DEC 2012/JAN 2013 |www.opp-connect.com WORDS | John Howell Coalfi eld to oilfi eld


Robert Gavin has built a successful property investment and development company which has grown even through diffi cult times and evolved in ways that he could not even have dreamt about when he was planning his future from a pit village in Yorkshire. How did he do it?


R


obert Gavin, the founder and CEO of Property Horizons, is a fellow Yorkshireman. This is


important. People who live in Yorkshire (a county in the north of England) have a reputation for speaking their minds: telling you (sometimes very bluntly) what they really think about a particular situation. This is a very rare character trait for someone who sells investment property. Yorkshiremen are also famous for


being frugal and self-suffi cient. Robert admits that he is proud of being self suffi cient. Although he now has a sizeable staff, he can do every job in the company! Robert was born and brought up in a mining village. Like almost everyone else in the village, his father was a miner and, during the great mining strike of 1984/5, this little boy was a mascot for the National Union of Mineworkers. These were tough, proud and very


practical men and some of this has clearly rubbed off on Robert. However, unlike most of the people brought up in his village, Robert’s ambition went beyond following his father down


the pit. He dreamt of a more wealthy life and he was determined to make it happen. He attended Wath Grammar School,


where he was inspired not only by the teachers but by stories of previously successful pupils including William Haigh, one time leader of the British Conservative Party. At school, he became both an


‘academic’ and an entrepreneur. His fi rst money making venture was setting up a school newspaper. Whilst still at school, he also learned to play


“At 18, he bought his fi rst house, not with family money but with his own cash and a mortgage”


Monopoly. He discovered that he not only liked making money, he liked making money from property. So, at the age of 18, he bought his


fi rst house, not with family money but with his own cash and the aid of a mortgage. It is hard to imagine how diffi cult it must have been for someone


Robert Gavin is CEO of Property Horizons Group Ltd. - www.propertyhorizons.co.uk. He can be contacted on +44 208 144 5945 or by email at robert@propertyhorizons.co.uk


aged 18 and fresh out of school to persuade a bank to lend them money to buy an investment property. That house, a 3-bedroom terraced


property, cost him £18,000. It was sold, long ago, at a substantial profi t. Like much of his later profi t, it has been reinvested in other property and, later, in growing his company. He has always pursued what he


calls “the stepping stone” approach to property investment. He buys well, keeps the cost of any renovations under control, retains any rental income and reinvests his profi ts. Of course, at this time property


investment was a profi table hobby, not a career. Robert was working as a chemical engineer and, later, a teacher, but he soon saw the potential to use his talents in a business. Robert has also always been interested in the global nature of the property markets and international


living. He has spent time living in Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Qatar. As a result, his property investment activities soon extended beyond the UK and into Spain and Bulgaria. Of course, not all of his ventures


proved successful; but he has learned from his mistakes. He remembers being particularly bruised by a project in Bulgaria – but his growing experience, straight forward approach and expanding database were building a signifi cant stream of business despite adversity. By 2007 he was generating


thousands of leads and £15,000 per week in earnings, all with very little in the way of overheads. It was then that he made the key


decision to expand his business. On the same basic premise of growth by reinvesting profi t he poured a lot of money into marketing. Of his £15,000 per week earnings,


he was spending £10,000 on internet based marketing, including a lot of “pay per click.” Of course, 2007 was (with


hindsight) perhaps not the best moment to be growing a business based on international property investments and Robert accepts that if, like many other, he had relied on borrowings he would probably not be here today. Fortunately, his step-by-step


approach, his limited overheads and his general frugal approach to business allowed him to survive. During this period of crisis in the international property industry, he has been able to grow his business to the extent that he now has a database of 120,000 international property buyers and recently generated more than £1,000,000 of sales in a single week. In 2012, his business will have made


sales of over £30,000,000. This has not come cheap. He


Northern roots | Robert grew up as a miner’s son in Yorkshire, but soon showed astounding promise as an entrepeneur


reckons that building up the database has cost him somewhere in the order of £2,000,000 but he is happy to continue


THE LAST WORD INTERVIEW | 61 Developer profi le


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