In this episode, Paul talks with Sean Branton about how his 3 days a week of work experience on building sites led to him becoming an award-winning developer entrepreneur. Despite not getting much formal education at school Sean became obsessed with educating himself, which is why he has been able to solve problems that have stopped others in their tracks.

He shares his entrepreneurial journey and explains how he is still getting deals done, despite the current market conditions making it difficult for SMEs to do so. Including, garden grabbing, and the pros, and cons of buying sites with planning and doing build-only deals with landowners.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Forget fighting with 30 other people for land on Rightmove. Instead, do land studies to find something viable fewer people know about.
• Because sites with planning are in the public domain, they are very rarely cheap. So, the margins are often far too tight.
• You have to build extremely fast to make a site with consent work financially.
• Buying a site with planning is risky especially if prices happen to stop going up. Then, there is no way to cover any overspend and you can lose your entire business.
• Feed your site pipeline. If you don´t you will lose key members of your team and replacing them will be very hard.
• You need a good manager on the ground who can foresee problems, deal with them, and manage the technical stuff.
• Surround yourself with the right people and get a mentor. That will save you years.
• A lot of people with ADHD have a high tolerance for risk, which is why quite a few property developers have the condition. Often, they are also addicted to work.
• Make self-care and continually educating yourself prior

BEST MOMENTS

“Our best and most success is always direct to vendor.”

“It´s about numbers and consistency.”

“I don't possess much talent, but I'm persistent, and I've got a much higher purpose and drive than other people.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://www.instagram.com/sean_branton

ABOUT THE HOST 

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group. 

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know! 

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial