A few months ago, I was given this impossible challenge, which was, to secure a No Money Down property deal within 24 hours. The team at Progressive Property set me this challenge to see, if it was really possible to get a property deal using little or none of your own money. But not just secure that deal, but secure within one day.
The reason they set me the challenge, is because within the Progressive Property Facebook Community, which has over 25,000 people now, you regularly have people posting saying, No Money Down is not possible. You see people post on different forums, and on different communities, that you can’t do property with No Money Down. You need to buy houses with mortgages. They set me the challenge to prove that it wasn’t just possible to do No Money Down property deals. It wasn’t just possible to secure properties using little or none of your own money, but more importantly, it was possible to do it in just one day.
The Progressive Property team showed up at my property early one morning a few months ago, and they gave me this challenge to go to a town somewhere in the country, where I’ve never been before to secure a deal.
Initially, I thought I was going to my own area, where I had rules. The rules, were, I couldn’t use any of my own money. I couldn’t use any of my contacts, or my current contacts in property. And I was going to a town that they chose. A town that was not my area. So, I ended up in Norwich. I’m from the Midlands, up around Nottinghamshire. I ended up going to Norwich for that day.
What I’m going to do now, is, talk you through that challenge, and what I went through during that day. The different challenges that I came across, the different obstacles I hit. We’ve got a video of the very challenge on the Progressive Property YouTube Channel. What I’m going to do, is, I’m going to play that video, and then break it down for you, and talk you through the obstacles I hit, and why I said certain things at certain points, and just how I felt in general through the day, and how I overcame the obstacles as they faced me, because it was a challenging day.
No money down property investing
No Money Down Property Investing. What is it? it’s where you can build a multimillion-pound property business using literally none of your own money. Now, that might sound crazy to you, but it’s exactly what I’ve done to build a multimillion-pound property business, and what many other people in this country have done too. you just need to have knowledge to do it. and that’s exactly what I’m going to show you how to do.
When I realised my 24-Hour Challenge was actually cut to a lot less than that. I’m home in my house at 6:00 am in the morning. My own area isn’t… where I invest in, is, an hour from my home. I’m still thinking I’m going to my own area. But I’m realising that actually, I don’t have 24 hours, because I can’t get a deal at 2:00 am in the night. My time really was cut to about 5:00-5:30 in the evening, when agents would close. Maybe, a couple of hours afterwards for doing some knocking on doors and stuff. But in reality, I was facing a 12-hour No Money Down Challenge. I began to panic a little bit.
Once I realised I wasn’t going to my own area, and I was going to somewhere I didn’t know. I mean, when I said where is Norwich, I know where Norwich is. I’m more in my panic head. It was more about how far away is Norwich. So, what was it? Norwich is a 2-hour drive from my house. So, my time was getting cut massively. 2-hour drive to get there. What I actually did, that you don’t see in the clip, is, I took the car keys out of one of the Team from Progressive, and said, you’re driving. Because I’ve got to do some research in the car. I’ve got to learn a bit about Norwich as I’m driving there. So, I didn’t have much time on the ground once I arrived.
While I was in car, I knew I only had a day. I wanted to maximise the potential of me securing a deal while I was in Norwich. To do that, I want to try and get direct to vendor, where possible. Some great ways to get to direct to vendor, were, through Facebook, Gumtree, online marketing platforms, where people are advertising property deals.
You might think Facebook, why would people advertise property deals on there? Well, they do within Facebook marketplace. But also, local Facebook Groups. Local Facebook Groups like, BUY SELL SWAP Giveaway Groups. the challenge I had, was, I joined the groups, but you have to wait for somebody to accept your join. What actually happened in reality, was, I only got accepted into those groups a couple of days after I had been to Norwich. But I pushed as much as possible, where I could to try and get into as many social groups as possible around the Norwich area so I could get a running start once we arrived.
Initially, when I arrived in Norwich, it was around 9 o’clock. I started ringing some direct to vendor leads from websites like, Gumtree. The reason for that, was, if I was going to get a home owner, I was thinking I can get them early in the morning before they leave. And I need to arrange something for the afternoon.
My plan was to try and get some direct to vendor stuff initially, then speak to agents, and then do more phone calls. Just to try and get as many opportunities as possible. To be honest, I didn’t really have a structured plan. I just had a little bit of panic. And in terms of where do I start, because it was a new town, I’d never been to before. I didn’t know the agents. I didn’t know the good ones, the bad ones, I didn’t even know the shops were in town. And I was thinking, if I go driving around town, looking to speak to loads of estate agent, most of the day would be stuck in traffic. I just went straight online, and started to ring vendors that I could find, anything that was direct. The other reason, was, if you can get direct to vendor, you can offer them no agents fees, which is, a massive benefit as well, if you can get direct to them.
What you didn’t see on the video there, was, the call I made was not to Keith. It looked like the first call, because that’s in the video. It was probably about my 10th call. Some of them were not very good. They were just not deals. They were never going to be deals. But you’ve got make enough calls to come up with a good one.
Because it was about my 10th call, I called Keith, Peter. This is, because I’m under pressure, the clock is ticking. I’m watching time passed me by, and I know that I’m under the challenge of trying to get this done in a day. If you had a week, you wouldn’t put yourself under as much pressure. And you would be a bit more focussed to get the guy’s name right. It didn’t matter in the end. But always try and get the person’s name right, because really important, is, rapport building. Make sure that you get people’s names correctly, because it will help build rapport.
They were the first 2 agents I’ve visited. The one, where I’ve got the really good response, some potential on assisted sales. I actually spoke to the lettings department and the sales department in that agency. I didn’t get a great response from lettings. I’ve got a great response from the sales agent around assisted sale. She just got it. An assisted sale as I said, is, don’t buy, refurbish and sell. I was really, really positive that we could possibly do something. It was a great start of the day. What actually transpired, was, I’d never got to look at those properties on that day, had I’ve got more than a day, I think something could have come off those. But I literally just had that one day.
After that agent, I was like proper confident. I thought this is easier than I thought. We’re going to get a deal done in no time at all. We’ll be out of here by lunch. What actually transpired, was, of those 5 deals, that agent didn’t get back to me at all that day, because she was still waiting for the landlord. The landlord hadn’t got a response to her, meaning, she couldn’t get back to me. And I only had the one day. A really positive agent, however, not quick enough to get me the deal done in 24 hours.
That viewing with the agent didn’t go well at all. I would actually say it was a bit of a disaster. The reasons for that though were pretty simple to be honest. The agent could clearly- see that I didn’t know my area. I didn’t know. He asked me questions about the companies, and I didn’t know who they were. He asked me a couple of questions about the streets. And I couldn’t name any streets. Because I didn’t know Norwich, I was blagging a little bit to try and get a viewing, and he’s seen right through it.
The benefit for you on this, is, you do know your areas. You do know your streets. You do know the local companies. You wouldn’t come across the same challenges locally to you that I came across interview hat agents. What’s really important, is, you need to make sure before you visit any agents, that you’ve got to spend enough time learning your area. Know your streets, know the names of roads. Know the locations, the roads, not to like taxi driver level, but to a decent level, where you’ve got an idea of the parts of town, certain streets they’re in.
At this point, I felt like things were falling apart, because I was struggling to get viewings. One of the biggest challenges, was, with the agents when I went face-to-face, was get a viewing on the day. Even if they were open to working with me, they wouldn’t let me get a viewing on the day, because they couldn’t fit me in.
Then I went back to ringing them, and over the phone I just got rejection, after rejection, after rejection. I rang over 10 property agents, and I just kept getting no, no, no, no, no. it was really stressing me out. The importance of this for you, is that, I see this a lot with the new investors. They speak to 2 or 3 agents. They ring up 4 or 5 agents. And they quit, because they don’t get a positive response. I knew that, if I kept doing it, even though I’ve got 10 plus rejections over the phone. I still knew from my experience, that if I kept picking up the phone, if I kept ringing the agents, that I would have eventually get a deal, because THIS WORKS!
Rejection is part of the process. You won’t get every agent to work with you. But you don’t need every agent to work with you. you actually only really need one property agent to work with you. if you get one agent who’s open to working with you, that one agent can bring you lots and lots of property deals. Don’t let rejection get in the way. ‘No’ is not a problem. ‘No’ is just something you need to go through in order to get to a yes.
When I was driving to Norwich in the morning, I placed adverts online, looking for tenant-buyers. A tenant-buyer is somebody who doesn’t have enough money to buy a house today, but they really want to be a home owner. What we do, is, we secure a property for them, where they can rent it in initially, and then purchase it over a period of time. The benefit of this, is, I was trying to get a deal with the No Money Down, none of my own money down. So I can use the tenant-buyer’s money to secure the property, and then rent the property to them with an option to buy, making it a No Money Down deal for me, and giving them the home that they were looking for. So, it’s a win-win.
Within 2 hours of placing that advertisement online, I had people ringing me, including this guy who had money ready to move for deals. This lad has mentioned £2,000 to £3,000 on the phone. So, within a couple of hours, I had secured leads. I might not have got a deal, but I had secured leads and secured money that would allowed me to do property deals.
The next part of my challenge on the day, was, moving onto my first direct to vendor viewing.
When we were heading to that property, even the crew that were with me, were really confident we could do something. And in the property itself, as I spoke to the homeowner, it’s transpired that his son used to live interview the property. He had rented it out for a while. And he just wanted to sell it. Now, he said himself that, if I had been there a year earlier, it would have been something he’d consider. I actually think that the property won’t sell. In maybe, 6 months’ time, he’ll be ringing me back, looking to do a deal. Now, if it was my area, I would actually be following up with him, every sort of 4 to 6 weeks to see, if it’s still on the market, and let him know I’m still there, and I’m still looking.
The challenge
The challenge for me, was, I didn’t have 6 weeks. I had about 6 hours left. So, I need to get something on the day. Not about opportunity, would I believe I have turned into something, but just not possible within 24 hours. Then the day started to go from bad to worse.
Spareroom, what a disaster?!! I’m actually still band from Spareroom. They have literally banned me for life. Why?! Well, I only had 24 hours. So, I was pushing the boundaries and everything possible. What I would normally do on Spareroom, is like, phone up a landlord, or arrange, because a lot of landlords on Spareroom, their phone numbers are there. Or I’d arrange a viewing of a property, and then I talk to them face-to-face once I’ve met them about something like, guaranteed rent or a lease option.
However, I didn’t have that much time. So, I just wrote one message. And I copied and pasted it to 50 plus landlords as I was in the back of my car, driving to Norwich. It’s not something I recommend doing, but I was under pressure to get a deal done in a day. And they’d banned me for posting the same message so often, and I wasn’t looking for a room. I was coming across as a company.
What’s really important, if you’re using a website like Spareroom, is, know how to use it. Use it in the right way, and make sure that you ring landlords and speak to them directly off the website. Don’t pitch in a message within the site. You won’t get banned, if you do it the correct way. So, very clearly, the reason I got banned, was because I directly messaged landlords within the site, asking them if they would be open to a guaranteed rent. Don’t do that on Spareroom. Make sure that you phone the landlords off line, or arrange viewings, and speak to them directly face-to-face.
The biggest challenge I faced wasn’t actually trying to get a deal. The biggest challenge was trying to get a deal in the day, because I only had the one day to do it.
There weren’t all saying no, they didn’t want to work with me. A lot of them were saying, no, you couldn’t have a viewing today. Or, no, you couldn’t offer without a viewing. But actually, a lot of them were open to the idea. Just I needed to, either view, or I needed to offer. And I couldn’t offer until after the viewing. They couldn’t give me a viewing on the day.
It was pushing on like, 4:30 to 5 o’clock in the evening at this point. And I was really, really stressed out. Because I’m thinking, if I had 7 days, if I had 5 days even, I could actually get deals done here, because I’d have enough time to arrange a viewing, and get the property secured. But I only had till 5:00-5:30 in the evening, before the agents closed.
You might be thinking, why didn’t I stop ringing agents, if it wasn’t working. But I only had till 5:30. It was like, say, even from one o’clock onwards, it’s clocking down from 4 hours to go. if I went back in the car, driving around town, trying to visit the agents face-to-face, the challenge I was going to have, was, I get stuck in traffic. They’re all over town. It could take me half an hour to visit each agent.
I could have gone direct to vendor, maybe. Butt the challenge with direct to vendor, is, they’re at work. I would have to wait the evening for them to come home from work. So, what I was thinking, is, just sit down, ring them. Keep ringing them, because I could cover more ground quickly. And I also still knew, that it’s a numbers game. A lot of them will say no, but eventually, if you keep doing the right things, you’ll eventually get a deal.
Finally, 12 minutes to 5 in the evening, and an agent gets back to me with a deal. It was some apartments that a developer had built. They were selling off the development. They have sold most of them. And they had 13 apartments still left that they were trying to sell. The developer is a developer. He wants to build a property. He doesn’t want to be a landlord on rent property. Because they hadn’t sold them, they had put them up for rent. We came along, and offered guaranteed rent for all 13 apartments. This is a perfect win-win.
The developer doesn’t want to be a landlord. He just wants to move on with clear focus to develop the next property project. It was a brilliant opportunity, the perfect opportunity. And it came about because I rang over 100 different agents and landlords and homeowners over the day.
On the video on The Progressive Property YouTube Channel, they have broken the entire 24-Hour Challenge down into 17 minutes. Loads of other stuff happened on the day. We’d got lots of people looking at tenant buyers, but I’d over £10,000 worth of money available to me by 5 o’clock in the day from people.
But more important than that, is, that was on one day. The calls are still coming in. I still have people message me saying, they want to be a tenant-buyer from Norwich. I’d passed them onto other people now, because I’m not in that area. As well as that there were lots of viewings that we didn’t show are in the video. I did about 5 direct to vendor viewings on the day. Some of them were quite positive. But again, it would have come through later. A couple of them were just a ‘no’. One, because they didn’t want to do it. Or is because I didn’t want to do it, because the house was horrible. You’ve to not just do a deal, just because it works as a deal. You’ve got to do it, because it’s the right house, and the right location as well. Don’t just do any property deal. You’ve got to do the right types of property deals. Even on a challenge, we had to get a deal on in a day, I still would have said no to a couple of the properties that I’ve viewed.
Another deal. Alex is an agent. He said he had lots of opportunities. But there was one specific, where we’d been looking at through the day. And he and the landlord were both happy to do between 3 to 5-year rent-to-rent agreement, but also, bolt on an option to buy. We would agree with a purchase price today. And if I wanted to complete the purchase at any point during the 5 years, then we could buy it at any point during that contract for the price that we agreed today.
At that point, I was feeling elated, because I had achieved the challenge, but also drained as hell, because that was one long day of just constantly speaking to people, and stressing out, and like a rollercoaster of it’s going to go well, it’s going to go bad. It’s going to go well. It’s going to go bad. But finally, as I’ve said, if you keep doing the right things in the right order for long enough, you cannot avoid getting the deal.
So, that was the 24-Hour No Money Down property challenge. 2 deals secured in the day. A block of 13 apartments and one other property. How did it go? I thought it went really, really well. I did face loads of challenges. But overall, it was a massive, massive success. And I’d proved that not only can you do No Money Down deals, but you can do No Money Down deals in a day.
What would I have done differently? Well, if I had more time, I would have researched the area, and spent a little bit more time on researching the area to find the very best street and the very best parts of town. However, that would take about a day to do. I didn’t have a day. I only had a day to get the deals. I had to go into a lot of agents blind, and kind of blagged that I knew the areas, or knew the streets. A little bit more time on research would definitely benefit securing deals. If I had a week, I would have also done lots of other marketing, things like leaflets, postcards and letters to homeowners. I would use some other marketing techniques to get me some more leads coming in.
But just through estate agents alone, and some direct to vendor marketing on social media, I managed to get deals done in a day. Additional marketing, if you’ve got more time like, the leaflets, the letters, the postcards, et cetera will bring in even more opportunities.
