One of the daddies of the professional property investor training industry that spread from the United States to the UK and indeed later spawned an International brand was Russ Whitney.

Whitney lifted himself from the humble position of a meat packer in a ‘job’ which translates in the terminology as ‘just over broke’ to fulfilling the American Dream as a property millionaire who codified what he did and then coached others in the code.

I cut my teeth on his book Building Wealth and the accompanying training that in 2003 had come from the US across the pond to the UK a mere year before. But the school already counted amongst its trainers a man who later became one of the UK’s largest private landlords owning 1400 rental properties when I last caught up with him. And it also counted amongst its trainers an irrepressible woman who had previously had the privilege of membership of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee and built into the coaching for eager subscribers amongst the trainees, a monthly report on the UK economy.

Such was the calibre of the property investor journey that I graduated from an initial 3-day intensive training and bought my first three rental properties.

This set me on the path to becoming a professional landlord, backed even by a ”lifetime” information helpline, which nevertheless remained a free resource for nearly twenty years.

And it set me on the path to taking more training (which was seen as an investment in myself, not as a cost) and buying more property. More than a school, one felt insulated within a coaching ‘family’.

Despite the ‘classic’ pedigree of this book and a lot of economic landscape that has shifted around it since it was written, it exudes a balance of conveying inspiration and the thinking and principles that make a property investor professional, as opposed to a mere amateur with a few tricks.

I lent this book to an 18-year old in 2024. He kept it for too long, then returned it to me with the phrase, “Michael, I’ve got £120,000 and I want to buy an investment property.”

Such is the power of ideas in a book such as this.

Russ Whitney followed the book Building Wealth with a second one, Millionaire Real Estate Mentor.