The Property Unleashed Podcast

Six Constraints That Stall Property Investors

• Mark Fitzgerald • Episode 376

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Your property investing isn’t stuck because the market is “hard.” It’s stuck because one of six constraints is quietly choking your deal flow, your confidence, or your consistency. 


We walk through the exact bottlenecks we see again and again in real estate investing and property business building, then lay out how to solve each one without fluff.


We start with the market and strategy constraint: if you can’t find good deals, you probably aren’t getting in front of enough people. That leads to the pipeline problem, where you cling to one opportunity and feel crushed when it falls apart. From there, we tackle the capacity story investors tell themselves, the fear of too many calls, too many viewings, and “not enough time.” We break down why scheduling, prioritising, and a little support can unlock momentum fast.


Next comes the dream killer: cash. We challenge the “I have no money” excuse and focus on what actually creates funding, relationships, networking, and knowing how to talk about opportunities the right way. We also cover the skills constraint and the education-to-action gap, plus the systems that keep you organized, from CRMs to Trello to simple calendar time blocking.


The final constraint is the most important: you. If you’ve been talking about starting for years, this is your nudge to define success, set a 12-month target, and take action now. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s stuck, and leave a five-star review so more investors can find the show.

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Six Constraints That Stall Investors

The six constraints I see in any property business and how to solve them. Hello and welcome to the Property Unleashed with me, your host, Muck Fitzgerald. So today I want to cover six constraints that I see a lot of the time in different people's property investing businesses. And these are actually very, very similar to the constraints that you can find in just normal businesses as well. Because as I always say, in this day and age, right here, right now, you have got to be treating your property investing as a business. The days of just having it as a sideline, as a hobby, and actually being able to make some decent money out of it are closing in fast. So we need to make sure that we set ourselves up, as I always like to say, for success and in, of course, the right manner. So let's look at the six constraints that you might be struggling from at

Market Strategy And Deal Pipeline

the moment. And the first one of those constraints is the market sector or the strategy that you're doing. Because if you are struggling to find good deals or to do any deals, chances are you're not getting yourself in front of enough people. And that is one of the market constraints that I see a lot of people, particularly when they're getting involved in, so to speak, property deals where they're going to need funding or they can't find enough of the right sort of decent deals. Are they marketing? Are they actually putting letters out there, postcards out there? Are they reaching out to agents? Are they reaching out to landlords that they can get a hold of? Because if you're not, chances are you haven't got a very big pipeline when it comes to those deals. And that's where people are saying, oh, I can't find any decent deals out there. Why? Because some people find one deal, grab hold of it, they have to make this deal work, whereas you want to have a pipeline of about five to ten different property opportunities that you're looking at. Why? Because chances are at least one of those, maybe even two of those, are actually going to come off and be decent deals. If you've only got one, two or three properties that you're looking at and they fall over, that's where you become demoralized. And of course, that will be holding you back. Some people also will hold themselves back because of money. At the end of the day, they think, well, I haven't got any money, so I can't start talking to people, I can't start looking at opportunities. Now, while you've got to be careful that you don't waste people's time, you can certainly be getting out there, you can be looking for deals, and you can be quite honest to say that I work with a few investors, and if we can get this opportunity over the line at this sort of price or anything, then uh we'll be able to move forward. Now, then you can go out there and find the investors. Of course, if you've got a great opportunity and you're willing to talk to people about it, again, it's all about networking, it's all about getting out there, it's about people knowing you. As the old saying goes, the more hands you shake, the more money you make.

Capacity Fears And Time Excuses

So the next constraint that I see people having in their property businesses is capacity. Now, unless you've already got a good couple of handfuls of properties, trust me, you've got plenty of capacity to be able to get out there. So some people say to me, Well, I've I've only sent 10 letters, or I've only sent 100 letters because I don't want to send 200, 300, 400 letters, because if I get lots of calls, I'll struggle with that. I won't be able to, I won't be able to take all of those calls, or I won't be able to do those deals and I'll let people down. That is a compact capacity constraint in your business, and that is all in your head. Trust me on that one. If you send 500 marketing letters out there, you may get 10 calls. Now, if those 10 calls all meant that you had to do 10 viewings, that's what you should be doing anyway. You should be making the time to be able to get out there and the time to go and do this. So if you're not and you're worried about your capacity and those sort of restraints, you need to get that out of your head. By not having enough time and struggling to do everything, means that you're probably very active and probably on the brink of something good really, really happening. So if you do need help, you can use a virtual assistant, which are very, very cheap to help you with any admin tasks and things like that. But as I say, if you have no properties at the moment, maybe you're trying to do this whilst the full-time job, you've got no capacity constraints, all you've got is excuses for not doing what it is that you should be doing. So get that out of your head, okay, and make sure that you take time to schedule your week, schedule your time, and make the most of any time that you have available.

Cash Constraint And Finding Investors

The next one is cash. This is an absolute dream killer because most people will say, Well, I have to do rent-to-rent or I have to do deal sourcing because I have no money. If you have no passion for either of those strategies, you want to be looking at different ways or different strategies that suit your means. So if you want to do flips or assisted sales or the BRR strategy and you're thinking I've got to buy properties, I've got no money, then you need to be getting out there and starting to talk to people who could potentially be investors. Now you don't go out there and start saying I'm looking for investors because that's what the amateurs do, but you just get out there and start building up relationships with people, looking at what other people are doing, talking to your family members, your close friends as well. Because potentially you could be sat on a load of money for investment, but you don't know about it. Why? Because you're not having the right conversations. Don't let the lack of cash hold you back. If I had let the lack of cash hold me back, I wouldn't be sat here now doing this podcast. I'd still be in my corporate job miserable. Okay. I didn't have massive amounts of money. I just made sure that when I structured deals, I structured deals that could suit my needs. Obviously, I went for HMOs in good conditions that were already set up. I didn't have to put a lot of money into those. I could start getting those cash flowing very, very quickly. And of course, you can do the same if that's something that you need to do. But don't let cash be a restraint in your business and also hold you back. There is an abundance of money out there. It's like a sea of money. It ebbs and flows in and out. You've got to work out whether you're going to go to the sea with a teaspoon and get a little bit of that sea, or you're going to go there with a bucket and you're going to take a nice big chunk. I tell you why, because the sea doesn't care, and neither does all of the money out there. So don't go in there with a sparse mindset that's holding you back. Go there with an abundant mindset and don't let cash stop you from doing good property deals and building that property business.

Skills Gap And Education To Action

The next restraint that I see a lot of people is the skills. Now, this is a reason, actually. This is so rife that this is the reason that myself and my other experts built the education to action property investing platform that has all of the different trainings in there, that has all of the different skill sets from all of the experts in there to you can ask questions and you can get all of the skills. There isn't a platform out there that I've seen that is as cost effective as this to help people take the action. That's why we called it education to action, because we see so many people get the education but never take the action. Or we see it the other side that there's people taking a lot of action but they don't know what they don't know and they're making silly mistakes. So get the education, take the action, get the results that you want. So skill set should not be a problem. We've got you covered on that one. Check out educationtoaction.com. There's free tools and resources there. And come and join us. It's a monthly subscription. You can cancel it at any time. But come and dip into it and start learning. Get the skill sets there. Or wherever you want to get those skill sets from, if that's from somebody else, that's fine. But the lack of having the right skills to take the right action in 2026 and beyond is not an excuse that anybody should be able to use anymore. Because if you do not have the skills, you need to start saving a little bit of money, invest in yourself, and get out there and get those skills. And if you haven't got all of those skills, find people that have done what it is that you want to do and then take them out for lunch, buy them out of coffee, ask them questions, see if they'll help and support you. Most people in property are very open and will help a lot of people as well. So don't let skill set

Systems That Save Hours

stop you. Now another one can be systems. Ha, I can I can't. I honestly, if I had a pound for every time I see somebody writing letters, putting them in an envelope, going down the shop, buying stamps and posting them, and then saying, I've sent some letters, but I'm time poor, I'd be a very, very rich man. A system like stamp, s t a np.com, we'll send your letters for you. You can set the campaigns up. So systems is massive. You should have a good CRM system. And if you can't afford a good CRM system, use something like Trello, which is so so cost effective, is free. And you can use that for your follow-ups, you can use that for planning out when you're doing deals, at what stages you're at. You can set reminders on it as well. It's something that I teach a lot of my community members to use because it's free and you can have the app as well. But systems shouldn't be a thing holding you back. So if you're time poor, are you scheduling your time on a system? I use Google Calendar, and when Google Calendar tells me to do something, I do it. Why? Because it's scheduled in and it keeps me on track. The reason you're listening to this podcast is because if I looked at my Google Calendar now, it would say record podcast. And that's what I'm doing. So make sure you've got a system for your time and that you skip you schedule in exactly the things that you should be doing, the most important things that you should be doing. If you've got a property business now, what is your system to manage that property business? Don't be tight when it comes to systems, okay? Most of the time there isn't one system that fits everything. So you might have to have a couple of systems, but make sure that systems are not holding you back. And sometimes you think you need systems and paying for them before you do. Sometimes you just need a good old-fashioned spreadsheet, and you need to make sure that you stay on top of it.

The Real Constraint: You

And the last constraint, which is by no means least, the most important, important constraint that I see time and time again, is you. Okay? I mean that from a place of love because that was me. That was me. Sixteen years. Six of those years, I wandered around telling people I'm gonna start something, I'm gonna do something, and I never did it. For six years, I can remember so vividly the times when I had those conversations. I'm gonna get out there, I'm gonna start something, I'm gonna build something, I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna get out of here. Six years. Don't make the same mistake that I made. Take action now, okay? If you're listening to this podcast, chances are you've already got that mindset to get out there and do something for yourself, but don't make yourself your biggest blocker. I had to work on myself, get out of my own way to achieve anything. Since I've done that, I've never looked back. But you need to understand yourself in high definition, what does success look like to you? What does it look like to you? You have to be crystal clear on that. You have to document it, journal it, write it down. It'll change over time. And it's no problems with that. But make sure that you're journaling it and talk yourself through your plan, talk yourself through your goals. What do you want to achieve in the next 12 months? 12 months is nothing. Is nothing. So if I said to you in 12 months' time, you could be financially free out of that day job, doing something that you've got a lot more passion for. Would you say to yourself, well, if I knew and I could guarantee that in 12 months that would be the case, that I would put the effort in, that I would make the sacrifices to make sure that that happens. I believe you would. The reason a lot of people don't do that is because they don't 100% believe that in 12 months they'll have the results that they want. But let me tell you something. Even if you haven't, you will be so much closer to getting those results than you were the 12 months before. When I got out there, I set myself a target of getting 10 property deals in the first 12 months, which was a big old target. And I thought to myself, deep down inside, I'm probably not gonna hit that. But when I got eight months in, I was scrambling and bambling around because I was so, so close to having that target. I had eight properties. I wanted to make sure I got the 10 because that was the target that I set myself. Now, in the end, I actually in 12 months only got nine. I got nine, one short, one short of the ten. But how much better was it that I had nine properties? Whereas if I'd have sat there and said, I don't think I'll be able to do that, that ten's a bit much. Maybe I'll get one or two. If I'd have got one or two, I'd have still pretty much been in the same boat that I was in. But again, at least I would have taken action and I would have made moved myself forward. So the main constraint from anybody is themselves. Don't be that biggest blocker. But if it's not, and you're taking action, you're out there and you're giving it everything that you've got, then make sure that you you're in the marketplace, that people know about you. Make sure that you're not giving yourself excuses and saying that you've got no capacity to be able to do these viewings, to be able to do this, to be able to do that. Make the time to do it or forget about it. Turn the podcast off, just go back to your life, sit there and wonder what could have been. Don't use cash as an excuse. There's plenty of cash out there. If you haven't got enough money, you don't know, or you're not talking to enough people. Skill set, there is no excuse for skill set in this day and age now. It's all about practice. Trust me, you're gonna make mistakes. I still make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Don't worry about it, learn from mistakes, move on. But put yourself in a community, put it yourself into ETA if you want to. I keep harping on about it. It's so cheap. It's so cheap. We're gonna put the price up, I reckon, because I think if I put the price up, I'll get more people coming into it. I think it's so cheap that people actually think can't be that good because it's it's only 97 quid a month. Have a little look for yourself. It's a month-on-month, you can cancel next month, but go out there, even if it's not with us, go out there, do your due diligence, get the right training, right people that want to help and support you. Don't just want to take your money and run, and then get that skill set. And of course, go out there and also meet people that can help you with your skill sets. Systems, well, there's so many systems out there now, you haven't got to worry about it. You can even ask AI to give you a system. What's the best system to use on this? Give me five good options. What should I do when I'm looking at having a good CRM system that's free? And ChatGPT will kick it out for you so you can go and try it and see which one suits you. But have a look at Trello. It's free, free, freeze easy, you know, freeze easy. But it's a great little system to use. And of course, lastly, make sure it's you. Make sure that you've got your time scheduled in, you've got your mindset right, you're chasing the things that you want to be chasing to get the results that you want. Don't be your biggest blocker, don't spend six years talking about it like I did. Let's get some action in place, let's get out there and let's make it

Wrap Up And Listener Requests

happen. Hope you've enjoyed this episode today. If you need any help, check out the propertyunleash.com for free tools and resources. And I look forward to you joining me in the next episode. If you have enjoyed this episode and you want to do us one favor, please feel free to leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to your property podcasts or any podcast, if you can leave a review, it's much appreciated. It really, really is. And yeah, let me know if you've enjoyed this episode. Feel free to share it on the socials and tag me in if you do, and I'll show you some love. So I'll uh speak to you very, very soon. You take care, have a great week, and I'll join you next week. Bye for now.