Tom Brindle sold his last Salford flat in 2019 and never looked back. The former quantity surveyor now controls a £30 million portfolio of small multi-let warehouses ringing the M60, let to everyone from kitchen fitters to a drone repair firm.
As 220,000 rental homes head for the exit, Brindle argues industrial property investment is where fleeing buy-to-let money should go. He explains the £400,000 void that nearly broke him, and why he will never let to a single tenant again.
You started in residential. What changed?
Section 24 changed. I had nine flats in Salford and watched my net income shrink every year while the workload stayed the same.
Meanwhile a mate had a scruffy shed in Trafford Park on a full repairing and insuring lease. His tenant fixed the roof, paid the insurance and never rang him. I sold the flats between 2016 and 2019 and bought my first estate of six units in Oldham.
Why small warehouses specifically?
Nobody builds them any more. Developers want big logistics boxes, so the stock of 1,500 to 8,000 square foot units is shrinking while every electrician, gym operator and online seller in Manchester wants one.
Scarcity plus sticky tenants equals pricing power. My average rent has gone from £6.50 to £9.75 per square foot in six years, he says. Vacancy across the portfolio is under 4 per cent.
Your whole portfolio sits in a limited company. Many readers weighing sole trader against limited company structures will ask why.
At this scale it is not a debate. Full interest deductibility, profits reinvested at corporation tax rates, and the banks prefer lending to a clean corporate structure with proper accounts.
What is the biggest mistake you have made?
In 2021 I broke my own rule and bought a single-let warehouse in Rochdale. One building, one tenant, one fat rent cheque. The tenant went into administration eight months later.
Fourteen months void, empty rates, security, repairs and lost rent cost me around £400,000, he claims. Multi-let means one failure costs you a unit, not an estate. Never again.
Commercial has its own regulation coming. Worried?
The EPC deadlines are real and half the small industrial stock in the North West will need work. I see that as a buying filter, not a threat.
I buy tired estates cheaply from owners who will not fund the upgrades, do the roofs and LED lighting anyway, and let refurbished units at a premium.
What is next?
Another £10 million of assets by 2028, focused on last-mile locations inside the M60. Electric vehicle fleets need charging-capable units and almost none exist. I am fitting out two estates now.
What would you tell a buy-to-let landlord thinking of switching?
Do not romanticise it. Voids are longer, agents matter more and you must understand leases properly.
But run the numbers on a multi-let estate against a portfolio of flats and the argument makes itself. My tenants repair their own roofs. Try that with a buy-to-let.
