Most people in property have lived through one market. Paul Ribbons has traded through a lot of them. Four decades in the business, starting as an estate agent, then building a career as a property trader with over 850 deals behind him, Paul has watched interest rates hit 15.5%, survived the 2008 crash, and read the COVID market better than almost anyone. On this episode of the Property Developer Show, he shares what he’s learned.
The headline lesson is simple: stop following the crowd and start reading the behaviour underneath the data.
Why the crash everyone predicted never arrived
When rates leapt from near-zero to 5.25% in 2022, the consensus was obvious, repossessions, forced sellers, falling prices. Paul said no, and he was right.
His reasoning cuts against instinct: crashes don’t follow high interest rates, they follow reckless lending. The numbers back him up. Between 1990 and 1995 there were around 350,000 repossessions; last year there were roughly 5,000. The difference wasn’t the rate, it was who got lent to. For the fifteen years before 2022, lending was disciplined, with the average first-time buyer putting down close to an 18% deposit. When people have real skin in the game, a 5–10% dip doesn’t force them to hand back the keys.
The warning hiding in plain sight
Here’s where Paul turns cautionary. He believes the market is vulnerable over the next five years, and the signal is already on our screens. Banks are advertising 95% and even 98% mortgages, some accepting deposits as low as £5,000.
Government backstops covering the gap on high-percentage loans have given lenders the confidence to chase market share, and as they compete, criteria loosen. “That’s lax lending,” he says plainly. The rules are tighter than the pre-2008 era, so a repeat on that scale is unlikely, but looser lending pushes prices up now and stores up risk for later, especially on the commercial buy-to-let side where a broken loan-to-value covenant once saw whole portfolios pulled back from investors who never missed a payment.
How he actually finds deals
For all the macro analysis, Paul’s edge is refreshingly ordinary.
Around 85% of his stock comes straight from the open market, Rightmove, Zoopla. The skill is knowing what to look for. As a former agent, he reads a building’s fabric better than the salespeople marketing it, which is why he says he loves cracks. He identifies a property with a hidden problem, then waits, often buying it after another buyer’s survey kills the deal and before it goes back to “For Sale,” when he has no competition.
Every purchase comes down to three things:
- Circumstances (why are they really selling?)
- Timing (are they under pressure?)
- Leverage (where’s the problem I can price against?)
Watch the full episode
This only scratches the surface. Paul goes deeper on stamp duty, the ripple effect out of London, his COVID war-chest strategy and how to win at auction. If you invest, develop or let property in the UK, this is essential listening.
Watch the full conversation with Paul Ribbons on the Property Developer Show now.
0 Comments