In less than two years of being on Samuel Leeds’ academy, Jersey entrepreneurs Sam Tumkaew and Harrison Crick have established a property business set to turn over more than £100,000 this month (August 2024). Their portfolio of around 55 serviced accommodation units is spread across 11 cities in the UK, including London, Manchester and Brighton. Four are rent-to-rents. The rest Sam and Harrison manage for the owners, running their operation remotely with the help of artificial intelligence.
Childhood friends combine skills in business
Sam and Harrison have been best friends since the age of four. Sam became a tax adviser when he grew up and Harrison an electrician. Together their differing skills add up to a powerful combination.
They had already dabbled in property before joining the academy. Harrison recently completed a flip, making £121,000 on renovating a house and then selling it at a profit. As it was in Jersey, which has its own government, he paid no capital gains tax.
He is now on his second such project, while Sam owns his own property, plus a buy-to-let. Previously they had embarked on several ventures, including trading, network marketing and an Amazon FBA business, all of which failed. It was then that they decided to invest in bricks and mortar.
Sam remembers how a couple of years later Harrison told him about Samuel Leeds. “He said there's this guy doing these courses for £1 about property. I think we should definitely go.”
So, the pals jumped on a plane to attend the event. It was a commitment as they had to pay for the return flights and a hotel at a time when they were losing money. However, the budding entrepreneurs were confident of making it work with the help of mentors.
One stumbling block in their minds was their location in the Channel Islands. On the buy, refurbish, refinance crash course, they were given an exercise to find a house or a flat which they could do up. Samuel told his students to search for a property either in their city or within a 50-mile radius.
As Jersey is only five miles long and nine miles wide that left them potentially searching the sea. Sam recalls: “We turned to each other and then I stood up and said what happens if we live in Jersey? Samuel just said pick the next best place.”
Harrison and Sam had some cash set aside to tackle a buy, refurbish, refinance project. Instead, they were advised to join the academy and learn about other strategies.
This they did after taking out a loan and saving their funds for the BRR, only to encounter another challenge.
“When we joined we just were in the mindset that we couldn’t do half the strategies Samuel was teaching because we were in Jersey and the property laws are very different.
“You can't do serviced accommodation. You need to apply for planning. There's not a lot of margin in HMOs because of how expensive the house prices are,” explains Sam.
Their solution was to set up a rent-to-rent and property management business in the UK.
One the face of it, it was very much a hands-on strategy, but their training showed them a way forward.
“It was a blessing in disguise living in Jersey because we knew, okay if we’re going to create a business over here, we have to try to systemise it and find out what everyone else is doing so we don't have to come over all the time,” says Harrison.
The academy proved invaluable in giving them contacts who could assist them on the ground.
‘AI will even ping over a video on using the oven’
When Sam and Harrison appeared on Winners on a Wednesday they had just signed on the dotted line to manage another 15 units in addition to just under 40 which they already had.
“The turnover this month will probably be north of £100,000 and I think next month it will be £125,000,” Sam says.
Their expertise lies in helping landlords achieve high rents through offering their properties as serviced accommodation, which attracts premium rates, as opposed to having a tenant.
One of the properties the business partners manage is a flat in Essex. The owner was renting it out as an SA, but ‘hadn’t taken the course,’ as Harrison puts it, and was out of pocket.
After Sam and Harrison took it on, they turned it around and it is now bringing in average monthly bookings of £2,500 on an occupancy rate of 90 to 95 per cent.
Sam makes the point that had the apartment been rented out on a standard tenancy agreement the landlord would have made about £1,200 a month.
The business partners secured their first two rent-to-rents in Manchester under a corporate let agreement. They pay the landlord of the two-bed flats £1,500 per unit and have now had them for just under two years.
The same landlord offered them a third property, but they didn’t want to take it on as a rent-to-rent.
“We thought the profit that we could make on it could be similar to the numbers we're doing just with management,” says Sam. “So, we showed him the numbers we were doing on the two units in a similar area and are now managing it for him.
“The other side to that is the two units we've got we've just flipped them to management as well because he wants the revenue.”
From their perspective there is no risk or money up front involved in simply managing a property. Their fee ranges from 10 to 15 per cent of the takings, depending on the unit.
“In Jersey buy-to-let landlords are probably making the same and spending about £100,000 to £150,000 to buy it and do it. That takes months to do whereas we just speak to a landlord, take their property and make the same money,” adds Harrison.
The entrepreneurs both go networking, but Sam normally brings the client on board, explaining the process. Harrison takes care of the ‘back-end stuff,’ setting up the property on Airbnb, arranging cleaners and managing their portfolio.
They use channel management software and artificial intelligence to help them run the business from afar. Each guest receives an automated message from the channel manager asking them to sign in with their name and the code for the property they are staying at.
AI then sends out the check-in details and can issue instructions on how to find the place. It is also programmed to answer frequently asked questions.
“For example, if someone messages saying they can’t work the oven, AI will ping a video to explain it. We would have created a video beforehand and then integrated it with AI. Over time, in each property, they'll have different questions. They'll ask another question and then we can just add it to the AI,” says Harrison who sets it up and gets it working.
They have found that it saves them so much time, whereas before they were mostly occupied with answering guests’ queries which were often the same.
AI is also used on the academy to give students advice round the clock. Sam has messaged it and benefited from getting an answer to his question straight away.
He agrees with his guru Samuel Leeds that AI cannot replace everything and that having a network is equally important.
“The academy has been a massive help because we're not in the areas we've got the properties in, so if we've had an issue we need some way to resolve that. By making connections and giving advice, we've managed to build a good network of people who if we need a favour we can call on.
“One name I can give a shout out to is Jamie in Manchester. There have been a few times where we've had issues with lock boxes taken off walls and cleaners not turning up or viewings need to be done for guests, and he's been willing to give us a hand.”
Sam and Harrison now know which cleaners to work with and have a maintenance team they can call on if there are repairs that need to be carried out quickly.
‘There’s so much money to be made out there’
Harrison has just handed in his notice after seeing the huge sums to be made from property. He receives notifications of bookings on his mobile phone some of which can be for eye-watering amounts.
“I’ll be at work and I’ll get a booking on my phone and it will be £20,000 or something like that. I remember messaging Sam saying, what are we doing in our jobs? There's just so much money to be made out there and so many different ways to do it.”
Sam has gone part-time and is in the throes of refurbishing a house. They also sell two to three property investment deals a month, charging a £3,000 finder’s fee. Agents pass on opportunities to them and sometimes they share the commission with a co-sourcer.
The focus, however, remains on their management enterprise which gives them the bulk of their income. Their target market is relocators and others needing temporary accommodation, with guests staying for an average of 28 days.
Harrison says: “A lot of people do short-term stays, but we tend to do 15 nights minimum and then increase it to get a different sort of clientele staying in the property, such as people relocating to the area.”
Most of their business comes from referrals. They met one landlord at an academy dinner who handed his property to them to manage.
“He had been recommended to us by somebody else we had done a good job for. He's now making £700 profit a month. That's on a 12-month booking,” Sam declares with pride.
The pair also stay in Airbnbs when they come over from Jersey and seize the chance to do business with the owner if the property is not being booked up enough.
Their plan by the end of 2024 is to have 100 units under management. “We’re also thinking about setting up our own estate agency in Jersey – and being the first business in Jersey to offer short-term let management,” Sam reveals.
Their journey has involved a lot of hard work and sacrifice, he admits, but they recognised they ‘had to go for it.’
His drive comes from an expectation that he can do more in life. “I've always been a believer in myself and what I'm capable of doing. I don't want to be sitting here in four years’ time thinking all that potential has just been lost.”
Harrison’s biggest goal is to help his mother to retire. “I feel that's probably the best thing anyone could ever do. Parents raise you all your life and that's the main goal for me – and to have a family one day and provide properly for them.”
Sam and Harrison’s tips
- Samuel says plant seeds with no expectation. We give advice to people and don’t expect anything in return. Then, when we need help, we get favours back.
- You’ve got to be willing to put in the work. There's no one who will tell you to do that other than you.
- Don't sell a deal or take on a property for management just because you think you can make some money. There has to be enough margin in it for the investor.
Samuel Leeds’ verdict
“I’m really proud of what Sam and Harrison are doing. It's a great case study for overseas investors. At the last crash course I did, there were six countries represented in the room. One man had come from Florida for a one-day programme. A lot of people from abroad are also enquiring about the academy.”
