The Commercial Property Podcast

Episode 97 – What REALLY Drives Property Performance? With Max Scott
What actually makes one property investment perform brilliantly over the long term while another struggles?
It isn't simply about buying at the right price or finding the highest yield.
In this episode of The Commercial Property Podcast, Suzi Carter is joined by award-winning property investor Max Scott to explore the forces that really drive long-term property performance — and how understanding them can help investors make better decisions.
Max has completed more than £120 million of property deals, investing across commercial property, mixed-use, residential, HMOs, blocks of flats and new-build developments in the South East of England and Dublin.
Drawing on that experience, Max shares his framework for understanding the five forces that influence property performance, together with real-world examples of commercial property deals, different approaches to property finance and the lessons he's learned from building and reviewing investment portfolios.
Suzi and Max also discuss the importance of looking beyond an individual deal and understanding the long-term trends shaping property markets.
Because a property that looks good on a spreadsheet today still needs to perform tomorrow.
The conversation also explores supported living property investment, portfolio strategy and why successful investors need to keep reviewing whether the properties they own are still delivering against their original objectives.
In This Episode, We Explore:
📌 The Five Forces That Drive Property Performance
The fundamental factors Max believes influence property values, demand and long-term investment performance.
📌 Real Commercial Property Deals
Practical examples from Max's own commercial property investments and some of the lessons he's learned along the way.
📌 Commercial Property Finance and Funding Strategies
Different ways property deals can be financed and why the funding structure can materially affect investment returns.
📌 Long-Term Property Trends
How understanding wider economic, demographic and property-market trends can help investors make better-informed decisions.
📌 Supported Living as a Property Investment Strategy
Max's experience of supported living, together with some of the opportunities and considerations investors need to understand.
📌 Why Your Portfolio Needs Reviewing
Why buying a good property isn't the end of the investment decision — and why investors should regularly question whether an asset still deserves its place in their portfolio.
📌 Income, Returns and Building a Portfolio With Purpose
Why your investment strategy should ultimately reflect what you want your property portfolio to achieve for you.
What Really Drives Long-Term Property Investment Performance?
One of the big themes running through this conversation is the importance of looking beyond the deal immediately in front of you.
What's happening to demand?
What are the longer-term trends?
How are you financing the property?
What could affect its future performance?
And does the investment still fit the objectives you originally bought it to achieve?
Whether you're considering your first commercial property investment, building a wider property portfolio or reviewing properties you already own, this episode will encourage you to step back from the individual deal and think about the bigger forces influencing your investment decisions.
🎧 Listen to Episode 97 of The Commercial Property Podcast: Why Some Properties Perform – And Others Don't: With Max Scott.
Want to Build Your Own Commercial Property Portfolio?
If this conversation has got you thinking about commercial property and you'd like help turning that interest into a clear investment strategy, Suzi can help.
Whether you're an experienced residential investor considering commercial property, a busy professional with capital to invest, or a business owner looking to build wealth through commercial property, the starting point is understanding what to buy, where to buy it, how to analyse it and how to recognise opportunities to create value.
At www.suzicarter.com, you'll find details of Suzi's commercial property training and mentoring, including the Commercial Property Academy, where investors learn how to understand occupational demand, choose their niche, source opportunities, analyse tenants and leases, assess deals, understand risk and identify opportunities to create value.
👉 Visit www.suzicarter.com to explore the different ways you can work with Suzi.
And if you'd like to discuss your own commercial property ambitions with Suzi and her team, get in touch through www.suzicarter.com and tell us a little about where you are now and what you're hoping to achieve.
🎧 Subscribe to The Commercial Property Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, please leave a review and share it with another property investor who would find it useful.
Connect With Max Scott
Max Scott is an award-winning property investor who has completed more than £120 million of property deals.
Primarily investing across the South East of England and Dublin, Max has acquired and invested in single lets, blocks of flats, HMOs, commercial property, mixed-use property and new-build developments.
Max predominantly works with individuals and businesses with at least £500,000 available to invest, helping them build property portfolios designed to generate returns and passive income.
🌐 maxscottproperty.com
✉️ max@maxscottproperty.com

Episode 96 – If I Had £100k and a Full-Time Job, Here's What I'd Do to Invest in Commercial Property
You've got £100,000 to invest, a demanding full-time job and an interest in commercial property. What should you actually do first?
Suzi understands that position from firsthand experience — because only 11 years ago, she was there herself.
She had a demanding corporate career, a young family and very little spare time, but she knew she wanted to build something that would eventually give her more financial freedom, more control over her time and more choice over how she lived her life.
But this episode isn't about what Suzi did back then.
It's what she would do NOW if she were back in that position, knowing everything she's learned since and having built a property portfolio of her own.
And here's a clue: she wouldn't start by scrolling through commercial property listings looking for somewhere to spend the £100k!
Instead, she'd start by asking a much more important question:
What do I actually want my money to do for me?
Do you want to actively asset manage commercial property, solve problems, create value, refinance, recycle your capital and go again?
Or have you already worked hard to create capital through your career and simply want to park some of it into good-quality commercial property that can produce sustainable income?
Those two objectives could lead you towards very different investments.
Suzi also explains why knowledge is the key that unlocks the commercial property world. Once you understand the fundamentals, something that initially feels overwhelming can start to feel surprisingly doable.
And if time is your scarcest resource, you need leverage too.
With the right systems, technology, AI, a VA and a strong professional team, you don't need to spend every evening trawling property portals.
Leverage your time. Don't outsource your judgement.
In This Episode, You'll Discover:
What Suzi would do today with £100k, a full-time career and limited spare time

How to decide between creating value and recycling capital or investing for more passive income

What to look for in a commercial property if sustainable income and security are your priorities

Why gaining the right commercial property knowledge should come before rushing to buy

How choosing a niche can make finding opportunities far more manageable

Why understanding occupational demand is fundamental to making better investment decisions

How VAs, AI, systems and technology can help busy professionals leverage their time

Why building the right professional power team matters

How analysing lots of real deals develops the pattern recognition needed to spot opportunities

Why having £100k available doesn't mean you should be in a hurry to spend it

Ready to Take Your Next Step?
If you're in a corporate role with capital to invest but commercial property still feels overwhelming, Suzi has been where you are.
Visit www.suzicarter.com to explore Suzi's commercial property training and mentoring, including the Commercial Property Academy, and learn how to build the knowledge and confidence to make better-informed commercial property investment decisions.
 Visit www.suzicarter.com
And if you know somebody who's doing well in their career, has built up some capital and keeps saying "I'd love to invest in commercial property, but I just don't have the time", send them this episode.
Eleven years ago, Suzi was sitting on their side of the conversation too.
 Subscribe to The Commercial Property Podcast so you never miss an episode — and if you enjoyed this one, please leave a review and share it with someone who might find it useful.

Episode 95 – Business Rates and Empty Property: Problem or Opportunity?
Would business rates put you off buying an empty commercial property?
For many investors — particularly those moving from residential into commercial property — the thought of owning a vacant building with no rent coming in AND business rates to pay can be enough to make them walk away.
But should it?
Suzi Carter certainly isn't frightened of vacant commercial property. In fact, sometimes an empty property can be exactly where the opportunity lies.
The key is understanding why the property is vacant, what it could cost you while you own it and, crucially, whether you have evidence that you can solve the problem.
In this episode of The Commercial Property Podcast, Suzi explains how business rates work on empty commercial properties in England, including Empty Property Relief, the longer relief period available to qualifying industrial properties, and some of the legitimate ways business rates may be mitigated.
She also looks at the recent Court of Appeal decision on so-called "box-shifting" business rates mitigation schemes, what it could mean for owners of vacant commercial property and why changes to rates mitigation could potentially create opportunities for informed investors.
Because if other buyers become nervous about empty properties — while existing owners face increasing holding costs — could that create less competition, more motivated sellers and better buying opportunities for investors who understand the numbers?
In this episode, you'll discover:
How business rates on empty commercial property actually work

Why most empty commercial properties receive an initial period of Empty Property Relief

Why qualifying industrial and warehouse properties can receive a longer rates-free period

Why buying a vacant property doesn't necessarily restart the Empty Property Relief clock

The importance of checking the current rateable value and business rates liability before you buy

How the April 2026 business rates revaluation affects the figures investors should be using

Legitimate circumstances where business rates may potentially be reduced or mitigated

How substantial refurbishment can affect the rating position where a property genuinely becomes incapable of occupation

What investors need to understand about charitable occupation and business rates relief

How the controversial "box-shifting" rates mitigation strategy worked

What the recent Court of Appeal decision could mean for business rates mitigation schemes

Why you shouldn't rely on a clever rates mitigation strategy to make a fundamentally poor property investment stack up

How to calculate the true cost of a commercial property void, including rates, finance, insurance, security, refurbishment and letting costs

Why understanding occupational supply and demand before you buy is one of your best protections against a prolonged void

How speaking to local commercial agents can help you establish whether genuine tenant demand exists

Why you may even be able to pre-let a vacant commercial property before you complete the purchase

How refurbishment, reconfiguration, subdivision and other asset-management strategies can turn vacancy into opportunity

Why having multiple exit strategies matters when buying vacant commercial property

How changes to business rates mitigation could potentially create motivated sellers and less competition for vacant properties

Empty Property: Risk or Opportunity?
Vacancy is a risk in commercial property — but that doesn't automatically make a vacant property a bad investment.
Sometimes the vacancy is the opportunity.
Perhaps the building needs refurbishing. Perhaps it's the wrong configuration for the local market. Perhaps it could be subdivided. Perhaps the previous landlord has been asking the wrong rent. Or perhaps there's plenty of occupational demand and the property simply hasn't been marketed effectively.
The important thing is not to guess.
Understand supply and demand, speak to local letting agents, investigate competing properties, establish realistic rents and void periods and, where possible, start looking for your tenant before you complete.
Then put the true cost of the void — including business rates — into your appraisal.
As Suzi says in this episode:
"Don't be frightened by the problem. Price the problem — and work out whether you can solve it."
Because if other investors see an empty building and a business rates bill and immediately walk away, while you've done the research and understand exactly how you're going to create value...
their problem could potentially become your opportunity.
Want to Learn How to Find and Analyse Commercial Property Opportunities?
Finding a good commercial property isn't simply about finding a high yield or buying whatever happens to be on the market.
It's about knowing what to look for, understanding the risks, analysing the occupational market and recognising problems you can profitably solve.
If you'd like to build your commercial property knowledge and learn how Suzi approaches real investment opportunities — including niching, sourcing, tenants, leases, deal analysis, asset management and creating value — visit www.suzicarter.com.
You'll find Suzi's commercial property training and mentoring, including the Commercial Property Academy, where investors can build their knowledge, analyse real deals and develop the confidence to make better-informed commercial property investment decisions.
 Visit www.suzicarter.com to take your next step.
And if you know a property investor who says "I'd never buy an empty commercial property", send them this episode.
It might just change the way they look at the next vacant building they find! 
 Subscribe to The Commercial Property Podcast so you never miss an episode.

Episode 94 – The High Street Is Dead. Offices Are Finished. Really?
"The high street is dead."
"Nobody wants offices anymore."
"Why would anyone invest in retail?"
Suzi heard comments very much like these while speaking about commercial property recently — and they got her thinking.
Because there are certainly high streets she wouldn't touch with a bargepole, and there are offices she wouldn't buy at almost any price.
But does that mean all high streets are dead? Or that all offices are finished?
Absolutely not.
In this episode of The Commercial Property Podcast, Suzi challenges some of the sweeping assumptions investors make about different commercial property sectors and explains why commercial property isn't one market.
A struggling secondary high street with lots of empty units is very different from an affluent market town with strong footfall, thriving independent businesses and hardly anything available to let.
And an enormous, outdated office building with little occupier demand is very different from a smaller office in a location where so much stock has been converted to residential that good-quality office space has actually become scarce.
The important question isn't whether retail, offices or any other commercial property sector is "good" or "bad". It's whether THIS property, in THIS location, at THIS price, with THIS occupational market, makes sense.
And that's where niching, local knowledge and proper research become so important.
In this episode, you'll discover:
Why sweeping statements such as "the high street is dead" can cause investors to overlook opportunities

Why Suzi believes there is no single "retail market" or "office market"

How to identify commercial property niches where genuine demand and scarcity may exist

Why occupier demand matters just as much as investor demand

What properties currently available to let can tell you about a market

Why local commercial agents can provide invaluable evidence about what is — and isn't — letting

How changing consumer behaviour can create opportunities rather than simply destroy them

Why the conversion of office stock to residential can sometimes create scarcity in the remaining office market

The danger of buying into fashionable sectors simply because everybody else is doing it

How to distinguish between a genuinely struggling market and a sector that investors may simply have written off

Practical ways to research a niche before committing your money

Perhaps most importantly, Suzi explains why good commercial property investing isn't about following headlines.
It's about understanding your market, your niche, your occupier and your property.
So, the next time somebody tells you the high street is dead, ask them:
"Which high street?"
And when somebody tells you offices are finished, ask:
"Which offices, in which town, at what size and at what rent?"
Because the opportunity may be hiding in the detail everybody else has ignored.
Could Your Assumptions Be Causing You to Miss Opportunities?
Finding good commercial property isn't simply about searching for what's currently fashionable.
It's about knowing where to look, what to look for and how to test whether the opportunity you think you've spotted actually stacks up.
If you'd like to learn how Suzi approaches commercial property investing — from identifying your niche and understanding occupational demand to analysing deals, tenants, leases, risks and opportunities to create value — visit www.suzicarter.com.
You'll find details of Suzi's commercial property training, the Commercial Property Academy, and the different ways you can work with her to become a more knowledgeable and confident commercial property investor.
 Visit www.suzicarter.com
And if you know an investor who has ever told you "the high street is dead" or "nobody wants offices anymore", send them this episode.
You might have a rather interesting conversation afterwards! 
 Subscribe to The Commercial Property Podcast so you never miss an episode.

Episode 93 – Stop Waiting to Feel Ready: How Commercial Property Investors Actually Get Started!
How long have you been thinking about investing in commercial property?
A few months?
A year?
Maybe longer?
If you keep telling yourself you need to learn a little more, understand the market better, wait for interest rates to change, find the perfect deal or simply feel more confident before you start…
This episode is for you.
Because after more than 30 years in property, Suzi Carter has learned something very important:
You will probably never feel completely ready.
And the investors who make progress aren't necessarily those who know the most. They're the ones who learn enough to take the next sensible action — and then keep going.
In this episode of The Commercial Property Podcast, Suzi gets very practical about what it actually takes to move from thinking about investing in commercial property to behaving like a commercial property investor.
She explains why endlessly consuming information can sometimes become a very respectable form of procrastination, why confidence comes from looking at real deals rather than waiting until you know everything, and how small, consistent actions can compound into genuine opportunities.
You'll also hear why looking at a deal that goes nowhere isn't necessarily wasted time, why a rejected offer can still move you forward, and how the agent who says "no" today could be the person who calls you with an off-market opportunity six months from now.
In this episode, you'll discover:
How to recognise when learning has turned into procrastination

Why you don't need to know everything before you start

How analysing real deals develops the pattern recognition experienced investors rely on

Why there really is no such thing as the perfect commercial property

The difference between taking action and simply buying something

Why rejected offers, unsuitable deals and unsuccessful viewings aren't necessarily failures

How to investigate real occupational demand, rather than simply browsing properties for sale

Why relationships with commercial agents can become one of your biggest sources of opportunity

Why Suzi believes real confidence comes from evidence, not motivation

How small actions repeated consistently can compound into something much bigger

The practical steps Suzi would take this week if she were starting again

Suzi's Seven-Day Commercial Property Challenge

Your Seven-Day Challenge
Don't just listen to this episode and move on to the next one.
For the next seven days, do one thing every day that moves you closer to owning a commercial property.
Ring an agent. Research your niche. Look at competing properties to let. Drive an area. Analyse a deal. Speak to a broker. Arrange a viewing. Talk to an occupier. Make an offer.
It doesn't need to take hours.
But it does need to be action rather than more passive learning.
At the end of the seven days, ask yourself:
"Am I closer to owning a commercial property than I was last week?"
That's how momentum starts.
Ready to Stop Thinking About Commercial Property and Start Doing It?
If this episode has struck a chord and you're ready to turn your interest in commercial property into action, Suzi can help you take the next step.
Visit www.suzicarter.com to discover Suzi's commercial property training and mentoring, including the Commercial Property Academy, where investors learn how to assess opportunities, understand leases and tenants, analyse deals, create value and build the confidence to take action in the real commercial property market.
Don't wait until you feel ready. Start becoming ready by doing.
 Visit www.suzicarter.com and take your next step.
And if you know someone who has been talking about investing in commercial property for months — but still hasn't quite started — send them this episode!
 Subscribe to The Commercial Property Podcast so you never miss an episode.