Trevor James Property

05/06/2026

Fitting a wee kitchen in Edinburgh at the moment, everyone knows what a kitchen looks like so here’s a photo of the building managers dog, total belter 😊

30/05/2026

Bring your pals dog to work day! She was a star ⭐

23/04/2026

Terrible view at work this week, truly awful.

22/04/2026

Blackrock and Lloyds Bank are major culprits here, I came across this guy a while back, as a small time landlord his take on housing resonates deeply.

You wanted landlords gone. BlackRock heard you.

Every landlord who sold up in yesterday's comments…

and there were dozens….

just freed up a property for an institutional fund to buy.

Not a first-time buyer. A fund.

That's what happens when you make small-scale property investment uneconomic.

Section 24. Regulatory burden. Unpredictable benefit payments. The bloke with two buy-to-lets can't absorb that.

BlackRock can.

And they're already moving.

The people cheering this on need to understand what replaces the small landlord.

Corporate landlords don't give rent holidays during Covid. They don't keep rents below market rate for a long-term tenant. They don't fix the boiler on a Saturday because there's kids in the house and it's January.

Small landlords did that. Imperfect. Frustrated. But local. Accountable. Human.

The replacement won't be.

I know the small landlord model works because I've done it.

I bought a derelict working men's club.

Probate sale. 10,000 square feet of nothing. Split the ground floor into retail. Sold it. Used that capital to convert the upper floors into 13 flats.

Then the council called. They needed emergency accommodation. We agreed a 7-year lease. Guaranteed rent. Paid on time. Every month.

Thirteen families housed. A dead building brought back to life. A council that got units it couldn't build fast enough. And a landlord who earned a fair return for delivering it.

That deal worked because there was a lease. A guaranteed counterparty. The council removed the risk, and I stayed in the market.

Without that certainty, I'm doing the same calculation as Chris from yesterday's post.

And probably arriving at the same answer.

This is what Point 2 of my manifesto looks like in practice. Government-backed leases at fair rates.

Not a handout. A deal.

The council gets units. The landlord gets a return that makes staying rational. The tenant gets a home.

And BlackRock doesn't get another postcode.

"Just build council houses."

Fine. Build them.

But that takes decades at scale. Meanwhile, landlords with properties right now are selling this month.

The fastest way to stabilise supply isn't waiting for a building programme that hasn't started. It's keeping the existing stock in the social market by making the economics work for the people already there.

Stop punishing the providers. Or the only ones left will be the ones big enough to not need your sympathy.

31/03/2026

17/11/2025

In a hole with a tiny shovel, you can see the joy on lads face.

18/10/2025

Hate being supervised whilst working 😊

04/10/2025

Photo dump of the last couple of weeks or so, never a day the same 😊

08/07/2025

Angus in charge of the Tunes!

16/06/2025