Darren: On this episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I’m speaking to former military man Richie Miller, now a property investor and developer. Richie first invested in a property in Sheffield with no experience and no knowledge of the city. That could have gone horribly wrong, but it was the start of a fantastic journey that led to him buying a 48-bed block of flats with none of his own money.
I’m going to be asking Richie how he did that, what the pitfalls were, how the development has progressed — and most importantly, how much money he’s making from it.
So Richie, you’re massive in property. I’ve had quite a lot of property guests on this podcast and they usually come through Progressive, or Samuel Leeds, or Simon Zutchi. Which of the three are you?
[1:44]
Richie: I went through Simon Zutchi. That’s where I got my training.
[1:52]
Darren: Fantastic. What made you want to get into property in the first place?
[1:57]
Richie: I got married in early 2015, and I thought it was time to grow up and be more serious about life and the future. My dad told me his biggest regret was never buying a property. He’d been in the Army his whole career, then retired and got a civil servant’s job.
He spent most of his career abroad — his last 18 years were in Germany with British Forces. So when he retired, he had to buy a house. He’d never done it before and said his biggest regret was not buying earlier.
[2:43]
Darren: So when you say not buying, you mean not buying one for himself, rather than as an investment?
[2:49]
Richie: Yes, for himself. And he didn’t know how to buy because he’d never done it before. He went on Amazon, looked up the top three books about how to buy a property, and gave me what he thought was the best one — Simon Zutchi’s Property Magic. He said, “I’m too old for this, but you might find it interesting.”
[3:08]
Darren: So it was kind of a hand-me-down from your dad, and that’s why you’re in this career now.
Richie: Yes. That book changed my life and set me on a completely different course.
[3:14]
Darren: I’m curious — do you ever wonder what would have happened if he’d given you one of the other two books?
[3:21]
Richie: I’ve thought about that a few times. I asked my dad, but he threw the other two away and couldn’t remember what they were. He used one of them to help buy his own house, but I don’t know what they were. Would be interesting to know.
[3:40]
Darren: So you read Property Magic. What was your next step?
Richie: I applied the principles as best I could and bought my first property — a three-bed single house in Sheffield. At the time I was an Army officer living in Surrey, and in our first two years of marriage we’d lived in four different houses, so we’d moved around a lot.
My wife’s friend’s brother ran an estate and letting agency in Sheffield. He showed us around, helped us source a property, and managed the light refurb — about £5,000 or £6,000 for painting, decorating and a new bathroom. It was a gentle introduction into property investing and worked really well.
[5:04]
Darren: Had you lived in Sheffield before? Did you know the area yourself?
Richie: Not at all. I’d only been there for the ski slope a couple of times during university. Other than that, no. But because of the family connection and because I was moving around so much with the Army, I didn’t feel I could really get to know any area well. Sheffield felt like a safe option with trusted people to help.
[5:52]
Darren: And the further north you go, the more you get for your money.
Richie: Exactly. My business partner at the time bought a couple of buy-to-lets in Birkenhead for about £50,000 each. You could pop out to the shops and come back — and you’d have bought two houses.
[6:16]
Darren: Most investors spend a lot of time researching their “goldmine area,” working out strategies, and building relationships. You just went, “I’ve got a contact in Sheffield — let’s buy there.”
Richie: Yes. Nice and simple. And I think that’s one of the strengths I’ve carried from the Army — making decisions quickly with limited information.
[6:40]
Richie: In training and operations, you’re often cold, wet, tired, and hungry. You still have to make decisions: left, right, retreat, or hold your ground. You never have perfect information, and often whatever you choose goes wrong — then you make another decision to correct it. That experience gave me the confidence to pick something, take action, and deal with what came after.
[7:53]
Darren: That’s very military. A lot of property investors think and analyse, but never take action. You just went for it.
Richie: Exactly. On that first day, we viewed three or four properties with Chris, the letting agent. The one I ended up buying wasn’t even one of those first ones — it was one I sourced separately afterwards.
[8:59]
Richie: I grew up in military accommodation, mostly abroad, so I’d never seen how the rental market worked. When something broke, you phoned the contractors and they came to fix it. I didn’t know about returns, rent levels, or DIY. I had to learn it all from scratch.
[9:31]
Darren: But you still decided on the property before you knew any of that.
Richie: I knew a little from Simon’s book and speaking to the agent. It was a risk, but not a gamble. I had some knowledge, had spoken to people, done a bit of online research, and watched YouTube videos.
[10:05]
Richie: This was 2015, before most of the big training companies were as prominent. Samuel Leeds wasn’t really around, Rob Moore was stepping back a bit from Progressive, and Simon Zutchi was still very active with PIN.
[10:55]
Richie: Property investment made sense. There was risk, but it felt like a calculated one.
[11:07]
Darren: So you did all of this without any formal training — just books and YouTube videos. How many more properties did you buy before deciding to train properly?
Richie: Just that first one. I bought it for £77,000. It was being repossessed, with a market value around £85,000. After a light refurb, it was revalued at £109,000 or £115,000.
[11:55]
Richie: All in, including purchase costs, I spent about £22,000–£23,000 of savings. The refinance released £27,000 — so I got all my money back plus a couple of thousand extra. That was tax-free because it was debt, equity released from the mortgage.
That was the moment I thought: there’s definitely something in this.
[12:01]
Richie: I still owned the property, I still had 10 or 15% equity, I was getting positive monthly cash flow, and I had my money back again. At that point I had to decide: do I repeat the process and buy another three-bed, or do I use the money to pay for training and learn more? That’s when I signed up for Simon Zutchi’s course.
[12:38]
Darren: I love stories like that — buying a house for free, getting cashback, and then still earning cash flow. People hear it and think, “That can’t be right, it’s not real.”
Richie: That’s exactly what I thought when I first read Simon’s book. But I did it. Not every deal is that simple, and I was lucky with my first one, but it gave me the positive experience I needed to keep going.
[13:04]
Darren: Of course, there’s always risk — you could have voids, you could be out of pocket. But in that case it worked perfectly. So what level of training did you go for with Simon?
Richie: I dipped my toe in at first. I joined a webinar where they offered a big discount if you signed up at the end, so I booked onto a three-day event and his three-day accelerator. I also signed up for the 12-month course.
[13:52]
Richie: I think I was doing one of the three-day events around the same time I refinanced that first property. I already knew the refinance was working and the figures stacked up, so the training came at the right moment. I liked Simon’s approach. He was still personally involved, still delivering training, whereas Rob Moore at Progressive was stepping back.
And I wasn’t into the flashier, Lamborghini lifestyle stuff — I preferred Simon’s more grounded style.
[14:47]
Darren: But was there a part of you that thought, “I don’t need training, I’ve already cracked this”?
Richie: A little bit. But before this I was very black and white — things were either this or that. The Army doesn’t really do personality profiling or mindset development. The training opened my eyes to personal growth, mindset, strengths and weaknesses, and how all that affects your decisions. I realised there was a lot more to learn than just buying a house.
[15:30]
Richie: My third ever purchase ended up being a 48-bed mega HMO — a tower block in Sheffield city centre. Chris, the letting agent who’d helped me at the start, had been managing that building for two years. He’d been flipping three-beds and never considered buying it. But because I’d had training, my eyes were open to bigger possibilities.
[16:05]
Darren: That’s incredible. So you went from a single three-bed to a 48-bed tower block. And you bought it with none of your own money?
Richie: Yes. I had two problems — no money, and no ability to get a mortgage that size. Brokers laughed at me when I asked. But Chris came in as a business partner. He had the experience and credibility, so lenders would take him seriously.
[16:41]
Richie: The plan at first was to buy him out after six months, once my name was on the mortgage and I had more experience. In the end we stayed partners. We’d built a friendship and worked well together.
[17:00]
Darren: Were you happy with that outcome?
Richie: (laughs) I’ve got to say yes on record, haven’t I? But genuinely, yes. We became friends, we’d already been working together for a couple of years on other properties, and it made sense to keep going.
[17:30]
Richie: So Chris came in with £100,000. My cousin, who had no property experience, came in with another £100,000 by extending his mortgage. And then we raised the rest from investors we’d met at networking events. That’s how we covered the deposit.
[18:02]
Darren: So that was about a £300,000 deposit?
Richie: Yes. The asking price was £1.8 million, but we negotiated it down to £1.5 million. The council viewed the five floors as five separate flats, so we qualified for multiple dwelling relief. That reduced stamp duty from around £180,000 to about £60,000.
[18:49]
Richie: We also had a red book valuation at £1.8 million. Our broker found a lender willing to lend against market value, not purchase price, which meant they treated the £300,000 discount as equity. That reduced the amount of actual cash we needed for the deposit.
[19:42]
Darren: Very creative.
Richie: Yes. Between the discount and the relief, we only needed £300,000–£350,000 cash, plus about another £200,000 for refurb. Altogether around £650,000.
[20:28]
Richie: And if you think about it, doing three separate three-bed to six-bed HMO conversions might cost £200,000–£300,000 each. For a similar outlay, you can do one big project with six or seven times the return.
[20:52]
Darren: Was the building empty when you bought it?
Richie: We bought it with vacant possession. The owners had had it for about 20 years, let it run down, and were filling it with students at low rents. When we bought in August, there were only six or eight tenants left. They were on their way out, so we refurbished and planned to fill it with students from the January intake.
[21:35]
Darren: So your plan was to dramatically improve the accommodation and charge a premium?
Richie: Exactly. New kitchens, new bathrooms, redecorating, and better furnishings. The old beds were wooden platforms with cheap plastic mattresses that slid around. We kept the frames, added king-size mattresses, doubled the storage space underneath, and sold it as a premium product.
[22:28]
Richie: Our USP was simple — king-size beds and the best Wi-Fi in Sheffield. We paid for a gigabyte download speed throughout the building. For students, that was huge.
[22:46]
Darren: I can see why students would love that. Did you fill it with students or need professionals too?
Richie: We didn’t fill it with students. We finished refurb in January 2020, then two months later COVID hit. At that point we were about 40–45% occupied. Then lockdowns, banks shut, couldn’t refinance, couldn’t move tenants in, and we had shared kitchens with 11 people — which didn’t fit with the rule of six.
[23:39]
Richie: It was a tough year. We had to delay paying back investors by 12 months. But we survived. Once things opened back up, we refinanced, and the gross development value was about £3.1 million. We’d doubled the value and increased annual cash flow by around £100,000.
[24:02]
Darren: Did mixing students and professionals in the same building cause problems?
Richie: We kept tenant types on separate floors. Keys were fobs that only gave access to your floor and your room. The building was solid concrete between levels, so sound wasn’t an issue. It worked fine.
[24:03]
Darren Jamieson: So, what’s the property’s status now? Do you still own it, or are you planning to sell?
Richie Miller: We still own it. We put it on a lease with a housing cooperative last year, which took the operational noise and risk off our hands. We still get rent, but we don’t have the outgoings, so it’s a more hands-off model.
[24:33]
Darren: That sounds much quieter, less stressful.
Richie: Yeah, it works really well, but the co-op fell apart at the end of last year. We’ve repossessed the building now, fixing some damage caused by the outgoing tenants, and we’re working on getting the occupancy back up. We’re also considering leasing it to a charity.
[25:08]
Darren: Interesting. I like the leasing model. Less stress, but you’re still getting a steady income.
Richie: Exactly. It frees me up to focus on other projects. And honestly, it’s quieter. Less operational risk.
[25:30]
Darren: You’ve got some other exciting ventures, too. I’ve heard you’ve been looking into self-storage.
Richie: Yes. We’ve actually converted part of the Marples building into a self-storage business. We saw a gap in the market for 24-hour access, city-centre storage. Most self-storage businesses are on the outskirts, and they’re only open during office hours.
Richie: So we set up something where you can walk to it, and you have access at any time, day or night. We invested in some high-tech stuff — app-controlled locks and doors. If someone misses a payment, they’re instantly locked out. It’s been a massive hit.
[26:10]
Darren: That’s a great idea. It’s much simpler than HMOs, right?
Richie: Yes, it’s far simpler. There’s no tenants to deal with, just their belongings. It’s a quieter business model, no tenant complaints. The margins are better too. It’s a lot easier to scale.
Richie: I spent around £40,000 setting up the self-storage facility. I don’t need to soundproof or do all the fire-resistance work between rooms like I would in an HMO. The returns are significantly better.
[26:47]
Darren: That’s fascinating. It sounds like the self-storage industry is booming right now.
Richie: It is. The UK self-storage market broke the £1 billion revenue mark last year. In the US, there’s about 8 square feet of storage space for every person. In the UK, it’s less than 1 square foot. The potential for growth here is massive.
[27:15]
Darren: That’s quite a gap. So there’s plenty of room to expand.
Richie: Exactly. It’s an emerging industry in the UK. If you can find areas that are undersupplied, it’s a great business model.
[27:37]
Darren: What’s the process of converting a building into a self-storage facility?
Richie: It’s cheaper than converting to residential. The space we turned into storage cost us about £40,000. We didn’t need to soundproof the rooms or add the same fireproofing we would for an HMO. The main investment was in the high-tech locks and app system.
[28:06]
Richie: People can access their units using an app, which is a lot more secure and efficient than using keys. Plus, if someone doesn’t pay, they’re automatically locked out — and their stuff stays secure until they pay. It’s a much more predictable, hands-off business.
[28:33]
Darren: That’s smart. I imagine it’s much less hassle than dealing with tenants.
Richie: Absolutely. The biggest headache in self-storage is maintenance, and even that is easier to manage than dealing with tenants. It’s just a much simpler business model overall.
[29:00]
Darren: So, how does this compare to HMOs in terms of profitability?
Richie: The returns on self-storage are significantly better. We’re looking at 30–40% profit margins, and that’s on larger sites. For an HMO, your profit margins are usually a bit lower. Plus, there’s more competition in the HMO space. The air’s thinner with self-storage because it’s still so new in the UK.
[29:38]
Darren: And I guess it’s easier to scale too.
Richie: Yes, exactly. You can expand self-storage relatively quickly, and the operational costs don’t go up as much as they would in an HMO. You’re still dealing with storage units, but not with the same risks or ongoing management of tenants.
[30:05]
Darren: I’m curious about the commercial conversion — is that something you’ve seen people do with storage in mind?
Richie: Not many people have really gone for that yet. There are a few, but most focus on converting offices into residential or mixed-use properties. The self-storage niche is still emerging.
[30:40]
Richie: The great thing about converting a commercial building into self-storage is that you don’t have to deal with tenants. It’s all about space. You provide a secure, easily accessible location for people to store their things, and they pay you to use it. It’s a win-win.
[31:10]
Darren: You’re really ahead of the curve on this one. So what’s next for you in terms of projects?
Richie: Well, I’m finishing up a block of 16 flats with two commercial units. I prefer focusing on one or two big deals each year. That’s my sweet spot.
Richie: The self-storage business is something I want to grow as well. It’s an expanding industry, and we’re looking to expand into other areas. In the next year or two, I want to scale it even further.
[31:45]
Darren: That’s a solid plan.
Richie: It is. And there’s always something new to learn in the process. Self-storage is a bit more predictable than property investing. It’s easy to understand the market, and the returns are stronger.
Darren Jamieson: It sounds like a fantastic model for growth. So, what are your plans for self-storage going forward?
Richie Miller: We’re expanding it — looking for more sites. Right now, the storage business is growing massively in the UK, especially as more people work from home and need storage in urban centres. We’re going to target areas with a shortage of facilities — places that don’t have the big operators yet.
[36:33]
Darren: Sounds like a huge opportunity.
Richie: It is. The market is still underserved, and if you find the right location, the returns can be far better than residential properties.
[37:00]
Darren: So how do you handle the management of multiple storage units, especially when you’re scaling?
Richie: The beauty of it is that self-storage is largely automated. We’ve set up everything to run through an app. Customers use the app to access their units, pay bills, and even lock themselves out if they miss a payment. It’s all automated, so there’s very little ongoing work needed from us.
Richie: We do have a small team for cleaning and maintenance, but otherwise, it’s a smooth operation. The beauty of the model is how little day-to-day management it requires.
[37:35]
Darren: I can see why you’re excited about the future of this business.
Richie: I’m really looking forward to growing the business. It’s scalable, easier to manage than HMOs, and the returns are significantly better. It’s a no-brainer for anyone looking for a simpler property strategy.
[38:00]
Darren: So, how does this all fit into your long-term plans?
Richie: I want to keep scaling the storage business, but I’ll also continue to look at big property deals, like the 48-bed we bought. The beauty of these larger deals is the returns are much higher than smaller properties. You don’t need to do three or four smaller deals — one big deal can give you the same results, or better.
[38:35]
Richie: The key is learning how to scale and make decisions that give you bigger returns. The more you grow, the fewer deals you need to do.
[39:00]
Darren: Absolutely. So, what advice would you give to someone starting out today?
Richie: Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. Too many people spend years researching and never take action. Pick something, commit to it, and then deal with whatever happens. It’s better to do something imperfectly than to not do anything at all.
[39:35]
Darren: That’s powerful advice.
Richie: And find a mentor. Whether you’re in property, self-storage, or any other business, having someone who’s been there before is invaluable. People who haven’t done it can’t give you the right advice.
[40:30]
Darren: Absolutely. So, for anyone listening who’s inspired by your journey and wants to learn more from you, what’s the best way to reach out?
Richie: LinkedIn is probably the best way to connect. You can also go to my website and book a call through there. My Facebook’s pretty much maxed out, but I’m always happy to connect on LinkedIn.
Darren: I’ll add your LinkedIn link and website to the podcast description for anyone who wants to reach out.
Richie: Thanks, Darren.
Darren: Richie, thank you so much for sharing your journey. From military officer to multi-property owner — it’s incredible what you’ve built, and I’m sure this episode is going to inspire a lot of listeners.
Richie: Thanks, Darren. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation today.
Darren: And thank you to everyone listening. If you want to learn more about Richie and his journey, check out the links in the description. Until next time, take care!
