'll work with them. One on one, just to help me get through the first one or two, the new thing on what to do. So that's three, they're wonderful debate.

Andrew Stotz 13:19
Suddenly, that's great. I just been writing down a bunch of things. And I want to share kind of what I took away from your story. Well, the first thing I'm going to talk about the last thing I just wrote down as you were talking and I wrote down DSG. And DSG is a guy named David siteman Garland, and I bought a course from him called How to Create Awesome online courses. And he is great. I just like he really like, what he does and what he is and what he stands for. We were in the Facebook group. And one of the members of the group said, you know, and he was talking about how you title your course. And one of the members said, my friend told me that I should title it this way. And he just said, How many millions of dollars of revenue is your friend generated from courses? Oh, zero. You better follow me because I've already done $5 million worth of value. So just made me think of that story. And that story to remind me go to an expert. You know, and I think about like, I know, finance very well. And I know one thing I always tell entrepreneurs who have their own businesses, they tell me like, what's your advice, and I say, I have one piece of advice, close your books every single month, close your financial statements every single month with the help of an accountant, and you will reveal all of your problems. Yeah, and you will end as a result, you have to be facing them and solving them. And the result is that you've that's probably the best advice that I can give. And that brought me to that again, that's kind of take advice from an expert.

Julie Talbot 14:55
Yeah. And even I mean, an expert can seem like somebody who's an Experts are really, really important, right? But sometimes they can just seem so far ahead of you that it can be, like overwhelming. And so sometimes it's like someone who's a bit further ahead than you, you know, who can pull you along to their? to their spot? Right. Yeah,

Andrew Stotz 15:16
I mean, that's a great point for the listener out there. Just find someone that's a little bit ahead of you and ask, you know, if you could talk to them, but also, what I've learned from the podcast, Julian said, I've reached out to a lot of people that are big name and that and this and that, and yeah, they're willing to talk, you know? Yeah. I just got David Allen, from getting things done one of my favorite books, and he's just, oh, yeah, come on the show. And he says, His episodes just coming out. And yeah, I was just, I'm just surprised that you know, a lot of people that are big, if you can reach out to them, they may talk to you. So yeah, that's a great, great lesson. I think the other thing is I wrote down the word complicated, you know, anything that gets complicated, let that be a warning bell. And I was an analyst for many years visiting companies. And I would take fund managers or myself, I'd go alone, and I'd meet the CEOs of companies, and I just really came to the conclusion that they can't clearly explain what they're doing. There's a problem. And if it's really difficult for me to understand, then there's a problem. And it can be sometimes a problem of fraud and deceit. But other times, it's just that, you know, they're just into something that's way too complicated. And maybe they can make money out of it. But it's going to be hard for me or my clients to make money out of it. The other thing is, you talked about unknown risks, the risk that you don't know, right, yeah. And, and I wrote that down, and I wrote down that. Unfortunately, you'll be punished for those unknowns. You know, and unknowables. You know, there's, there's no mercy out there in the world of business. And that means that you are going to face a situation that you could never have predicted, and it was unknown. Now, you're going to face many situations that are predictable. But here we go, if we just say, Hey, I'm going to face a situation that just unknown and it would have been unknowable, we're already right there, we're thinking about it in the head, you know, ahead. And that means that you've got to think of risk management ideas, like not overextending yourself in any one particular investment. Because if you come up against that unknowable, then you know, you could you could be, you know, in trouble. So it just reminds me that, you know, business is full of risk, there's a lot of risks that we can see. And we can try to mitigate and we should, but then there's risks that you can't see. And, you know, the scary ones, I give an example, you know, the risks that we can see, when we drive a car, that we have a potential of a car accident, so we put on a seatbelt. But the other day, I was watching a video on YouTube, and there was a car driving down the road, not that fast. But you know, just chugging down the road. And there's a guy walking along with this huge steel pipe, and he turns and the steel pipe then proceeded to go directly through the windshield of the car, and smash through now, luckily, the driver wasn't hurt. But there's an unknown and an unknowable. Yeah, you know, and it just,

Julie Talbot 18:31
yeah, that's a really exactly to that. And that's a really great thing when you know, you work with people one to one, isn't it that you can just say, when you're hearing them tell you something, you can say just look in a minute. You know, for me when I'm, I do a little bit of work with some other expats who do similar things to me, and I can say, just just check that or just say that at this stage, and because you know, no one knows what we don't know. So it's, yeah, that's the power of being able to call

18:57
things out with people. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 18:59
And yeah, the world is tough, you know, you will be punished for that, you know. So let me ask you now, based upon what you learn, and what you continue to learn, what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Julie Talbot 19:18
I would say so it's for you know, any ex parte who's looking to, you know, to grow a portfolio from overseas. Don't believe or let the miles be a barrier. You've got all the same options that you would have. If you were four miles away from where you want to buy, then you have if you're 4000 miles away, what stops you is a mindset of thinking, I'm far away, therefore I can't therefore I've got to do something differently. If not, you can scale a portfolio the same way 4000 miles away as you would, if you would, if you were four miles away. You just need to do a few things differently and So, if anyone's wants to do the same things, then you know, take that step back and consider your options. And that's what I did in 2017. So right now I've got to, I've got to step back, consider my options, and actually find a way of making it work the way I want to make it work. And all that changed was my mindset, and then started to make it work.

Andrew Stotz 20:22
That's exciting. And I know, for the listeners out there, if you're thinking about building a, let's say, a long distance portfolio, you know, come to the show notes, all the links will be here to connect with Julie to learn how she's doing it and see if you can avoid some of these mistakes. I like the quote by Otto von Bismarck, which says, Only a fool learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. And that's what this podcast is all about. And I think just to comment on what you've just shared, let the distance, you know, cause you to have a more rigorous process

Julie Talbot 21:04
to Oh, exactly, totally. I mean, that's because I've got my rules, when I come across a problem. For a landlord who lived four miles away, they might jump in the car and drive down there in the middle of the night or whatever. But for me, it's like, Okay, this thing happened. I've got to find a way to solve whatever that problem is within my rules. And you find some really amazing solutions, right, that you would never have known existed. And so every problem and challenge that comes up, you just because you really clear on how you want to make it work, you find it you find a solution that you didn't even know was there. And it's amazing.

Andrew Stotz 21:42
Yeah. Alright, last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months,

Julie Talbot 21:47
I'm going to carry on live in like, you know, simply, spontaneously sustainably and living by you know, rules and growing the portfolio at the same. At the same time, through the portfolio, we part of the income, the residual income generate funds programs that we want to support long term in Ethiopia is that 50, like 100 year plan. So I'm just carrying on carrying on doing what I'm doing exciting,

Andrew Stotz 22:17
well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you my listeners reduce risk and increase return in your life. To achieve this, I've created our community. It's at my worst investment ever.com. And I look forward to seeing you there. As we conclude, Julie, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And yeah, and on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I'm officially allowed to announce that you are hereby awarded alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience? Just have a wonderful day. Beautiful. And I'm going to close this by asking the question to the audience. And I'm going to ask it to myself for all of us to think what are your rules? Julie's the first person that come on the podcast to say, I've got rules. I've got this structure. So I want to ask everybody think about your rules, write them down and start building them out. Like Julie has taught us and that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.