A complicated miscarriage. A goodbye in a hospital room. Two years of everything going wrong. Then they bought their first property — Claire eight months pregnant, the world in lockdown. 🏠

In this episode of the Scottish Property Podcast, Nick and Steven sit down with Claire and Dan MacDonald of Cladan Property — a husband and wife team who started investing in 2020 with no strategy and a sold car, and have quietly built a portfolio of 24 properties in five years.

This one isn't about overnight success. It's about a slow, steady, intentional approach — two young kids, a teaching job, a brand new mortgage advisory business, and a portfolio that's just gone through its biggest and most challenging growth phase yet.

🕐 TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Welcome to Claire and Dan

02:02 – Growing up in the Highlands & how they met

06:39 – The honeymoon that sparked the business idea

07:54 – One-day property events & the financial advisor who said don't bother

14:05 – Claire's teaching career & the stress behind it

17:59 – The difficult years: loss of Dan's mum

24:26 – The complicated miscarriage & why it changed everything

00:20 – Claire starts investing eight months pregnant in lockdown

19:06 – First deal: analysis paralysis & what pushed them through

19:14 – Analysis paralysis & the first purchase

21:23 – Releasing equity to fund deals three and four

22:07 – Selling the car to fund the second property

32:13 – Working with Jillian and Darren Green — mindset & clarity

33:36 – The vision: cash flow number, lifestyle goals & what they're building toward

34:36 – Dan's civil engineering background & the move into property

39:11 – The pivot to short-term lets & the Highland cottage

41:04 – The cottage flat STL in Cardonald

41:14 – 8 months to get the STL licence — what they learned

43:26 – Winter cash flow struggles & the unpredictability of STL

43:40 – The Joseph Todd liquidation post & what it meant for the market

49:25 – Speaking at the April networking event — how it led to two portfolio deals

49:31 – Direct to vendor: the portfolio acquisitions that changed everything

53:31 – Tenanted portfolio — when the cracks started appearing

55:59 – Butting heads as a couple & how they're working through it

1:00:56 – Dan's mortgage advisory business & where to find them

🔑 KEY TOPICS

✅ Starting a property portfolio with savings, a sold car & family equity

✅ The real challenges of buying a tenanted portfolio — what nobody talks about

✅ ADS savings through portfolio deals of 6+ properties

✅ Short-term lets: the cash flow highs, the winter lows & the licensing uncertainty

✅ How speaking at a networking event led to two direct-to-vendor portfolio deals

✅ Balancing a marriage, young kids, teaching and a growing property business

✅ When to pay someone to project manage a refurb (and when their fee pays for itself)

✅ Why Claire and Dan prefer quality and cash flow over chasing numbers

📲 CONNECT WITH CLAIRE & DAN

Instagram: @cladanproperty

Mortgage enquiries: reach out via Dan's Instagram

📅 NETWORKING EVENTS

First Wednesday of every month

📍 Aberdeen | Dundee | Edinburgh | Glasgow

Follow our socials for speakers and details

🤝 SPONSORED BYPrime Property Auctions — know someone selling a property? You could earn £1,500 just for making an introduction. John and Lewis handle everything from the first call to the sale. Over £350,000 in referral fees paid out so far.👉 https://primepropertyauctions.co.uk/

🎙️ ABOUT SCOTTISH PROPERTY PODCAST

Real conversations with real Scottish property investors. No fluff — just honest stories, market updates, and investor journeys.

🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode

👍 Like if you found this valuable

💬 Are you investing as a couple? Drop your experience in the comments 👇

He owns 12 properties. He lives in his mate's spare room. And he accidentally bought a Chinese restaurant from an airport while flying back from Japan.

🏠 In this episode of the Scottish Property Podcast, Nick and Steven sit down with Isaac Cross — a former offshore worker and CERN technician who saved £140k, came off the Scottish Property Podcast course in January, and went all in on property faster than almost anyone they've had on the show.

This one is raw, honest and genuinely funny. Isaac doesn't just talk about the wins. He talks about the bridging nightmare on five properties at once, the deals he overpaid for, the sourcing fees that didn't add up, the solicitor with 98 problems to solve — and what he'd do differently if he was starting again.

🕐 TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Welcome to Isaac Cross & the 52 properties in 52 weeks goal

02:04 – Growing up between Aberdeen and Lanarkshire with a single mum

04:35 – ADHD diagnosis as a kid — and how it shapes the way Isaac works

05:21 – Wanting to go offshore like his dad

06:28 – Electrical apprenticeship & how he was the only one who applied

10:55 – Life offshore: earning £90k in his early 20s

16:20 – Moving to Switzerland for the CERN job

16:29 – The best job title, the most boring job

18:59 – First property: Holytown two-bed at 20

21:14 – Bad mortgage advice, blowing the profit, starting over

26:16 – The power of a good power team

33:24 – The Dennistoun flat — bought at home report in peak Covid

35:04 – Social media, personal brand & why Isaac went all in on content

36:38 – The January networking event that flipped the switch

44:04 – First deal in Aberdeen on a plane to Australia

52:07 – Five properties on one bridge — and 98 problems to solve

60:19 – The Chinese restaurant accident

62:53 – Bidding at auction from Heathrow flying back from Japan

66:45 – The community hub plan for the Carluke commercial unit

71:55 – First private investor on board & what comes next

🔑 KEY TOPICS

✅ How Isaac went from zero to 12 properties in 3 months

✅ Bridging five properties at once — the fees, the problems, the lessons

✅ Why cheap Aberdeen stock served a purpose but he'd do it differently now

✅ Sourcing fees that don't add up — and how to spot them

✅ Accidentally buying commercial property at auction

✅ Building a private investor relationship from scratch

✅ Why social media is already bringing the right people to Isaac

✅ His honest advice to anyone thinking about starting

📲 CONNECT WITH ISAAC

Follow Isaac's property journey on Instagram — @isaaccrossproperty

📅 NETWORKING EVENTS

First Wednesday of every month

📍 Aberdeen | Dundee | Edinburgh | GlasgowFollow our socials for speakers and details

🎙️ ABOUT SCOTTISH PROPERTY PODCAST

Real conversations with real Scottish property investors. No fluff — just honest stories, market updates, and investor journeys.

🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode

👍 Like if you found this valuable

💬 Would you have bought the Chinese restaurant? Drop it in the comments 👇

The last time Scotland launched this fund it had £60 million and it was gone in eight days. This time they've got £100 million. Nick and Steven give it two weeks. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿In this month's market update, they break down exactly how the £10k First Home Fund works, what the catches are, and why investors should be paying attention too — because when first-time buyers pile into the 80–100k market, it gets competitive fast.That's just one of the stories this month. Gilt rates just hit their highest level since 2008. Scottish rents have dropped annually for the first time in eight years. And a new law coming in April 2027 means one tenant in a joint tenancy can end the lease for everybody — a potential nightmare for HMO landlords.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🕐 TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━00:00 – Intro & what's coming up this episode01:48 – Rants episode feedback — scarcity selling & FOMO in the market05:30 – The dodgy deal story — unfactored building, hole in the wall, empty property12:21 – Listener email — "Fatty" tells Nick to stop interrupting Steven15:04 – Fuel prices & the macro economy17:26 – CPI inflation came in at 2.8% — lower than expected19:47 – Interest rates & why cuts are off the table21:54 – The 80–100k sweet spot for Scottish BTL right now24:24 – Post-election results — Reform, SNP minority, what it means28:31 – The £10k First Home Fund — how it works & the catches32:16 – Last time this fund launched it was gone in 8 days34:00 – House prices & the Zoopla index38:07 – Average time to sell in Scotland: 15 days, fastest in the UK39:04 – Down valuations — are surveyors getting more cautious?43:01 – Rental market update — Citylets data43:21 – First annual rent drop in 8 years44:49 – City breakdown: Dundee, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh46:46 – Rent controls — nothing until late 2027 at the earliest50:36 – Rent adjudication changes — tribunal loophole closing April 202752:12 – Joint tenancy bombshell — one person can end it for everyone━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔑 KEY TOPICS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✅ The £10k First Home Fund — how it works, the equity catch, and how long it'll last✅ Rants episode feedback — scarcity selling, FOMO and deals passed around 15 WhatsApp groups✅ Fuel prices, inflation & why CPI came in lower than expected at 2.8%✅ Interest rates: why three or four cuts this year is now off the table✅ Scottish house prices: Glasgow up 2.9%, Scotland up 2.6%, Aberdeen finally climbing✅ Average time to sell in Scotland — 15 days, fastest in the UK✅ Rental market: first annual rent drop in 8 years — and why Nick thinks it's already bouncing back✅ City rents breakdown: Aberdeen up 1.7%, Glasgow up 0.4%, Edinburgh flat✅ Rent controls update — nothing happening until late 2027 at the earliest✅ The joint tenancy bombshell — one tenant can end the tenancy for everyone from April 2027✅ Why this is a major problem for HMO landlords✅ Rent adjudication changes — the tribunal loophole is closing✅ Down valuations — are surveyors getting more cautious?✅ The 80–100k sweet spot for Scottish BTL investors right now━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📅 NETWORKING EVENTS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━First Wednesday of every month📍 Aberdeen | Dundee | Edinburgh | GlasgowFollow our socials for speakers and details━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙️ ABOUT SCOTTISH PROPERTY PODCAST━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Real conversations about Scottish property. No fluff — market updates, legislation changes, and honest investor chat every month.🔔 Subscribe so you never miss a market update👍 Like if you found this valuable💬 Do you think the fund will be gone in days again? Drop it in the comments 👇