Series: The Millennial Who Built A £2.5M Property Portfolio After Losing His Job During The Pandemic

In recent decades we’ve seen an influx of GenZs and Millennials forgoing the normalcy and security of a 9-5 in pursuit of becoming their own bosses. For 29-year-old Alfred Dzadey it was losing his job during the coronavirus pandemic that pushed him further into the arms of entrepreneurship.

Formerly a contracting project manager at Jaguar Land Rover, Dzadey took a leap of faith and delved head-first into the world of property investment and development.

Since his leap - he’s won the ‘new property investor of the year (2021)’, at the Property Investor Awards and built a £2.5million property profile.

One could argue that the pandemic, which plunged the UK and many others into a series of national lockdowns, was what he needed to make his dreams a reality.

He initially got interested in property investment at the age of 22, taking inspiration from the likes of property giants, Grant Cardone and Rob Moore.

Despite having an aerospace engineering background and contractor project management experience, he’d always felt getting into property would be his legacy.

This desire to carve out his dream life led him to launch his property business ‘Real Property Ventures’ in 2018, which specializes in providing affordable, luxury co-living accommodations for students and supporting investors and professionals.

Since the launch, he has bought 6 properties within the Coventry area including one run-down home that he purchased for £270,000 before renovating the property into a seven-bedroom luxury student accommodation.

The accommodation has now been valued at £500k, with residents paying between £650 to £750 per month for a studio room and £550 for a double room.

Rooms are kitted out with 32in televisions, ample storage space, an en-suite, gold accents and plush beds with grey, turquoise and muted tones in the colour scheme. There is also a shared communal space in the property and three of the rooms have their own kitchenette facility.

Despite not having money to begin his journey and no support from financial support from parents, Alfred didn’t let this barrier stop him but instead he looked to private investors and people online to support his journey and to date, Alfred has managed to raise £1.1 million.

Q. Young people seem to be really killing it in the property space at the moment?

Alfred: I didn’t get the opportunity to be exposed to all this information when I was much younger and if I did, I would definitely be in a completely different space now.

While I think early exposure is good I also think it can be a bit dangerous because in this day and age if you are young and you see someone build an empire, you might start to compare yourself and make decisions you'll regret. But on the other hand if you're able to build something successful outside of getting a formal education in universities, why not, you don’t have to go to university, university is an option, same way creating a business is an option.

Q: What would you say was one of the most really difficult points in your journey to getting this property?

Alfred: The difficult bit from the beginning was the knowledge gap I had on how to thrive in property, trying to get the information, learn it, and then put it together and make it happen. I would say that was the first challenge, but once you get knowledgeable the question then moves onto 'how do I get the capital to get into property.'

So that was the next challenge, I had to ask myself 'can I go out there and raise funds?' It’s very hard to come across as confident when it’s still the early days as you are trying to learn on the job as a newbie, and you're surrounded by experienced people who all know what they are doing and have better relationships with these agents, it's hard.

To summarize, getting an education was one, money raising was another challenge and finding a good property investment opportunity to actually do the deal was another.

Q. What made you want to document your property investment journey on YouTube channel and were you surprised by people’s responses?

Alfred: I had seen the success of others and what it brought to them in terms of documenting their journey - so seeing other people document their journey on social media platforms drove me to want to do it more and take it more seriously.

My mentors all told me 'you need to put yourself out there' and I understood that because in this property world - it's hard to get in as it all depends on what strategy you are using. In my case the strategy I wanted to do was High barrier to entry, which meant I need to have enough capital, but I didn’t have the capital so I needed to increase my reach and influence, so by increasing my reach using social media that gave me more opportunity to raise capital from other people.'

So for me documenting everything was a plus, and it became even more important during the Covid period when everything got shut down and obviously we couldn’t meet people no more, so I was forced to be even more present in the social media and be more active and having conservations on zoom calls,

Luckily enough I kind of already built some sort of traction before Covid happened and it was just a matter of building from it.

I’ve raise 1.1 million now in total and a good 80% of that was from people I’ve never met, we’ve interacted through social media, we’ve had zoom calls and signed loan agreements to secure the money borrowed.

While social media has helped me to raise funds I believe my documenting has also indirectly inspired people to embark in this property journey.