Catherine Yuen builds organised systems for a living. Payment systems, appointment systems, invoice systems - she helps people bring order to complexity. So when she started building a family buy-to-let portfolio in Essex, she did what any methodical person would do: she built a system. Excel spreadsheets. Notion. A structured process that consumed an entire weekend and still came up empty.

She had the discipline. She had the method. What she was missing was the data. Property Filter changed that - and within six weeks of joining, she had her first deal under offer.

Catherine Yuen's challenge before Property Filter

Before Property Filter, Catherine was relying on a combination of Excel spreadsheets and Notion to manage her deal search. On paper, the setup made sense - she is a systems person, and building a structured process felt like the right approach. In practice, it had the opposite effect.

"It was very fragmented," she says. "I ended up finding myself spending more time on building the system than doing viewings." The process was pulling her in the wrong direction. The platform she needed didn't yet exist in her toolkit - she was spending hours on infrastructure instead of finding motivated sellers and getting offers in.

"I spent the whole weekend looking for a few properties, and I didn't even find the opportunity, and they didn't stack anyway. I missed all the family gatherings and activities by just working, and found it doesn't really work."

The turning point came when Catherine joined Property Filter in June 2025. Her hesitation at first was about complexity - she worried it would take months to learn, and that she would end up using only a fraction of it. The training videos and live support from the Property Filter team resolved that quickly. Within two to three weeks, she had worked through the core functionality. By the end of July, she had found a property that stacked.

How Catherine Yuen uses Property Filter to find buy-to-let deals in Essex

Catherine's workflow now runs on a fraction of the time her previous process required. She uses Property Filter as a property sourcing tool built around one core habit: filter hard, move fast. Anything that does not match her buy-to-let strategy in Essex gets hidden immediately. What remains goes into the deal pipeline with notes, follow-up reminders, and context added as she goes.

"I put a lot of information in there as well. Every time I think of something, I put it in the deal pipeline so I won't forget which property it is referring to." That level of discipline means her 15-30 minutes of daily work is genuinely focused - not scattered across browser tabs and spreadsheet rows.

She also uses Property Filter's direct-to-vendor letter feature, enabling her to reach landlords before properties reach the open market. Combined with the weekly community calls that help her stay focused and accountable, the platform replaced not just a set of tools but an entire workflow.

"It's not just the software, it's the people as well. It's really important, I think."