What Does It Really Take to Invest in Property as a Dentist?

What does it really take to build a property portfolio alongside a demanding dental career — and is it still worth it in today's market?

In this episode of Just4Dentists, Dr Ruth Baidoo sits down with Dr Satinder Kelley, a cosmetic and implant dentist, former practice owner and experienced property investor who has spent decades building a financial strategy that goes well beyond the dental chair.

Satinder shares an unusually honest account of his property journey — the early wins, the costly mistakes and the hard lessons that have shaped how he invests today.

In this episode Satinder covers:

• How his first Birmingham flat almost doubled in value within 18 months and what that sparked in him
• Why he now steers clear of flats and what the three levers of a successful property investment actually are
• The overseas property disaster that ended with him handing the keys back to the bank — and why he'd never buy outside the UK again
• His golden rule for property investment and the one piece of advice he'd give every newly qualified dentist
• How he balances seven properties, a building project and a clinical career simultaneously

After the interview Ruth is joined by Martin Febery (Money4Dentists) and Andrew Brown (Mortgages4Dentists) to unpack the financial strategy behind Satinder's journey, including:

• Whether buy to let is still a realistic wealth building strategy for dentists in today's market
• The tax implications of a buy and hold property strategy — including what happens to your portfolio when you die
• Why property feels safe but isn't always the smartest place to put your money
• How to balance property investment alongside pensions and other investments for a truly diversified financial plan

Whether you're a newly qualified dentist thinking about your first property purchase, an associate looking to build additional income streams, or an experienced dentist wondering whether your property strategy is actually working for you — this episode is essential listening.

Have a question, or want expert insight?
 📩 Email info@j4d.co.uk

💬 Join the Just4Dentists Facebook community to keep the conversation going: https://www.facebook.com/groups/just4dentists/

Presented by Dr Ruth Baidoo

Produced by Your Podcast Producer for the Just4Dentists team 

Additional Information:

Just4Dentists: https://j4d.co.uk/

Dr Ruth Baidoo: https://dr-ruth-dentist.com/

Your Podcast Producer: https://www.yourpodcastproducer.com/

Dr Satinder Kelly: https://heathdental.com/

Music Credits:

InPlusMusic: ‘Funk Funky Beat Music’

Raspberry Music: ‘Feel Good’

Cold_Fire: ‘Base and Claps’

Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute formal financial or legal advice. Every dentist’s career pathway and financial situation is unique; therefore, you should not rely on this content as a substitute for professional advice tailored to your specific circumstances. The value of investments can go down as well as up, and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

Transcript

Dr Ruth Baidoo 0:01

Hi everyone, I'm Ruth and welcome to Just 4Dentists. I hope you've had a wonderful week. My week's been pretty busy. Lots and lots of admin this week. It's been a crazy week of admin, but I made it through. If we haven't met before, welcome. I sit down with a range of different guests, usually dentists, and we have really insightful conversations about a variety of topics. And then we get the experts in to tell us about how it all goes. I'm really interested to talk about today's episode, which is with Dr. Satinder Kelly, who's been practicing dentistry for over 30 years. He qualified from Guy's Hospital and has built a career as a cosmetic and implant dentist with a very strong focus on patient-centered anxiety-free care. Alongside his clinical work, Satinder was the practice owner of Heath Dental, a practice in the West Midlands, and actually sold the practice in 2019 and is now clinical lead at the same place. But in addition to all of this, he's a property investor, meaning that he's had to think very carefully about leadership, financial planning, and sustainability beyond the dental chair. He's also a lifelong learner who continues to invest in his skills and his team as well. In this episode, we talk about his journey into practice ownership and how property investment became part of his wider financial strategy. Let's get into it with Dr. Satinder Kelly.

Financial Disclaimer

Dr Ruth Baidoo 1:13

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. The views expressed by myself and my guests are our own and are provided this general expert guidance and industry insight. Because every dentist's circumstances are unique, you should always seek independent advice tailored to your specific situation before making any major financial decisions.

Interview with Dr Satinder Kelly

Dr Ruth Baidoo 1:32

So, hi Sat, welcome. Thank you so much for connecting with me today. Really, really looking forward to our conversation. How are you doing today?

Dr Satinder Kelly 1:39

I'm very well, Ruth. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I'm excited about today as well.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 1:43

Brilliant, as am I. Okay, so let's get into this. At what point did you think I want to own my own practice?

Dr Satinder Kelly 1:49

My family's always been in business. My dad was always in business. I worked with my dad from about the age of seven onwards in greengrocers, fishmongers, butchers, news agents, post office, video shop, and then latterly care homes. So business was always part of our life. So for me, starting a dental practice was a no-brainer, really.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 2:11

Yeah.

Dr Satinder Kelly 2:12

The issue was trying to find somewhere. And I looked up and down the country. A colleague of mine, who's uh now head of Straumann UK, Stephen Booth, said, Sat, you've been looking for a practice for a while. There's a new village that's opening uh in a place called Dickens Heath. Why don't you go and have a look? I never heard of Dickens Heath. I had no idea where it was. So I thought we went and had a look. It was a new, new built village, brand new. It was very, very rural. There was nothing really there apart from farms. And I went and spoke to the agents on site and they said, look, we've already got a dentist. We just want one of each profession. So we want one hairdresser, one doctor. And they said, but um, yeah, things changed. So put your name down if anybody drops out or give you a call. Three days later, I had a phone call saying the dentist has dropped out. Are you interested? Wow. I packed my bags and went along, and then the rest is history, really. So it was a blank canvas we built from scratch.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 3:05

So I know that you've had a very illustrious career thus far. And you know, uh although we're talking about dentistry, there's another aspect to who you are, which is the property development side or property investment, should I say, more specifically. So I really want to talk about that. So, how did that enter into the picture for you?

Dr Satinder Kelly 3:21

Okay, so I bought my first flat in Birmingham when there weren't many flats in Birmingham at all. So Symphony Court was the first one, and I bought my flat maybe two years after qualifying. And I had it for a year and a half, and it went up by a significant amount of money. It almost doubled in value. Wow. I thought, cracker, this is easy. Wow, within a year and a half. It was just crazy. Probably not even it. I think it went up. I'm going from memory, it went up about a year, about 100,000 in that period of time. People just wanting to live in the city and there was just nothing else available. So I sold that and I moved out of the city because I was spending too much time going to bars and restaurants and clubs and not getting enough rest. So I thought I did that bit, it's time to move out. So I moved slightly further out, um, sort of within Birmingham, bought another apartment, stayed there for a year, that went up about 50,000. I thought, hell, onto something here. And then I bought three, four more across the country. So bought one in Liverpool, one in Manchester, one in London, another one in Birmingham, and rented those out. And just rented those out, and it gave me a really nice passive income. Uh and my dad had always said to me, Look, make your money work for you. Don't work for your money. And he lion was earn money while you sleep, but have integrity. That was that was the thing he said to me always. Um and that was brilliant, that worked really, really well. Lots of cash flow, lots of equity in the in the block in the boxes themselves, and then capital growth, which, as you know, in property has been pretty predictable for the past 20 years. It's not as um lucrative now because of all the government regulations and the government laws and tax laws have all changed. So the cash flow side of it now isn't as much as lucrative as it once was. So if I was buying them now, which I'm just buying one now, actually, um I'd put it through a company rather than my own personal name.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 5:26

Now, the properties that you mentioned that you bought after your second one, were you strategic about where you wanted to buy, or did you just buy just because it was what you could afford at the time? Because you mentioned major cities like Birmingham, London, Liverpool, for example. Was that a strategic move or not necessarily?

Dr Satinder Kelly 5:42

London was. London was. I bought at Canary Wharf just as they were building Canary Wharf.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 5:47

Okay.

Dr Satinder Kelly 5:48

So that was a strategic decision. But buying in London's expensive. So you you know, unless you've got a big pot of money, it's very difficult to buy more than one. Uh, whereas Liverpool and Manchester were a lot cheaper, different types of properties. The London one I've sold, and I wish I hadn't, because that would have been worth a lot more now. Um, yeah, especially in Canary Wharf. Yeah, and my brother still has one there, so we bought it at the same time. He's still got his there.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 6:13

Okay.

Dr Satinder Kelly 6:13

I sold mine and used the equity to buy the dental practice. That's why I sold it. But I wish I'd release money in different ways. But that yeah, that was the biggest earner I would have had. So, not no, not necessarily strategic. Just I just wanted major cities because my experience was living in a city and seeing the capital growth in the city.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 6:33

So, Sat, I know that you've had and currently do have a portfolio of investment properties. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Dr Satinder Kelly 6:41

Yes, of course. I've got a blend of houses, flats, and commercial units. I've learned over the especially now to try and steer clear of flats as much as possible. Um, stick to houses and commercial units.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 6:57

Any particular reason for that?

Dr Satinder Kelly 6:58

Yeah, your capital growth on your flats is slow, very, very slow. And predominantly because there's so many being built. Uh and Birmingham's a prime example. We are swamped in Birmingham. Um and also your management costs are huge because you you don't own you don't own the freehold. So you're paying leaseholder management costs. Service charges are huge, so your cash flow is limited, your equity growth is limited, and your capital growth is limited. You need all three levers really to make a property successful. So I would stick to houses now, ideally small houses, where your yield you're looking for an 8 to 10% yield, and for that at the moment, it's northeastern Scotland. Anywhere else in the UK isn't really working that well at the moment. So going forward, that would be so currently I still have seven properties, and it's still heavily, I'd say 50% of them are still apartments, which you can't it's harder to sell them as well. Housing you can flip if you want to sell. I didn't mention before I bought a property overseas as well. Don't buy a property overseas.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 8:04

And you can you go just unpack that a little bit more for me.

Dr Satinder Kelly 8:07

So I bought a um

Dr Ruth Baidoo 8:08

if you can.

Dr Satinder Kelly 8:09

Yeah, no problem. I bought um a property about 15 years ago in Duquesa, which is bypunk Marbella. Because you're not you you know the British system, you know the English system and how it works. You don't know how things work in Spain. Their tax system's different, their okay, their processes are different. I ended up having uh a squatter who didn't leave. So you end up paying everything, you're getting no rent, you're getting sued by the Spanish system. I ended up handing the keys back to the bank and so they go, you have it. So I wouldn't buy overseas again. I'd buy somewhere where I know the regulations, I know the law, I know people here who can help me if something doesn't go right. Um so yeah, I think stick to houses, small houses, um, and stick to stick to the UK for sure.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 9:03

Brilliant. So, how do you manage like all these properties and then still working clinically as a dentist?

Dr Satinder Kelly 9:09

Not easy. Not easy at all. Um, I'm not gonna lie and say it hasn't been overwhelming at times, because it has been. I have another building project as well, which we're we've just finished. We're about to sell the final house that was five units. So that's about to go. So I almost feel like I'm being freed up a little bit in the next few months, but knowing me, I'll start again.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 9:29

Okay. Um but I was about to ask you, you seem like the type of person who's got the bug that if you see something that's appealing, you're gonna buy it and then you know, work with it.

Dr Satinder Kelly 9:37

Yeah, I've I've learned a lot. I mean, you're better off getting a mentor who's done it, been there, and can intercede for you before you make the mistakes that I've made. Um, but I've made them say anybody wants to reach out to me, they can do it, can help out with that. Well, listen, you've heard it here, he's offering. Um, we've got one in Evesham now, which we've we've built five houses, we've sold four, uh, and one I'm about to rent out. In fact, I'm going there when I finish now to do a bit of decorating, to finish it all off and get it, get it out of there.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 10:10

I can tell from just talking to you now, there's a lot of planning that you've put into your career and the next steps and things of that nature. And um, I know that as dentists, I guess we assume that we're going to be working, I say forever, but you know, that we'll just keep on going forever, if that makes sense. But in your opinion, and from your experience and advice thus far, um, when it comes to like maybe life outside of dentistry, what kind of tips and tricks would you give to maybe, you know, a newly qualified dentist or someone who's maybe five to ten years in, someone like myself, really, if you will, if I put myself in in this situation, about life after clinical dentistry, what kind of advice would you give somebody? What should we be thinking about now at this point and stage, even though it's still very early on in the career?

Dr Satinder Kelly 10:55

Good question. I plan for retirement early. For a young person, I'd say definitely, definitely, definitely let your money compound in a pension. And then passive income, buy to let mortgages, buy to that properties, and never sell them. Hang on to them. Never sell them.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 11:10

Okay, noted. I'm taking mental notes right now. Um, looking back, what financial decisions do you think had the biggest long-term impact on your career?

Dr Satinder Kelly 11:20

I think if you do go into something that's outside of your comfort zone, massively outside of your comfort zone, make sure you do your due diligence first. So, as dentists, again, we earn well, thankfully. We have a lot of pressure, we work hard, but we we we earn well. Your your income's not a bottomless pit. So I've learned over the last five or six years that when you get into financial trouble, just working harder doesn't make it any easier. You've got to be smarter at that. I suppose if we have this conversation again in a year or so, Ruth, you may find I've taken on something else.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 11:54

I'm I'm almost I'm almost certain that you most definitely would have done. I've put money on it, and I'm not a betting woman, but I'd put money on it.

Dr Satinder Kelly 12:02

I'm lucky I'm married to a wife who's more conservative than I am, so she's she helps to rain me back a little bit, and I need that. That's good. It's the balance that you need. Because my dad, my dad was a risk taker and I'm a risk taker too.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 12:13

But sometimes, you know, it's proof that you know the risk sometimes does pay off, even though it might be like a high risk, but it does pay off. But it's nice that you've got that balance. That's really important. Thank you so much. I've learned a lot from this conversation. Thank you so much, Sat. Really, really appreciate it.

Dr Satinder Kelly 12:28

You're very welcome.

Dr Ruth's Reflections

Dr Satinder Kelly 12:30 Dr Ruth Baidoo 12:33

It was a really insightful conversation with Sat today. Lots of things that I'm going to be taking back home and just really thinking and pondering over. One of them being the planning. You can tell that Sat's really a planner. He's planned near enough everything. And it's not to suggest that every plan that he's put in place has gone as he expected, but what I really like is that he's really thought about things and had a very loose blueprint in place, which he's then been able to steer and guide him in different directions. So that's definitely been food for thought. So Satinder's story proves that a dental career can be a very powerful engine for building long-term wealth, especially through property. One of the things I love about this podcast is that we don't just share these stories, we also unpack what it means for your wallet.

Ask The Experts

Dr Ruth Baidoo 13:17

So, as with every episode, I'm joined by our panel of trusted experts to break down the strategy in real terms. Andrew Brown, who's the director and mortgage broker at Mortgages4Dentists, and Martin Febery, who's principal advisor at Money 4Dentists. We're looking at how to balance mortgages and business commitments whilst building income streams beyond the dental chair. Now, as a reminder, our experts are here to provide general guidance and industry insight. Hi to both of you. How are you doing?

Martin Febery 13:42

Yeah, really good, thank you.

Andrew Brown 13:43

Yeah, very well, thank you, very well. Very much enjoyed listening to Satinder, especially because talking about property, my favourite subject.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 13:50

Of course, your favorite subject, of course. It was great talking to him, very warm guy, very knowledgeable as well, very, very knowledgeable. Gave loads of little gems in the conversation, which I know that we're gonna discuss even further and unpack a little bit more. So, Andy, this is your kind of like your area of expertise. So I'm gonna direct the first question to you. So um, Sat was very honest about his early property wins, you know, him buying a flats in Birmingham that doubled in value within 18 months. But then he also warned and advised that the market has changed significantly. For a dentist today, looking at property or looking to create um an additional stream of revenue with property as passive income, is it really as easy as he made it out to be?

Andrew Brown 14:34

Well, I don't know if I took that it was that Satinder for it was easy, but um he's he's definitely got some good results. I think there's some good outcomes over his time. And it's interesting, me and Satinder have got very, very similar backgrounds to property investment. I'm originally from Grimsby and I bought my first flat in Grimsby. I then I've bought buy to let properties in Hull, in Manchester, in Wales, in various places around the country in a very similar fashion to Satinder. And some of them have done well on rental yields, some have done well on capital appreciation. I've probably never hit both really well. I think it's still a challenge for me hitting both a yield and capital appreciation. But it's interesting because we both had similar lessons learned. And I've actually sold all of mine, all of them, because I live in London and near where his flat that he regretted selling, I live on the Isle of Dogs in East London. And I felt that it became a stress. When I'm 45 now, very busy job, and then I'm trying to be the best dad I can be, the best husband I can be, and then try and add on the mix loads of buy-to-let properties with things going wrong that are miles away from your house. And I really struggled. And so a big lesson learned for me was to not do that. And I actually have now got a smaller number of properties all very, very close to me. Running my business and running the dental practice is stressful. We're responsible for a lot of things. Add into the mix your family, and it's really important that you have a work-life balance. So I do think think really carefully about where you buy a property. And even if you do buy one, do you definitely want that in your life? How are you going to fit that in? So I think that is a really key point. It's not just about making money investing in property. You've got to think about the impact of your life. And then you need to think about whether you want a yield, which do you actually want a yield if you're a dentist? You probably do when you're retired, but sometimes you're trying to maybe earn less to keep your tax down. Or do you want capital appreciation? Because I think that's a big factor at where you buy. Is it easy? Yeah, it is actually quite easy. I think your original question is it is it easy as it sounds. I think it is relatively easy to buy property. It's also easy to make mistakes. Yes. Um, and I think speaking to someone like Satinder, myself, where we've been there and got the t-shirt, we we I probably wouldn't fully agree with them about not buying flats, but I have shared a lot of the problems with flats. Um I've got a lot of dentists that bought flats in Manchester, for instance, and the redevelopment areas. Um, and there can be saturation now of investment flats. It can be tricky to remortgage them sometimes. They can be in high-rise buildings, and because of fire safety regulations, that can cause challenges, expensive legal fees. So I have come across quite a few dentists that do regret buying flats. I've had some that have bought like student pods with quite a lot of regrets as well, not always. Um, what can appear like a really good yield when someone's presenting to you isn't always the best strategy. And I think Sartender quite like purchasing a house, found that was quite solid. Families are going to stay in it for longer generally. You've got a bit more maintenance, always going to have curb appeal if you buy it in the right location. And then you've got a great chance of good appreciation and good yields. So, yeah, I think if you can get together the deposit you need, then a property investment is still something to you know seriously consider alongside pensions, investments, etc.

Martin Febery 18:03

The the one thing to add to that is I'm not entirely sure we should call it passive income anymore. Um, it doesn't just happen in the background. It does involve quite a bit of thinking and work and planning. Nothing wrong with that, but yeah, kind of don't kid yourself that it's just going to happen.

Andrew Brown 18:19

Yeah, he he's an entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur, and comes from a family of entrepreneurs. It's been in his blood. He talked about when he was growing up the different businesses his dad run, how he helped out. I've got a bit of that in my blood as well for what my dad did. My dad was a teacher, but he also had Saturday jobs, evening jobs, he ran bridge club. There was there were different things that he was doing. And I think it does make you almost like it's a hobby, not necessarily trying to make money. And I think me and Satinder are similar. In that respect, I think we enjoy doing it. And you do have to enjoy doing it because there's the good times and the bad times. It's not necessarily just about making money. So I think you've got to be in that right mindset, you've got to be a bit um business orientated, entrepreneur-oriented, understand the numbers. You know, it's very easy once you get a buy to let you can get into sort of renovations, refurbishments. You could end into building new builds. Um, I've been involved in schemes where we've built nine flats. It should be a bit of a passion as well, I think. You've got to have some desire to want to own property and be involved and something that you enjoy doing.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 19:27

Definitely. One other thing that Satinder touched on was his golden rule, in essence, which is to never sell. So I want to know from I guess both of you, if you can bring some input into this. What are the tax and requirement implications of that buy and hold strategy for dentists and long-term wealth?

Martin Febery 19:43

So, you know, it can work brilliantly, but it needs to be planned. So you're building the equity, the property is hopefully appreciating as well. The rental income can cover the debt, but you could reach retirement with a big portfolio and a big pile of debt. Um, so there's a couple of kind of ways to look at it. The one is that you're building up a capital gain. That's not that's not necessarily a bad thing in that you are creating a gain and you are paying tax on that gain. But it you do have to look at the planning and work out where you want it to be and how you want it to be dealt with. The other part of it is inheritance tax. So if you pass away, capital gains tax effectively disappears and inheritance tax uh replaces it. And there's no shelter for property. So unlike pensions currently, it doesn't last much longer, but there's not so much planning you can do around property. So it really just does for all of the tax come down to planning, making sure it's a conscious strategy to retain rather than you know just leaving it in the background because it's doing its job. You need to think about the implications, the long-term strategy, and balance the property with your pensions and investments and how you want to fund your retirement. Yeah.

Andrew Brown 21:04

And so Satinder's like, well, cool, he's a for a bred buy-to-let investor, right? So he is gung ho, like, I'm gonna buy a property, you get your first one, you maybe do it up, rent it out, let it go up, remortgage, release equity, buy another one. And that is what the true sort of model plan is for a property developer and a property investor, especially if it was your full-time job. That is what you do, you keep leveraging up, buy more property, hope property prices increase, and over time you're gonna have a bigger yield because you've got a bigger portfolio. So it's definitely a strategy. Whether that's a strategy for everyone, that's you've got to ask yourself your question. There's a lot of risk that comes with that because you've got more properties. Um, the regime has changed owning a property now, not just negatively taxed, but there's also, you know, EPC certificates need to be in place. You need to have annual gas safety checks. There's a number of responsibilities. You've got the build insurance, the content insurance, the tenancy agreements, what you do with a tenant's deposit. So there's quite a lot to being a landlord, and the more properties you have, the more time it consumes.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 22:14

Yeah.

Andrew Brown 22:15

So I think you have to think really carefully. Like he's managed to do it, Satinder, but I bet you he's worked really, really hard to run his business and to do the buy-to-lets. Then something probably gives somewhere in your life to do that. Because yeah, it's really challenging to do. But it's definitely a legitimate strategy. And I think the opposite to that is almost paying your own mortgage off by age 50. You say, have you really made your money work? It's great that you're mortgage free, but you couldn't build up three or four properties by now. And that's the opposite strategy. And I'm not saying either is wrong. There could be something in the middle. It depends on your personality, what time you've got, and your attitude to risk as to how brave you want to be to try and get where you want to be in the future.

Martin Febery 22:59

And a and a life plan as well. To take it to an extreme, if you have someone with no children or unmarried with no children, let's go right to the extreme. You've built up this portfolio of housing that's creating you a good income. But you are going to slip your mortal coil, leaving behind a great big lump of money that doesn't necessarily have the greatest use. You if you own a property, you can't just sell the chimney. So liquidity has an effect. And it's just about putting that life plan in place to make sure that the properties you own suit your life journey. So that might mean selling as you go along. It might mean selling after you retire or selling down over some time. But you just got to make sure all of it fits the way you want your life to go, not just blindly put together as big a portfolio as possible without a real goal.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 23:55

I think that's so insightful. And it's it's so insightful. And I'm saying this as someone in that situation, but at the same time, you're also like planning for the future. You're like, well, you don't know what the future holds. So you want to kind of plan ahead and have full capacity to do that, but at the same time, still being realistic with where you're at right now, so that you kind of like don't bite off more than you can choose. So it's trust trying to keep that balance basically and having some sort of like projections for how the future might be, and then taking the necessary steps as you see fit. So off the back of oh, what were you gonna say?

Andrew Brown 24:26

I was gonna say, yeah, you don't want any regrets. I've got a couple of regrets. I'm looking out my window now of my house, and there's two doors down about 10 years ago, I could have bought a house. I even have my offer accepted. I got the mortgage in principle, um, but I was really stretching myself at the time to do it. And I I pulled out, and it's been pretty hard to take that it's doubled in value. Why did I not like why did I not do it? So, yeah, I did ultimately I was too risk averse at that time. I was a bit scared. So it's quite multifaceted this stuff. That there's so many things that kind of factor into making the decision that it is very personal and very bespoke and each individual has to kind of talk to their family and work out what's right for us.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 25:12

All right, so property is often seen as a safe option, but what should dentists really consider before using property as part of their financial strategy?

Martin Febery 25:20

We we've said before, we like bricks and mortar stuff that you can poke and push and stub your toe on. Um it feels safe because it's physical, so you can see it and touch it, but it's also illiquid. Um, there's a high cost of entry effectively, and subject to the same market swings as everything else. Because properties aren't listed like stocks and shares, we don't see the movement as much, and it does make us feel a bit better about it. But really, so the key question around this stuff is what you need the money to do and when do you need it? So for a comparatively or relatively short-term income, the rental will work. If you focus on long-term growth or retirement income, you may be better served by pensions or ISA, where you've got tax relief, liquidity, there's lower admin and simpler to look after. But it's about working out which fits for you because property can really can be an opportunity, and probably most importantly, for people that are going to be involved, they will generally understand it better. So property really can be part of a plan, but it shouldn't be the whole plan. Diversification is absolutely crucial, and you should really consciously go into things like this and just think how is this going to fit my future?

Dr Ruth Baidoo 26:41

Brilliant. Thank you so much, guys, for helping us just you know unpack Satinda's story and all the lessons and gems that we took from that as well. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Andrew Brown 26:49

No problem.

Martin Febery 26:50

You're welcome.

Dr Ruth Baidoo 26:52

Okay, so as we come to a close, let's draw up the main financial insights from today's discussion that might be useful if you're facing similar choices yourself. Takeaway number one, property requires responsibility. Yes, property can be a passive form of income, but if you've got properties to manage in your portfolio, have you got the time and the capacity to do that, or do you need to outsource that job to somebody else? Takeaway number two, be intentional and put a plan together on how you intend to utilise and protect the equity gain through properties. Takeaway number three, property should support your life plan. In Satinder's case, property has worked best as part of a broader financial plan in addition to pensions and other investments. Think about doing the same. Many thanks again to Dr. Satinder Kelly for sharing such honest insight into building a long-term career that balances clinical work, business ownership, and property investment. And thanks again to my financial experts Andrew Brown and Martin Febery. Now, if this episode has made you think differently about your own future, whether that's ownership, investment, or just planning ahead more intentionally, you don't have to figure it out alone. You can email me directly with your questions or ideas for future episodes at ruth@j4d.co.uk. And you can also join the Just4Dentists Facebook community group to keep the conversation going with other dentists navigating similar decisions. You'll find show notes and extra resources from today's conversation on the Just for Dentist website. And if you're finding value in this podcast, make sure you're subscribed. And if you can, leave a quick rating or review to help other dentists discover it too. Can't wait to talk to you in the next episode. Bye. You've been listening to Just4 Dentists, presented by me, Dr. Ruth Baidoo. Just 4 Dentists is brought to you by the Just4 Dentists team, experts who are proud to provide dental professionals with the right insights to navigate the financial and business decisions dental school didn't teach us. For more resources, insights, and tools to help you get the most out of your career, head over to www.j4d.co.uk