“We’re in our 30s with a multi-million property portfolio – here’s how we did it”

Two sisters in their 30s have told how they build a multi-million property portfolio in a bid to help other women do the same.

Mum-of-one Ruth Shipley-Palmer, 32, and Becky Shipley, 33, say landlords don’t have to be “flashy guys in suits”.

They starting their property investing journey as students aged just 20 when they purchased two houses in Bristol as an investment.

They now own eight properties – worth over £2 million, which earn them £120k turnover per year.

Ruth Shipley-Palmer and Becky Shipley outside their first property over 10 years ago. (Pix via SWNS)

The pair, from Bristol, say their goal is to achieve time freedom and financial security so they can spend more time doing things they love.

And they have their eyes set on owning a total of 14 properties by 2030 – saying their ultimate goal is 10 properties each.

But they say they want to help other people – particularly women – do the same.

Now the pair have a podcast – Honest Proper-tea – and an Instagram account, @honestpropertysisters, where they share advice for budding investors.

Becky said: “Landlords are usually painted badly so we wanted to say we’re not all like that.

“It’s good for us to be role models for other women in particular – we’re making the most of life.

“We want to represent a different type of property investor and help other people on their way to achieving time freedom and financial security.

“When we decided to learn about how property works, we didn’t know anyone who was investing who could teach us what to do.

“We went on a course in London and we were the only young women in the room – everyone else was a middle-aged man which was quite intimidating.

“We’re wanting to share with other people how to do this for themselves, it’s knowledge everyone should have.”

Ruth Shipley-Palmer and Becky Shipley. (Pix via SWNS)

Ruth said: “We realised we wanted to find way to keep a freelance career while being financially secure and started looking into how we could do that.

“When we started, we didn’t have any friends buying houses and we ended up managing to buy two houses at same time in Bristol.

“We refurbished them and turned them into self-managed HMOs in 2014.

“We tried to find an ‘angel’ investor – someone you don’t know who funds your investment – but we found a family friend who invested in us in the end.”

The first properties the pair bought were a four-bed for £150k and a five-bed for £160k in 2014 after a family friend gave them an initial investment for a deposit on the mortgages.

They provided a return on this investment by refurbishing the properties and renting them out, providing a 10% return on the initial investment.

And they then refinanced the two houses after two years which gave them an estimated £150k in capital to immediately invest in another property.

They used this to to buy another four-bed property for £180k using a mortgage in 2016 which they turned into a HMO.

They did this again five more times – buying new properties for between £150k and £327k through refinancing.

Ruth Shipley-Palmer (right) and Becky Shipley. (Pix via SWNS)

They now have eight properties in total – worth more than £2 million which earns them £72k a year in profit.

Five of the properties are buy-to-let, three of which are houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs), and three are serviced accommodation. All of the properties have interest-only mortgages.

They say their inspiration for investing in property came from seeing their dad Nick Shipley, 71, work as a self-employed cameraman.

The pair also started their own pet care company while studying at the University of West of England, with Ruth studying Fine Art and Becky studying Geography and Tourism.

They sold it in 2023 to focus full-time on their property investment company.

Now, they say they’ve achieved financial security and time freedom, currently working on average 21 hours a week.

Ruth said: “We’re continuing to grow our property business by teaching people how to do it themselves.

“A huge reason why we invested in property is we wanted to look after our parents when they get older.”

Becky said: “As young women, representation in property is important to us.”