Retired teacher, Gary Taylor, has built up a significant property portfolio. 

After 20 years of investment experience, read his story and what advice he'd give to others in the game below 👇

Or if you prefer, click here to watch his video interview.

What’s your background? How did you get into property investing? 

I used to be a teacher. I decided whilst teaching that I didn’t want to wait until I was too old to enjoy myself to retire. I knew back in my late twenties / early thirties that there was no way I wanted to teach in a classroom until I was 65. 

A friend recommended that I got into property and I bought my first investment property back in 2003 with no idea what I was doing. It wasn’t a business at that point, it was more of a dabble but at that time house prices were going up about £1,000 a month and I thought ‘how could I not do this?’. That was the start of my journey. I invested bit by bit for the next 12 years whilst still teaching. 

You resigned from teaching 4 years ago, how did that change things?

From that point, I wanted to do property investment a bit more professionally. So I went away, got a bit of education and got into it more seriously. I set up a property company and now we buy unloved properties, refurbish them and rent them out to tenants as their ‘forever home’. What we’re really interested in is people who want to live there for the long term. I like 2 or 3-bedroom family properties - kids and dogs are great because you know tenants are likely going to want to stay. 

When we first started I had no idea how to do up houses or put a new bathroom/kitchen in and we bought houses in a condition where we could let them straight away with a bit of paint here or there. This worked fine when I was a teacher but it’s not the best business model. 

Having retired, what you get out of your life is up to you. If you just sit at home and do nothing, then you get nothing out of it.

Where do you find investment properties?

I do the usual things that most people do like look on Rightmove but I must admit, I haven’t found anything on Rightmove for a long time. 

I also hear about properties through word of mouth and I obviously work with Ultralets.  

How are you finding the compliance changes, does it bother you what the future might hold?

Does it bother me? Yes. Does it scare me? No.

I work on the principle that whatever happens, you adapt. Anyone who’s in business and expects things to be the same in 10 years time as it was on day 1 shouldn’t be in business. Everything always changes. 

From a selfish point of view, part of me thinks if the changes that occur are making people move out of the market thinking that it’s not worth it then that’s better for me. I can acquire properties that people are selling up. What the government doesn’t seem to understand is that if they restrict the number of rental properties, rents go up.

It’s really good business sense to provide a quality product that someone's going to be happy living in and then they’ll look after it. The last thing you want is for someone to move out, you lose your rent, and you have to start paying council tax. 

What would you say to new investors? 

I believe property is the best long-term investment there is, I really do. The basic fact is that we’re an island and the population is rising but the number of houses isn’t rising at the same rate. Property is the most stable long-term investment in the country. 

If you’re interested in property, you’ve got to look at it as a business and you can’t get emotionally attached to the houses you invest in. If you can’t get a property for the right price, you can’t buy it. You don’t fall in love with it as you would as the person who’s going to live there. 

You need to scale, if you only have 1 or 2 properties and 1 becomes empty then your cash flow is destroyed - you need to build at least 4 properties. Property is the easiest and the hardest thing I've ever done. It’s easy because it’s not technically difficult, anyone can do it. But it’s hard because you have to be so persistent and take the knocks.