Lloyd's story

It takes but one person, one moment, one conviction, to start a ripple of change and if you stay true to your principles, you have confidence, conviction, purpose, values – in other words, we all have a future. – Donna Brazile, Mike Kiepper

From a very young age I was always interested in buildings and particularly older buildings. I spent most of my childhood drawing and designing houses and often built them out of Lego. I wanted to be an architect but after doing some work experience, I realised that this required a more technical mind. I chose to study art, history and English for A-level and not knowing what I wanted to do as a career, decided to do a history degree.

Originally from North Lincolnshire I came to Reading University for my studies. I wanted to experience living in the South of England and liked the campus at Reading. When it came to finding private accommodation at the end of my first year with a group of friends, I was shocked by what was on offer – damp and dingy houses with very dated interiors! The parents of a friend of mine had decided to buy a property for him to live in with his friends as an investment and this gave me the idea of trying to buy a house rather than renting. I was fortunate in that my grandfather had given me some money which was enough for a deposit so in 1993 I bought my first house at the age of 19.

My brother was at Nottingham University and he also bought a property at the end of his first year. After graduating in 1997 and starting my first job I bought a second property in Reading jointly with my brother and this was the start of our partnership and the birth of Turner Property.

Over the next few years we gradually acquired more houses taking advantage of rising house prices and high-risk back street mortgage lending! Our aim was to provide a high standard of accommodation close to the university campus and we quickly acquired a good reputation in the Reading University student community.

In 2006 and 2007 we expanded our portfolio of properties quite considerably and in 2008 I decided to dedicate all my time to the business and give up my day job in international sales. From then I worked as a full-time landlord and spent my time managing our existing properties as well as expanding the portfolio. On the back of his success with his fund Pelham Capital in London, my brother was able to finance this growth. We focused on acquiring run down properties so that they could be refurbished to our preferred specification. Over the past 5 years I have enjoyed taking on much larger building projects and have also built up our own workforce of highly skilled tradesmen.

Today I focus my time on expanding the portfolio and working on the construction side of our business. This has enabled me to become the architect that I always wanted to be. I am proud of the buildings that we have completed and we have earned a good reputation with local conservationists for some of our recent heritage sensitive developments.

"I have had the pleasure for several years in providing property advice to Turner Property, primarily providing valuations as their portfolio continues to expand. My overriding observation is quite how differently they operate in comparison with other landlords. They very clearly have a passion for quality and conservation as well as an exacting eye to detail. The end product that they produce once they have refurbished their properties - which applies to almost their entire portfolio is without doubt a ‘cut above the rest’. What is also abundantly clear is their personal and highly professional approach which I see every time I inspect one of their properties. "