About Mark Wilson
I started off studying Accountancy at University in Dundee with no real
plan for what lay ahead but always knew I would have my own business.
I remember living in Ireland at 8yrs old cutting turf on my Uncles field
and turning and bagging it in the sun. I sold it all to the local neighbours
and made a pretty penny.
After Uni I worked at my father’s engineering company but quickly realised that I was not an engineer.
When I was 23 I decided to start a property portfolio. I bought my first flat for £11,500 at auction and after spending £1,200 on it, it was worth £32,000.
This got me started and I quickly built up a big portfolio all of which I rented out to DSS tenants. Because I was finding so many good properties I advertised and helped others build their own portfolios. These people have all become good friends.
After 5 yrs of success I felt the market was changing as more and more people were going for the same properties I had selected. Therefore I decided it was time to diversify. I spent a couple of years refurbishing larger houses but again this was not my forte. However, I could always see the potential in land so that was an obvious choice for my next venture.
I initially secured sites that already had a form of planning on it (outline) and took them to detailed planning. This was a good learning curve. Then, I moved onto sites that were Brownfield and got the planning changed to residential. Again, a great learning curve! Where I could see the big bucks is in what the big developers have been doing for years, securing prime land next to existing housing which over time will be zoned for housing as the town grows. The question was how do I do it? I was going to need millions!!
That’s when I came up with the idea for Intelligent Land Investments Ltd. Why not set up a company where lots of people help each other achieve the end goal. We all help fund the project, share in the risk and ultimately share in the profit. And that’s when ILandI was born. I spent over a year working with my lawyers, asking them to structure the company and looking at the projected results as if I was in the shareholders shoes. That way I knew my investors would be safe and not have concerns about investing.
