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LevelLouie

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djbmc
djbmc

Is he a great gay?

Esquilax
Esquilax

Woke up as a quadriplegic this morning, but I STILL got out of bed and went for a 24k run On des graindin TENG

Ape
Ape

Get your money up by all means. But the cleansing of your soul means so much more.

nemesis Newbie

nemesis

Posted
Posted

Anyone know or heard of this Charles Gordon guy?

cc.jpg

I had the great pleasure to meet a South London lad who has walked on both sides of the street. Charles Gordon is an inspirational man who has worked hard and smart to achieve the success he now enjoys today.

Charles turned up at our Chelmsford offices in a chauffeur driven Bentley. I could smell the leather from our second floor window! Charles was dressed immaculately and he had good reason to smile.

I enjoyed my time with Charles and found him to be very interesting, intelligent and above all welcoming. He is a down to earth guy who you cannot help but like. We laughed and joked about life before we ran our interview.

Multi-millionaire Charles Gordon has partied hard with P-Diddy and worked harder amassing a fortune through property development, but as a teenager he almost turned instead to a life of crime. Long before the Lamborghinis and Aston Martins came along, he was forced to consider a job at Burger King whilst his peers tried to encourage him to steal car radios just to get by.

The businessman, who made his first million aged just 21 was labelled as unemployable at school and surrounded by the police sirens and gun culture of a run-down South London estate, almost joined a gang to get rich quick or die trying.

Here is what I asked Charles.

What was your childhood like?

My dad’s Jamaican and my mum’s from the Bahamas. How I would summarize it is that it takes extremes. The Jamaican side of me is extreme in one way and the Bahamian side of me is extreme in another way.

I remember when I was younger coming home one day on the bus with my mum and we were having a conversation and I asked my mum, “Which half of me is Bahamian and which half of me is Jamaican”? She said to me “you see the ignorance side of you that loses its temper, that gets angry, that breaks things and wants to beat a person up when they upset you, that’s the Jamaican half. You see the diplomatic side, the negotiator, want to reason it out and needs to understand everything, that’s your Bahamian side of you”.

What was your first opportunity, your first taste that set you on your road?

I knew a bit about property and my dad was in the property industry at the time. But we didn’t get on, we were like two bulls in a pen and it wasn’t going to happen. I’d only ever had one job in my life and that’s was in a sports shop selling trainers, but I was the best trainer salesman there. I got sacked from there about three times but they had to keep bringing me back because I was the best salesman in the store.

I remember there was a guy who at time had a Porsche 944 and I asked him how he got it. He answered me saying that he was in property and I asked him how it worked. He basically said that what you need to do is buy houses and sell them on and I looked at it and thought that it can’t be too complicated! He advised me that I needed to look into buying property that is cheaper than it is actually worth.

At the time I found a property for £43,000 but it was valued for £55,000 and then you got to find a buyer. I found a friend of mine, that at the time the mortgages were 95%. So what I basically did was, found a buyer for the property, went back to them a week later and said I’ve got a property. I then went to an estate agent and said I need something that someone wants to buy quickly as they were in a hurry so they found me a property.

I negotiated the deal and went back to this guy and said that I’ve this property available for £55,000, I’ve got a buyer and they are ready to go. He then went away, did the rest of the deal with solicitors.

That deal made about £10,000 and he paid me £1,600 commission. I then used that £1,600 to open up a letting agency. That £1,600 got me the signs, desks and chairs. It was rough and I was there for a year and a half.

At that time letting agencies were roughly charging £1,000 to rent properties. We undercut everyone on fees. £200 was nothing to other agencies, but to me it was big money. We worked on providing an excellent service and we built up a client base offering them fees they could not refuse. As a direct result, we monopolized the market.

Is it true you made your first £1 million before you were 21 years old, is there any truth in that?

I started in the property industry when I was 19 years old. I was negotiating with the contractors and had no money to pay for the solicitors. When I called the solicitors I used to say I was a trainee solicitor working for Charles Gordon Esquire but I managed to negotiate the lease myself.

The way I saw it was I had nothing to lose and if it went wrong what were they going to do, take away the lease? I didn’t really care, I just wanted to get in there and make it work. When I was negotiating with the agents, I asked what we can get away with and I ended up getting a good deal, I got 6 months rent free and negotiated a 5 year lease.

The way I saw it was I had 6 months to make it work and make some money, if it didn’t work I would just pack it in. It was a case of taking that leap of faith and it worked out alright.

What has been the biggest challenge you have had to face?

Business is glorified gambling. There was a particular situation I remember really clearly where we were dealing in management property and we were turning over a lot of money which necessarily wasn’t our money. A family member came to me and wanted to borrow some money, they needed £100,000 to make a deal. The deal was giving them the £100,000 on Thursday and I would get it back on Tuesday.

Come Tuesday phone calls weren’t getting answered etc and the problem was the £100,000 wasn’t my money. I still had £50,000 that I needed to pay out which I didn’t have! I then worked all hours to earn the £50,000 back and pay everyone. I wasn’t going to give up. It only made me stronger and wiser. I then made a rule of thumb, don’t lend people money.

What does your business interest consist of now?

The basic businesses for me is property, we have quite an extensive property portfolio now, built up over the years. What we do is buy a 5 bedroom house, convert it into flats and rent it all out.

What this did for us is it created an extensive portfolio. I still have the estate agents, which has about 15-20 people working in there now. The overall objective is we have the estate agency side which keeps all the property rented, as well as managing other people’s property. We have a management section and a letting section.

I’ve been in the music industry for about 6 years now. The record label is separate and is called Genetic; we are building it up from the grass roots. We currently have four bands on the record label, which we are working on and are looking to bring out this year.

What are the three things that have contributed to your success?

I can sum it up, I don’t do failure, and I’m not having it, not for a second. My take on life is if it can be done, I can do it and I’m not going to stop until I get it done. In life it’s not that people don’t have the ability to do it, its just they give up. That’s where I’m different and I don’t stop till I win.

What do you do with something that isn’t making money but you’re getting it to a stage where you believe its going to work?

90% of the population in the world is negative. That 90% don’t believe they can do it, but that 10% believe they can and that 10% are the people that are successful.

People will tell you that it won’t work. When it comes down to a business of any description, there is a point where you have to draw a line where you have to say, ‘Well is it working for me or isn’t it working for me and that to me is a learning curve. What I would look at now is simply this - what is my end goal and what are my objectives? Forget what everyone else says, they don’t get it. What you have to do is look at your market and what you have to do.

Tell me about your book ‘The Secret of Empowerment’...

The objective behind the book is that I frequently get asked questions on how I do it, etc and I don’t have the time to answer all the questions. So I wanted to write it all down so they’ve got a rough guide of the principles I used that made me successful. Basic things that is basic to all people.

What would your advice be in starting up a business?

You have to believe. Once you believe, you can do it. As soon as you lose that belief in what you can and cannot do, your team and the people around you lose that belief as well. The key for everything is belief and you have to go at everything whole heartedly. Research, make sure there’s substance and make sure there’s a solid venture in your proposition.

What would be your ultimate end game?

I honestly haven’t thought about it. My overall objective is to win. In short term, the legacy will be left in victory and if anyone asked how or what I did it will be ‘He smashed it’.

Great interview Charles. From all the team at Raw Business we wish you every continued success with your entrepreneurial journey.

i know charles gordon..... he used to deal with su ellise from mysteeeq... he owns credence estate agents......he used to own an aston and before that a ferrari, always had nice cars

hmmm.... always thought his dad set him up in the property game.... his dad is a big face in Brixton, had an estate agents for years.... Done bird for money laundering, when the feds raided his estate agents he had £500,000 in the safe....... a lot of the Jamaican roadmen bought properties through him...really nice and humble man

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Badman Newbie

Badman

Posted
Posted

How much typically do you need to put down a deposit for a say 2-3 bedroom house?

bout 10% of the value.

but say u want a house 300k, u have the required 10% deposit (30k)

Ur salary will need to be about 52k (or 60k total of u n ur partner if in joint names) to take a mortgage on the 270k.

you'll need more than 10%, more like 30%

depends where you go. My company does min 10% (one of the main banks), but you dont get preferential rates until you start to get 30-40% deposit

Does your company expect people to have spare 100k cash lying around if they want a 300k yard? I know probably people going for 300k yards are NOT first time buyers but lets assume they are?

what initiatives do you offer first time buyers who want a yard for that price.

I want a nice first house CAN A N*GGA DREAM?!

p.s this is purely hypothetical I got no spare P

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Flex Newbie

Flex

Posted
Posted

How much typically do you need to put down a deposit for a say 2-3 bedroom house?

bout 10% of the value.

but say u want a house 300k, u have the required 10% deposit (30k)

Ur salary will need to be about 52k (or 60k total of u n ur partner if in joint names) to take a mortgage on the 270k.

you'll need more than 10%, more like 30%

depends where you go. My company does min 10% (one of the main banks), but you dont get preferential rates until you start to get 30-40% deposit

Does your company expect people to have spare 100k cash lying around if they want a 300k yard? I know probably people going for 300k yards are NOT first time buyers but lets assume they are?

what initiatives do you offer first time buyers who want a yard for that price.

I want a nice first house CAN A N*GGA DREAM?!

p.s this is purely hypothetical I got no spare P

not at all bro. you would need a minimum of 30k but obv salary would need to be high. Allot of its down to regulation. If we were giving out mortgages now that ppl could just afford, a few years down the line we'd end up in another recession when the base rate starts to increase cah ppl cant afford the increase.

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Afroman Newbie

Afroman

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Posted

LOL @ thinking building a yard in africa is that straight forward as dropping10bags and done

If you aint monitoring the development of the yard yourself (NOT FAMILY)..Then boy! you will get taken for season meal ticket...

speaking from family experience.

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