Month: May 2017

Thank you to Peter and Paul for sharing their journeys with us earlier in the week at the monthly VIP meet up. We heard their inspiring stories as they progressed from taking their first uncertain steps in property to scaling up the deals in volume and size. Some common denominators were clear to see, including belief, consistent action taking, education and a solid underlying purpose.

On the SA front Chris and I are starting to explore opportunities to rent blocks of flats and in doing so have made some great learnings (many thanks to conversations with our mentor Paul Smith) that will no doubt benefit others by sharing this.

Some considerations if you are looking at R2R on a block of flats:

• Seek to help the owner claim Capital Allowances- get a desktop survey done in the first instance and if there are significant reliefs then this should be reflected in the rent ie free rent for a period or sufficient discounted rent.
• If you actually lease the flats and the total lease value over the proposed period is greater than the LBTT (Scotland) or SDLT (England) threshold, then you will be required to pay stamp duty (shocker I know, and came as surprise news to us). Scottish calculator https://www.revenue.scot/land-buildings-transaction-tax/tax-calculator/lbtt-lease-transactions-calculator
• As we recently learned, a management agreement does not attract stamp duty.
• Ideally avoid signing full repairing and insuring leases as that would make you fully responsible for all repairs.
• If there will be a rent review, best to agree how much per year when agreeing all other terms.

Happy Sunday.

Today I heard this quote again, for the second time. The first time I wrote it down, but today it really started to sink in with more meaning. More on that in a minute.

How was week #20 for you?

Picking up from last week’s post you may (or may not) recall that Chris and I had been experiencing some delays in getting a couple of SA deals over the line. Unfortunately one of those (a R2R deal) fell through at the start of the week. However, frustrating as that was, it may actually have helped us down the line as we would have been tied to pretty toppy rent.

In the same day we were reflecting on the setback, we opened up conversations on a bigger R2R deal that could involve multiple properties.

So, that is why this quote, that I first heard shared by Arianna Huffington (of Huffington Post fame), resonated with me this week. And i’m fairly confident that for many of you reading this it will strike a chord and help you start to see things in a new light.

If you’d like to read further into the meaning behind the quote, here’s a good article I found on it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-kronick/life-is-rigged-in-your-fa_b_8233160.html

I thought these two themes summed up the week for us, let me explain briefly.

Tuesday was spent in York with our brilliant development discovery group working on our project to develop a block of luxury apartments. We are exploring options that may ask for a little more patience on our part and add time to our project, but the potential upside could be well worth the wait (by the way, if you’d like to hear further details of this project and how we could help you get involved, just get in touch with a PM).

Meanwhile, back in Scotland, progress for Chris and I on finalising 2 large properties for SA slowed down a little. We are confident things will cross the line in the coming week or two, but again, we must temper ambition with patience.

This kind of pause has allowed time to reflect on something we know about but was reminded of thanks to Darren Hardy’s daily message yesterday, and that something is the magic factor.

So what is “The Magic Factor”?

It boils down to this – “success is a becoming process”. In other words, to have more, we have to become more.

“Before you have you must do, and before you do, you must become”.

In relation to all of our goals, we can ask ourselves this- Who do I need to become in order to….(you fill in the blanks)? In our case it’s Who do I need to become in order secure and let a portfolio of 120 SA bed spaces by the end of this year?

Our answers to this include things such as staying focused on high value, high pay off actions, becoming masters of systemisation and outsourcing…

And a new one to add to this is exercising patience where it’s required, but using that time to reflect, review and improve.

In reflecting a little this week, the exciting thing is that what seemed alien when we got started in SA last July is now becoming our norm as we speak about it, work on real challenges and break through challenges to see the results. The ‘becoming process” for us has been phenomenal and we continue to grow as property entrepreneurs with the help of mentors like Paul, Aniko, Alan and Pauline.

I’ll borrow Darren Hardy’s words to close for the week to serve as a reminder that,

“our background, experiences, and circumstances might have influenced who you are right now, but you are responsible for who you become.”

Happy Friday!

This past month feels like one of the fastest yet. Chris and I have experienced the challenge of balancing ambition with real life growing pains of taking on and setting up new SA units, but we are become more slick with each one. We are learning a phenomenal amount on this journey and the good things is, learning and personal development is up there as one of our top three values. It’s not just the learning we enjoy however, we recognise the satisfaction that comes from sharing knowledge that may also be of value to others (i.e. the main reason I write these posts each week).  

You’ve probably noticed that I like to inject curated nuggets of wisdom from writers and speakers that I learn from. If what we share helps even just one person then brilliant, even better, let us know.

Who would have thought spending three hours with an accountant would be fun? Well, as the sun shone down on Stirling yesterday, Chris and I spent three hours in a meeting room with our accountant. We both soaked up every minute with enthusiasm because the conversation was engaging and we were learning so many things that will significantly help the growth of our businesses.

As I drove the last leg home yesterday I was listening to the audible version of a brilliant book called, “The Code Of An Extraordinary Mind” (for the second time). The author, Vishen Lakhiani was describing a particular turning point in his success that I thought worth sharing, and the take-away is this-

Happiness cannot be tied to a goal, yes have big goals and celebrate when you achieve them, but be happy before you reach them. In other words, when he (Vishen) stopped living in the future (I’ll be happy when… mindset) and started living in the present, his business success took off and so did the fun he had along the way.

I thought this was a relevant message to share as many of us property investors are so ambitious that we can forget to enjoy the journey.

This short poem penned by one of the world’s richest men sums things up nicely:

“I was early taught to work as well as play,

My life has been one long, happy holiday;

Full of work and full of play-

I dropped the worry on the way-

And God was good to me every day.”

― John D. Rockefeller

Have a great weekend.