Julia Matthews, a part-time marketing professional from Wiltshire, joined Platinum Property Partners in March 2017 after she and her husband, Philip, heard about the franchise twice in one week from an old friend and colleague. Philip, an IT Consultant, felt like this would be a good way of providing them with a comfortable standard of living in retirement.

In her first diary instalment, Julia tells us why they joined Platinum and their goals for the future.

“When I first heard about Platinum from an old friend, who I hadn’t seen for years, she kept referring to ‘PPP’. It set alarm bells ringing at first because it sounded like a property investment company we’d been involved in some 15 years ago which didn’t go well. But when Philip also heard about the company again that same week, we knew it had to be different company and one worth investigating.

While we weren’t looking for anything specific at the time, it did appeal to Philip as a way of providing us with a good standard of living in retirement, which was something he was concerned about now that we are in our mid-50s.

We’d had some experience in property investment over the years, in terms of purchasing and managing buy-to-lets but also buying properties, refurbishing them and selling them on and I have always loved doing the interiors. We were also very interested in all that our friends, Gail and Andrew, had achieved over the last five years and wanted to know more about this HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) model they were following with Platinum.

We couldn’t make the next Discovery Day at the time and wanted to move fast. So after a four hour lunch with Gail and Andrew talking about nothing except Platinum Property Partners, the model and how it worked, we asked to meet with another franchise partner, who is also part of the recruitment team, Paul Watson.

Philip’s sole aim during the meeting was to get Paul to convince him why we should pay the franchise fee rather than do it on our own. Within 15 minutes, Paul had won us over with a simple example of how one extra bedroom would cover the cost and more over the term of the franchise. We then met up with a few more franchise partners, looked at some of their properties and signed up.

For us, this will provide us with more choices in our life. We both like being busy and we both like our jobs and will continue to work for as long as we can or want to. But joining Platinum Property Partners means that if we were forced to retire for example, we’d still be able to enjoy a comfortable life. We also have two children, young men aged 18 and 20, who are both pursuing careers in music and we’ll be able to continue supporting them on this uncertain career path.

On a personal level, it’s also a case of personal growth. When your children get to an age that ours are, you can see yourself easily going down the ‘pipe and slippers’ route. But we decided to take on a new project and learn new skills. It feels like a safe investment, but also a really social one where we will get to meet lots of new people.

As I only work part-time and for myself, I am going to be the most involved at this stage, with Philip joining me whenever he can. Our aim is to buy two properties a year until we reach five or six, and then I may consider giving up my work. But Philip loves his job and sees himself continuing to work for another decade yet!”