Planning for Life After Cricket With Rob Keogh

"For me, the long term goal is to take the pressure off lige after cricket" - Northamptonshire Batsman Rob Keogh discusses his next innings within the world of property, with investment specialists, Thirlmere Deacon.

Here at Thirlmere Deacon, our clients have a diverse range of backgrounds, not to mention needs as investors that we are especially keen to understand. Most are busy working professionals who are looking for an investment that will work hard on their behalf, as a reliable form of passive income in the short term, with a view to holding onto their property to realise its true value over the long term.

As well as corporate working profesisonals, we also have a particularly close relationship with various sporting figures. We recently invited one of the newest clients, cricketer Rob Keogh, into our Mayfair office for a chat with our Founder and CEO, Stuart Williams, to tell us more about his decision to invest in property. Rob is now more than a decade into his professional career as a cricketer. As the closing chapter of his tenure as an exceptionally talented batsman for Northamptonshire inches ever closer, no felt like the right time for

Rob to make his first investment with us as he looks towards his future off the pitch

As we ask all our investors when looking to match up the right opportunity with their needs, Stuart began the interview with the age-old question of 'why?'. Specifically, in terms of what Rob was looking to achive with his property invesment. Also, why the offerings we provide our clients here at Thirlmere Deacon made sense for Rob at this particular point within his career.

Rob explained: "One of the reasons for getting in touch with Thirlmere Deacon is thinking about my life after sport and trying to make my money work for me now while I'm still playing."

He added: "My long term goal is to take the pressure off my life after cricket. If I go into a job that isn't as well paid as cricket is for me now, it's about knowing that my bills will be covered during the transition period."

We're sure that Rob's need for long term security will resonate with investors of all backgrounds, but particularly those within the sporting world. As a career, sport can be difficult to navigate financially because the high earning potential can often be capped to a specific set of years when the individual is at their peak professioally. Without careful financial management, not to mention forward planning, the individual could suffer a sharp drop in the living standards once they retire from their sport, which is why making the right investments at the right time is key.

In terms of why Rob chose property to gain that sense of financial security, he told us his reasons for doing so specifically over investing in other commodities such as stocks or cryptocurrencies: "I think it's just well known that properties are safer investments. I mean, obviously, we've seen the recent crypto crashes, and I've dabbled a little bit in stocks and shares. but I'm a cautious sort of guy when it comes to that sort of thing, and after looking at what Thirlmere Deacon has to offer, it was just perfect for my personality and for my investment goals."

Stuart added: "From the commodities point of view, property is always seen as the safe bet because no matter what happens, people will always need a roof over their head. Crypto, as we can see now - I mean, it's fantastic when it's going in your favour - but with a stoke of a pen or a tweet from a certain billionaire, things just fall off the face of the earth. So it can change overnight, whereas property is always steadily rising. You might not get absolutely uber rich overnight, but you're going to do well over the long term period."

The rental assurance Thirlmere Deacon guarantees for its clients was

also particularly appealling for Rob, as he explained: "I always wanted to get into property, but I was worried about void periods with tenants, not having anyone in and potentially losing money. So the rental assurance stood out for me. It just seemed safer for my first investment. It's been really easy for me to just concentrate on cricket and other stuff that I have going on in my life and let yourselves take care of everything else."

Asking Rob whether he had any advice for like-minded first time investors, he highlighted the importance of doing your research, telling us: "I think it's important to understand property and being a landlord first. Understand the risks because there's always a risk with every investment. Work out your end goal and find the best route for you."

Stuart agreed, adding: "That's good advice. If you're going to put money into something, spend some time on it, speak to different people and see if you get the right fit. That is always my advice. "The other main thing that everybody hears me say in all my articles and my videos is to look at the long term. Don't think about buying property or any investment to turn it around in 18 months, six months.

If you're thinking about it from a 10, 12, even 15 year time view in mind, then you're never going to go wrong. There's always peaks and troughs, but usually, things are always on the way up."

Looking ahead, we were keen to ask Rob what was next for his investmet portfolio, as he aims to create a solid plan that will allow him to transition from professional sport into other ventures over the coming years.

Top of Rob's agenda was investing in additional property abroad, with our offerings here at Thirlmere Deacon, including the likes of our Peninsula development located in Business Bay Dubai having caught his eye. He added that one of his current thought plans is to "own something abroad, either to use personally or to rent out while I'm not there."

Investing in a property such as our Dubai apartments would give ROb the option to live part-time abroad or to keep the property strictly as rental income for his life back home. Once again, this sense of flexibility is something that we are finding really appeals to our investors, especially as it's possible to suit so many different lifestyle requirements within a single investment strategy. In addition, the Dubai property market is performing exceptionally well and paired with low entry points, the city has become an attractive proposition to investors of all calibres in recent times.

Our chat with Rob was extremely insightful, and we wish him all the best for the rest of his professional career with Northamptonshire, and his future plans to build up his investment.