In our pursuit of happiness, three aspirations stand out universally:
Spending quality time with loved ones, traveling the world to explore diverse cultures and giving back to society.
For many, these seem like distant wishes trapped behind the bars of a 9-to-5 grind.
But one man achieved it all by 33, attaining financial freedom via an unconventional, little-known path: UK property investing.
Meet Daniel Sim – A Singaporean who went from juggling long hours in public service to building a multi-million dollar property empire across the Atlantic…
While generating a substantial passive income that allows him to live life on his own terms.
So, How did he do it?
Daniel’s journey is as inspiring as it is practical.
He started with a simple desire – to spend more time with his family and escape the stress of the corporate world.
Thus, he explored various investment options, from stocks to bonds, but nothing offered the security, peace of mind, and time freedom he craved.
That’s when he stumbled upon property investing.
A Bumpy Start
Like most Singaporean property investors, he started investing in Singapore properties via a group buy deal, because it was expensive.
Spoiler alert: It tanked.
Not only was the property depreciating in value over the last 10 years due to its price being inflated by the developer, he was unable to sell or rent the property out.
Then he discovered UK property investing, and got an absolute shock of his life.
Here’s why the UK proved to be a game-changer for Daniel
Freehold properties there were $50k- $100k SGD– an unimaginable amount that couldn’t he couldn’t even use to purchase half a HDB…
much less a private property for investment that could go up to at least a million dollars.
Daniel got so interested that he dived into studying the market, eventually cracking the code on how to remotely invest in properties there.
- An end-to-end system of sourcing, refurbishing & renting out UK properties
- Identifying good units at UK’s hottest property locations that gave a much higher yield than Singapore properties.
- Risk management strategies to protect against investment risks even during recessions, rising interest rate environments and exchange rate fluctuations.
- Finding trustworthy people on the ground to help him manage his properties, without ever having to step foot into the UK.
Scaling His Portfolio At An Explosive Rate
Ever since he started out in 2013, he built a portfolio of over 80 property units across 25 properties.
Its massive growth was due to:
- An ease of finding tenants: UK had a strong rental culture where 30-40% of residents rent houses. His system he developed also helped him source properties in areas where occupancy levels were near 100%
- An extremely low starting capital required: Daniel’s 1st property was a 12 bed apartment, which he purchased for only around ~$141k SGD.
- Investor friendly regulations: There were no expensive stamp duties unlike in Singapore, & certain loan regulations allowed him to enjoy positive cash flows in as quickly as 6 months!
- Finding a trusted team on the ground to help him manage his properties, so he only needed to spend 1 hour every week to do any admin related things for his properties.
By 2017 in just 5 years, he had acquired his 6th property (excluding a flip he made on one of them), enjoying a monthly passive income of 7800 pounds ($13,294.20 SGD).
That amount snowballed as he continued accumulating properties, allowing him to comfortably pay off expenses as well as support his 3 kids.
The investments also had a meaningful aspect to them, when he used strategies like social housing to provide homes for vulnerable tenants like the homeless.
This was a win-win strategy where the social enterprises pay the rent for these houses and sign long term contracts, minimizing void periods & ensuring rentals are paid on time.
The Transformative Effect Of His Success
In just 5 years since his 1st UK property investment, Daniel had gained the financial capacity to leave his full-time job.
He now has a lot of free time to himself for traveling & spending time with his kids.
While Daniel was someone who faced immense success, not everyone was so fortunate. Daniel himself had a friend who lost over $200k in bad property investments.
Despite that, he was a very private person, and never imagined sharing publicly about his proven systems. That was when someone asked him how many more people he was willing to see making bad financial mistakes, before he was willing to share his knowledge with them.
It awoke a fire in him to empower others with the same freedom he’d found, causing him to start coaching others for free on remote UK property investing as well.
Daniel’s journey isn’t just about escaping the 9-to-5. It’s about crafting a life filled with adventure, a lasting legacy, and the freedom to truly be present for the people who matter most.
