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About us
Bought my first house at 19. Lived in the top bedroom while I refurbished it.
I'm James Coupland, founder of James Property.
I didn't come from money. I came to Hull to study at the University of Hull and never really left. At 19, while most of my mates were spending their student loans, I bought my first property: a run-down terrace that nobody else wanted.
That's where Kush comes in. At the start, we didn't have the budget to buy a house and rent somewhere else, so we lived on site. Every HMO we bought, Kush and I moved into the top bedroom while the rest of the house was ripped out around us. Dust in the kettle. Plasterboard in the hallway. Tenants moving in downstairs while we were still painting upstairs.
“When your own bed is inside the deal, you learn how a property really works.”
It wasn't glamorous, but it taught me something no course ever could. Every cost. Every mistake. Every lesson.
And I made plenty of them. I overpaid on a refurb, trusted the wrong tradesman and got planning wrong. Every one of those mistakes cost me money at the time. Now they save my students thousands.
Twelve years on, I'm 31 and I've built a portfolio across HMOs, social housing, buy-to-let and serviced accommodation in Hull and East Yorkshire, one of the highest-yielding areas in the country. HU5, where I still invest, sits in the top five postcodes in England for yield.
That's why we built James Property Auctions. We've bought at auction ourselves, watching the clock like every other bidder, so we know both sides of the hammer. Now we run the auction we always wanted: free for sellers, clear for buyers, with no chain and no surprises.
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