All About Property presenter Gabby Logan explains her passion for property investment
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How did you get interested in property?
My mum’s been in property for over 30 years. She’s always had a passion for it and built up a personal portfolio of more than 50 properties. She also ran a company that managed nearly 1,000 properties. Unfortunately that succumbed to the 2008 crash and she lost a lot of what she had built up. She has had to start again, but what she’s doing now is her passion, which is big refurbs and big development. She is in her late sixties and I just can’t see her not working. I remember being in the back of the car as a kid and she would be on speaker phone talking about property. You pick up stuff. The passion bled through.
When did you take the plunge yourself?
I bought my first flat when I came to London at 23 and sold it for double the value in a year. I then carried on like that with her encouragement, and her support as a sounding board, which a lot of my peers at the time probably didn’t have. She’s quite bullish as well, so I suppose I made a lot of brave decisions on the surface, but for me, it was what I’d seen her do.
I was always living within my means, but at the same time I was moving on a bit quicker to get up the property ladder. When I met my husband [former Scottish rugby union player Kenny Logan], I met a kindred spirit, because he really loved doing it as well. So alongside our day jobs, we have always had a keen interest in the market.
Where would you like to take your portfolio?
We’ve got a few properties, but nothing huge. At the moment Kenny’s developing some farm buildings in Scotland. He’s building 11 houses and ultimately from that we want to then go into another development. He’s actually hiring my mum to project manage. He always says, “I can hire your mum, but I could never work for her.” And that’s probably a good relationship to have. So it’s quite nice to keep it in the family.
I am really interested in commercial property, but we are just not big enough players to get into that, but I really find it very interesting.
Do you ever go into the auction room?
No. We have toyed with the idea, and maybe this time we will, because there are a few people locally I know who have been picking up some interesting things around the Bucks area.
You have taken property onto national radio. What next?
All About Property is coming back for a couple of shows in late October. I would really like to see that platform move into a television programme. I think it could be a hybrid between Watchdog and The One Show. It combines fun elements of property with quite serious elements. What we found with the radio show is there is an insatiable appetite. People just want to talk property all the time. We have no shortage of guests. We have no shortage of subject matter. It’s hard keeping it condensed.
Rio or London – which was your favourite Olympics?
London will never be beaten for me. But Rio is a really invigorating place. It’s like nowhere else. It’s really unusual, very musical, very lyrical and the smells and the sounds of Rio are unique. That’s what makes every Olympic city so different. I imagine Tokyo 2020 is going to be one heck of a well-organised Olympic Games. Apparently they are pretty much finished already. So I’m already looking forward to that.
Gabby Logan presents The Premier League Show on BBC 2 and All About Property on BBC Radio 5 Live
