Adaero Property

What a packed week! Tuesday saw me back in Sheffield for a fantastic monthly meet up with the Development Discovery crew. A few days back in East Lothian working on recruitment and our SA business, followed by 3 days at Progressive Towers for Chris and I learning about Business Systems with Jason and Ray.

With such a busy week of content there’s too much to share in one post but here’s a few highlights from our Development Discovery Day which may well be of value to all the budding developers out there.

We started the day with a mini round table mastermind where each member updated what they’ve been working on the last month, any challenges faced and their learning objectives for the day. Common learning points to cover were:

• how to go from outline to full planning
• how to deal with lapsed planning
• targeted commercial
• optimising existing owned land
• how to do vendor finance
• Cohort updates

Each project group updated the room on the progress of their development site. In our case we are going through  a pre-application process to optimise our site from 11 to 14 apartments. This is a snapshot of our discussion on the progress of planning and the new design:

– Our mentor Alan felt the revised design will sell much better. 

– In regards to previous challenges of massing and scale- this has been addressed with the following adjustments from our Architect:

•  Upper floors have been set back so its less imposing
• The roof line has been lowered with a flat roof so there is not any mass above the original height of the first planning design (*annoyingly there are not any ratios or anything to determine massing, it’s very subjective.
• A vennel between the front 2 blocks has been created to open up a coastal view for the apartments at the rear of the development which will add to the value
• The ground level where the footprint of the building will sit will be lowered by half a metre helping to reduce the scale and massing. The ground level will then be feathered away to level it out and we will install French drains (essentially soak away drains that prevent ground water from flowing towards a building) around the perimeter of the building.
• The overall design palette of the building now looks really sharp using grey Trespa panels  https://www.trespa.com/
• The balconies have been redesigned so will be easier to construct and drain rain water

Overall a super insightful exercise to go through these planning issues and work towards something that should ultimately be granted planning because the design has been informed by feedback from the planner.

When, rather than if, planning is granted it will raise the valuation of our site as it is and of course dramatically increase our projected GDV. Very exciting and fingers are firmly crossed.

Alan later walked us through some key principles of vendor finance which has worked extremely well for him to create win win outcomes on several sites.  As a little insight, one of the key things is to do your homework and go to meet the vendor equipped with a project folder containing details of how a potential site scheme could work, good comparables, a site valuation and any helpful insights informed by the local plan affecting the area.

What you are essentially doing with vendor finance is minimising risk by speaking to the right people to eliminate as much guessing as possible, and ultimately create a fantastic win win scenario whereby the vendor can achieve the price they want (and more), while you minimize risk and create a fully self funding development.  This strategy can work extremely well with commercial sites that might be costing the owner money (i.e. if it has a struggling business).

Here are some key things you can look for:

•      Empty buildings
•      Failing pubs and hotels
•      Sites that have been sitting on websites and not selling for months

The other key ingredients to this are approaching the vendor with a problem solving mindset and being completely honest throughout.

We used the remainder our time in Sheffield for a mini mastermind session focused on helping one of our cohort members brainstorm possible  options for a large country hotel site with land.

It’s now Sunday morning and after a fun night out with the group from our Business Cashflow Masterclass, we have the final session at Progressive Towers with Ray and Jason before we drive back up the road to East Lothian.

Have a great week ahead.

This week I discovered the true story of Pejman Nozad, a ‘rugs to riches’ story of an Iranian immigrant rug dealer who became Silicon Valley’s hottest Venture Capitalist with a net worth of $50million. More on that in a moment.

How has your November kicked off? For Chris and I, we’ve been busy with both strategic and operational things, for example:

• firming up the scope of works and furniture order lists for some new SA units that will be coming online in the next couple of weeks
• progressing our recruitment conversations for an Operations Manager
• reviewing and finalising commercial lease documents
• resolving 2 guest lock out issues
• exploring conversations with some prospective new clients

What about on the learning side this week, what new learns stand out for you? If you don’t know the story I started referring to at the beginning of the post, it’s simply fascinating and I encourage you to read into it, meanwhile here’s the shortened version.

Pejman Nozad moved to California in 1992 with limited grasp of the English language and $700 to his name. He secured a job in a Silicon valley rug shop and began selling rugs in the area. A lot of these customers were venture capitalists and entrepreneurs  and over time he began building a valuable network. He began connecting founding entrepreneurs with local VCs by inviting them to the rug gallery and generally being helpful to founders. He gradually started investing in his client’s companies and eventually convinced his boss to start a “tech venture fund” (with his savings and his boss’ investment).

Their fund became the first investors in Dropbox, Lending Club, SoundHound, Danger, Zoosk and others.  Pejman Nozad is one of Silicon Valley’s greatest connectors, yet he doesn’t have the staple calling card of Silicon Valley. No M.B.A. No Ph.D. No “technical background whatsoever” (his words). Nozad’s path to Silicon Valley power broker — and VC investor with a net worth in the ballpark of $50 million — was a far simpler one: He sold carpets….and became an expert networker!

Here are Pejman Nozad’s six secrets for networking success, that helped him build a net worth of $50million:

#1 GIVE

Always be willing and eager to help others with an introduction or your time, and do not expect anything in return. Give first and don’t keep score.

#2 BE REAL

Be proud of where you came from and share your story with others. Be completely human and authentic. Zig Ziglar wisely said that, “If people like you they will listen to you but if they trust you they will do business from you.”

#3 COMPLIMENT

Compliment the achievements of those around you and do it with a genuine sentiment, and tie it to who they are deep down. People yearn for validation and recognition, and you can build great bonds by looking for those things that people feel proud of and pointing it out.

#4 DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND FIND COMMON GROUND

In conversations search for common ground. Even better, be prepared – take the time and interest to learn about the person you are meeting. When you do this finding common ground and making a connection is easy.

#5 USE YOUR NETWORK SPARINGLY

Use your network wisely and only at the right time, for the right person and for the right cause. Be careful , purposeful and intentional when making withdrawals from your relationship bank account. There is a time for requests and withdrawals but make it count.

#6 BE AUTHENTICALLY YOU, ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE AND WITH EVERYONE

Don’t create walls between your personal and professional lives – it is one big network of people. We don’t need to exhaust ourselves being slightly different personalities between work, social and family. Be just as personally helpful and at ease with a work colleague as you would with a family member.

In closing we have a quote from Robert Kiyosaki – “The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everybody else looks for work.”

I hope this post proves helpful to you. Please share any of your networking success strategies for others to learn from here.

P.S. If you want to find out more about Pejman Nozad, here’s a couple of links:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2012/03/21/silicon-valleys-hottest-vc-is-a-rug-dealer/#766094b231d5

https://medium.com/@pejmannozad/tech-s-most-unlikely-venture-capitalist-bb002488f297

Currently on the train back up to Dunbar from Peterborough after a 5 day intensive speaker training course. Five packed days with a great group of people and big transformations in our ability and confidence to deliver a talk. Big thanks to our trainers Steve and Peter. We all had great fun talking about topics we believe in massively – for me it was the power of mastermind groups and about the mastermind event Chris and I plan to launch next year.

Mid way through the week Dillon shared an inspirational talk with us during which he shared the line used the the title of this week’s post. It was a fitting line for both Dillon’s talk and for our course – in other words if you have a message or mission to share with others, that you know will serve them, don’t keep it locked up inside you. The quote is actually the title of a book written by Dr Wayne Dyer and his daughter Serena about the most important life principle her father taught her –  it means that you don’t allow yourself to live any life other than the one you were born to live.

Whilst in Peterborough this week I shared a great Serviced Apartment with Kenny in the Hamptons (you’ve got a super place there Gary- thanks). Each morning before class I jogged round the footpaths and waterways of this new build development listening to podcasts. One of these podcasts about creating your own brand was particularly fitting to the theme of speaker training and getting your message out there.  I thought there might be others in the community who would appreciate a summary of the key take aways from this podcast and a link to it if you’re interested:

Here are the 5 C’s of creating your personal brand, courtesy of Pat Flynn (one of my favourite podcasters)

https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/podcasts/how-to-build-a-brand/

1) Clarity

• Be clear on your mission and who you are
• Be clear who you are trying to serve and how
• Have a clear copy i.e. on how you communicate the above (in other words are you making sense with what you’re putting out there?)

2) Consistency

• Have consistency in your message and pack value into the content you share
• It isn’t necessarily about frequency but about showing up consistently and putting maximum effort into what you do
• To be consistent you need to know what to say ‘NO’ to and what to say ‘YES’ to

3) Community

• Have a community to support that brand, and be an extension of it, to be there when trolls show up
• The community is the glue that holds your brand together
• They are the first step towards raving fans
• ”People find you for your content but stay for the community”
• Humans naturally want to be in tribes because people want to get together to be with like minded people
• Pat recommended this podcast  on building your tribe http://www.chalenejohnson.com/podcast/Shaleen podcast on building tribe

4) Calls to Action

• Getting the people that follow you to take action, if you miss that out then you are missing a whole part of brand experience, reading content is just one dimension
• When you give calls to action give them opportunities for transformation because you know that when they take action they will benefit
• How to do it? You can use community challenges over a set number of days, i.e. help give them small wins
• “If you want to change someone’s life, start by changing their day- with little wins” – Ramit Sethi

5) Courage

• You need to be brave, it takes hard work, time and bold action to put yourself out there and build a brand- those things will make the difference however
• When you go big you will go into the unknown but that’s where good things happen, you have to get nervous, if not then you could be getting complacent

Have a great weekend all.

At some point in the nearish future Chris Dornan and I will benefit from a one hour Q&A with Rob Moore. This was part of a great offer we took advantage of at the Elite Cashflow Accelerator event in September, where we were the first to book our spot on the Business Systems Course.

I’ll circle back to Rob in a moment, first here’s a quick round up of the week that was:

• Kicked off our recruitment campaign to hire a Property & Operations Manager.
• Took a day out to visit the Falkirk Wheel and Stirling Castle with my family.
• Finally pushed through the synchronisation to integrate multiple properties on airbnb with Kigo (a fair bit more work than expected).
• Big push on researching & contacting various infrastructure and construction projects in our area as part of our business development pipeline for contractor guests to our SA properties.
• Had a brief ride in my friends Tesla on ‘ludicrous’ mode – which can go from 0-60mph in about 2.5 seconds –insane, or…..ludicrous!
• Measured up some new SA apartments for full set up with a furnishing consultant in preparation for opening them up in a few weeks.
• Met with a potential investor about our packaged SA offering
• I’ve just kissed the family goodbye after a great weekend and am now on the train down to Peterborough for the week long speaker training course at Progressive Towers. I’ll be sharing a nice SA unit for the week (new to the market from fellow VIP Gary Smith) with Kenneth Martin (hope your cooking is good Kenny).
• Got some photos taken at one of Chris’ current residential projects (a 35SqM+ extension and re-model in East Lothian ).

Main learns this week from my morning reading/listening/watching sessions:

• This one is a proactive decision rather than a new learn, but I’ve recently decided that once I’ve chosen my top 3 goals for the week ahead (which I do on a Sunday) – I must commit to SCHEDULING allotted time for each goal into my google calendar for the full week ahead. It’s great having clear goals for the week but unless you have specificity on defined completion points and have them scheduled in with a clear plan to execute, then you could find yourself at the desk late on Friday night after a ‘busy’ week with not much completed from your original week’s plan.
• This next point is quite heavy going on the psychology side, something that fascinates me – read it twice if you’re interested. Empathy is the key to melting away marketing obstacles. Empathy is the (imperfect) art of learning what people want, and WHY they want it. The key to empathy is to imagine how your customer’s beliefs characterise their perception of their world and their place in it. As we start to explore customer’s beliefs, needs and wants begin to emerge. Beliefs transform raw needs into specific wants (for example, the need to feel secure can manifest itself as the want to be highly organised).
• More often than not, being selfish is the most selfless thing you can do! – I was reminded of this from one of Darren Hardy’s morning messages- he said that when you take care of yourself first, you can then help others from a position of strength rather than always helping others first and sacrificing yourself. A great example cited was that of Michael Jordan, who focused on his own game intensely for years, before then being in a position to help raise the game of his entire team – he captained the Chicago Bulls to six NBA Championships. Hardy’s mentor Jim Rohn would say, “You take care of you for me, and I’ll take care of me for you.”
• Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals each year, make a plan for them, but in the moment of each day, forget the gap between where you are now and the big scary goal, and just focus on the very next step of action towards it.

So, what about those questions for Rob? If you are still with me, in preparation for our Q&A with Rob, Chris and I would love to tap into the great minds in this community to help generate a selection of quality questions that we could all learn from. We’d like to invite ideas for the kind of questions that will open up some profound wisdom, insights and resources. In return, we’ll share key learns when the time comes. If you’re keen to contribute your thoughts please either respond to this post or message me direct.

Have a great week.

How has your week been? What have you learned?

Our week got off to an exciting and insightful start. We attended a 3 hour talk by international speaker, coach, author and successful entrepreneur Brad Sugars. Listening to someone who was able to retire at age 26 and then go on to buy, grow and sell over a dozen companies in his next 20 years, you’re clearly going to learn a lot in 3 hours.

We had the privilege to meet Brad briefly after the talk and chat with him over a beer in small groups- a phenomenal businessman and inspiring guy.

Learning and the continuous journey to become the best version of me that I can is my highest value. There’s a good chance that many of you reading this weekly post also have something similar in your top values so I hope that you appreciate these highlights of the week’s learns.

The title of this post is a line we heard from Brad Sugars on Monday, and very fitting for this post.

Here are some highlights from my notes:

Brad’s definition of a ‘Finished business’ 

A commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you. Getting to this stage was the essence of his talk and it’s what he has specialised in doing for the last 20+ years. Once a business is ‘finished’ it can be sold for a multiple of profit. He finds that a sweet spot is getting a company to £5m in profit as it results sales valuation multiple of circa 9-15x. Although he once sold a dog food business for 37 times profit!

Brad Sugar’s topline formula for success:

DREAMS (‘nothing if not at first a dream’ – have dreams in all areas of life)

X

GOALS (When we have goals we have direction, and we know what we have to learn)

X

LEARNING (learn how to achieve the specific goals)

X

PLANS (once got the knowledge can then make a plan)

X

ACTIONS (once you have a plan you can then go to work on the right things)

=

SUCCESS

3 main business owner challenges

• Time – means they are doing everything themselves
• Team – means not right people in place
• Money – likely a combination of the above

Business doesn’t get easier, you get better at business.

Brad shared his BE X DO = HAVE formula which you can see here in a short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCZEiI-8aa4

He also shared his 6 Steps for a Winning Business (working from the bottom up)

1. Freedom/Results
2. Synergy
3. Team
4. Leverage
5. Niche
6. Mastery

If you are interested in learning more on this here is a presentation on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSDKfHIYxiY

If you can take a little more learning, here are a few nuggets from a great day with our Development Discovery mentor Alan Christie on Tuesday- thanks Alan.

In no particular order:

• A reference point for when looking at optimising a development site is that you can comfortably fit 16,000-20,000 SqFt (1486-1858 SqM) of building on an acre site (of course there’s obviously so much more to take into account i.e. utilities, access, where and how this fits in with the local plan and so much more).
• Our cohort member Neil gave us a mini masterclass on using the measurement tool on Adobe Acrobat Reader to calculate areas on an architect’s drawing when floor areas are not provided and all you have is a scale at the bottom of the drawing. This is a free to use tool that just requires a little investment in time
• If you don’t have Adobe to hand you can use Alan’s handy  trick of measuring a parking space on the drawing with a ruler to find the scale. Typically a parking space is assigned 2.5 x 5m.
• Where there is a requirement for housing as stated by Central Government, planners are obliged to approve the plan on appeal if there are no issues with the design.
• Planning fees in England have increased by 20%.
• Councils can’t be seen to be an impediment to development as a consequence of requirements i.e. for AF contributions, CIL etc. In the case of our development site, we are currently pulling together a viability report to justify to the council that their suggested commuted sum and other contributions are currently too high.

Thanks also to Mark Doyle who presented a great talk on his experience of buying at auction, where he has had great success. Here are some of his new to auction simple rules:

• Observe first
• Go through the legal packs of any interesting property
• Check land registry and title of the lot you’re interested in
• Listen to the auctioneer’s reading of the rules
• Watch out for the bidding increments so you don’t get caught out
• Be seen (he likes to wear a red shirt)
• If you are bidding, come prepared with proof of ID and address (and the ability to pay a deposit of course)

Tips on properties that could hold hidden value:

• Japanese knotweed – this can be treated and then if you get a 5-10 yr insurance product on it you’ll be fine to refinance, sell on etc.
• Look for old, struggling pubs that have few customers and some parking, they may have even been houses previously
• Can you split properties vertically with firewalls to make 2 units
• If the property is suffering from black mould, cold spots and bad condensation, this can be remedied with the addition of pacifier vents on cold walls at height.

So, a busy week both on the learning front and on the operations of our business. We have also just kicked off our recruitment campaign for a Property & Operations Manager.

Have a great week ahead.

Have you identified your own highest values? When I first completed John Demartini’s values determination exercise I shone a light on something I’d been focusing on for years without recognising it as one of my highest values – that being the hunger for continuous growth, learning and becoming the best version of me in each area of life.

With this value front and centre, there was a Darren Hardy message this week about wisdom that really resonated with me and I felt compelled to share it. More on that shortly.

First, here’s what Chris and I have been working on the last few days – this week we have invested time in developing our model for packaged serviced accommodation units and viewing a few potential properties. We have also been getting ‘our house in order’ from an admin perspective and crafting a vision of opportunity for an Operations Manager in anticipation of recruiting for that role soon.

Main lessons from the week

A few great take aways from Darren Hardy:

Where great wisdom really comes from – Wisdom is gained through awareness, we pay for it with attention. It’s a conscious choice but we can build a habit around it by asking ourselves, what did I learn today?’ and capturing a note of three learns each day in a learning journal. This was the message I wanted to share.

A three step re-frame when facing obstacles

1. True achievers are revealed during times of challenge. When we feel like we’ve been knocked on our backside or are facing challenges, we first need to get a grip and get perspective. In other words, take a step back from our immediate situation and recognise the good things we already have going on in life. We can’t be productive wallowing in self pity.
2. Focus on what you have and can do rather than what you don’t have and can’t do.
3. Turn obstacles into opportunities – it’s because of the obstacles that we are able to dig into and access our potential. Opportunities are often cloaked as obstacles so it’s crucial for us to learn to see them as positive (and to teach this to our kids). When we push ourselves we’re going to fall but it’s proof that we are getting better, these are markers of improvement along the journey to ‘better’ and they should be celebrated.

Some wisdom on cars, clarified during a productive meeting with our Accountant this week:

• You can claim capital allowances on cars you buy and use in your business. This means you can deduct all or part of the value from your profits before you pay tax. – Ref https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/business-cars
• If the car has CO2 emissions of 75mg/km or less you can claim 100% allowances (these would likely be hybrid cars). In other words if you bought a car in your LLP for £30,000, you can make and keep a profit of £30,000 before paying tax, even if you have bought the vehicle on HP and are making payments each month.
• If the car has CO2 emissions of 75-130mg/km or less you can claim 18% allowances

If you haven’t discovered your own highest values yet and would like to, here’s a link to the exercise https://drdemartini.com/values/login

Another packed out week races by bringing September and Q3 to a close.

How’s it going for you?

How are you tracking against your 2017 goals? What might you need to review, tweak, stop doing or double down on?

This week we spent Tuesday with our fellow Scottish VIP’s. Another fantastic afternoon where we shared ideas around the lunch table and heard from Kevin Whelan about the overwhelming benefits of a SSAS when it comes to investing. Thank you to Aniko for another hugely productive mentoring session- Chris and I have come away with more clarity on our guiding vision and with another handful of meaningful actions to work on.

I then spent the last two days of the week in Devon to view our development site and meet our Architect with our Development Discovery team. This was another two hours well invested with a mentor, Alan Christie, and one of our power team professionals. Big thanks to our Architect Rebecca Fearnley, of Fearnley Lott Architects, who talked us through the pre-planning process she is skillfully managing on our behalf.

There were a number of key learns so I thought it might be helpful to share them here. I know not the most exciting topic but hopefully some useful nuggets there for those interested.

[First as a bit of context, we already have detailed planning for 11 apartment units and we have made the decision to optimise our site by increasing the size of each unit, adding a few more units and adding garages for each. To do this we have invested some time and funds into a pre-planning application.]

Key learning points about the pre-planning app process:

• In short, the purpose of a pre-planning app is to reach a point of agreement in principle before submitting the new application. However, the pre-planning decision is only the opinion of one person, it then needs to go to statutory consultation.
• You are allowed up to three meetings with the Planning Officer to get to this point.
• In our case, after presenting revised drawings at the first meeting, the planner came back with a few comments to address on design, scale and massing (meaning the 3D projection of the building) and a revised Affordable Housing (AF) contribution. These are items our architect can help us tweak in order to satisfy the comments. For example, one of the ways to reduce the perceived ‘mass’ of the building is to sink it 0.5m into the ground.
• By increasing the number of units we will naturally attract a larger AF contribution. We learned that the usual policy in rural areas (although it varies slightly around the country by Local Plan) is that you can add a gain of 5 units to the site before triggering AF. In other words if you are starting with five units on a site and looking to create 10 in total, you would typically be clear of AF contribs, but if you are creating 12 then expect an AF contrib.
• If it is a commercial building you have bought to demolish and rebuild or convert, there is a new policy in place called vacant building credit that can be used.

Vacant building credit was introduced to promote development on brownfield sites. It allows the floorspace of existing buildings that are to be redeveloped to be offset against the calculations for section 106 affordable housing requirements (whether financial contribution or provision). It applies to any building that has not been abandoned and is brought back into any lawful use, or is demolished to be replaced by a new building. http://www.michelmores.com/news-views/news/planning-briefing-vacant-building-credit-and-reductions-affordable-housing

• If AF and section 106 contributions are looking a bit heavy you could look into providing the council with a viability report, which is essentially a worked through calculation showing the magnitude of contributions being requested by the council are too high and result in the site no longer being economically viable. Councils are reasonable and understand that developers need a margin of around 20%. The viability report will be sent to the District Valuer to consider alongside the plans.
• An intro to SAPs – SAP stands for ‘Standard Assessment Procedure’. It is the only official, government approved system for assessing the energy rating for a new home. SAP calculations are a requirement of the Building Regulations, and are required for all newly built dwellings in the UK. We learned that oil is not the most efficient and the best way to pass the required thermal modelling is with mains gas or air source heat pumps. The heating source will need to be built into the viability, and of course design, and you will need to know this when you go in for planning.
• On cladding – obviously a topic under close scrutiny following recent events. Any cladding on a building needs a BBA certificate to prove performance testing. We are looking at cladding options from approved manufacturers like Trespa

If you are anything like me you might find reading and interpreting legal documents just a little bit painful. Chris and I are about to take on a nice block of five flats to rent for our SA business – very exciting but lots of admin involved before the practical stuff kicks in.

On Friday morning I spent two hours with our commercial lawyer to chew through five documents relating to our commercial lease. This is our first rodeo as it relates to commercial leasing so eagerness to learn kicked in and our solicitor happily turned the meeting into a mini masterclass by explaining the main leasing concepts and terms in language easy enough for my simple brain.

Armed with several pages of notes I thought there would be others in the community who would appreciate a summary of these learns. There are differences between commercial leases in Scotland v’s England so it’s good to know which ever side of the border you live on. This post may be dry stuff and not relevant for many at the moment but there are so many valuable nuggets here that could really help, so it may be worth filing for later reference.

In no particular order, here are some worthy points related to each document you might find helpful:

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS

• Commercial Leasing in Scotland is unregulated by legislation, it is only affected by 3 Acts. They are generally drafted by the landlord’s side and therefore have more freedom to skew their way. That’s why it’s necessary for the tenant to review with their solicitor clause by clause and ensure it is fair and equitable. It’s all about respective negotiation.
• In England there is more statutory protection for tenants in commercial leases.

THE TITLE

• The first thing to do is review the landlord’s title of the property to rent to ensure they do indeed own it and can let it. There is an obligation for the tenant to comply with the Landlord’s title so you need to check there are no unusual conditions that pass on to you as the tenant. If there are any planning conditions in the title i.e. affordable housing contributions etc you’ll want to make sure these have been paid.
• The lease must be registered with land registry to be binding- by doing this the tenant is protected if the landlord were to sell the building during the lease i.e. if so you could still continue leasing under the original conditions if sold to a new owner. Registering the lease also protects the landlord from financial breach by the tenant.

THE OFFER DOCUMENT

• The offer is the overall contract that dictates the structure of the other documents i.e. the lease itself, the deposit guarantee, any personal guarantees and licenses to occupy (we will be using a license to occupy for a few of the flats in the beginning so we can use them as they become available – essentially pay as we go until all five flats are available and the lease will properly commence).

THE DEPOSIT AGREEMENT

• Whatever deposit amount has been agreed will be held by the landlord’s solicitor for the duration and can only be withdrawn by the landlord if the tenant is in arrears.
• Interest earned on the deposit will be returned to the tenant at the end of the period.
• The deposit amount varies and is negotiable, as is the term for it to be held. It is reasonable to propose that after two to three of leasing with no arrears a deposit is returned. Otherwise it is cash tied up not working.

PERSONAL GUARANTEE

• It is common that a personal guarantee for rent liability is requested by the landlord, however it is typically either one or the other of deposit or PG.
• Essentially this means the tenants are personally liable for the rent during the lease period.
• It is reasonable to request that after a few years leasing with no arrears that the PG is removed.

LICENSE TO OCCUPY

• These documents are typically a lot of words to say that it is not a lease. These are for short term arrangements, have no statutory protection and can have immediate termination

THE LEASE

• The lease itself can either be FRI – Full repair and insuring where tenant is responsible for the entire fabric of the building, or an internal repairing and insuring lease only – self explanatory.
• You’ve all heard of the 4P’s of Marketing. Well for a document to be an actual lease it must contain what lawyers refer to as the 4P’s – Properties, Parties, Price and Period. Without any of these it will not comprise a lease.
• When you see a generic lease presented with the term “put and keep” – hopefully your lawyer will spot it but if not ask that it is taken out as it can be incredibly onerous in regards to excessive and unnecessary repairing standards.
• In a commercial lease there is no obligation for the landlord to do an inventory so the tenant must invest in this to protect themselves. The inventory equivalent in the commercial world is called a Schedule of Condition.
• In regards to insurance, the landlord will insure the building because they own it and the tenant is then required to reimburse.
• If the building were to burn down the lease is essentially put on ice and there is an obligation for the landlord to re-instate the building and put the tenant back in, at which point the lease would recommence. If this is not done within 3 years then both parties are clear to walk away.

If this has been helpful, great, I’d love to hear it. Likewise, if you have any other nuggets on leasing to add please do as the more learning the better.

I’m riding the Virgin East Coast train back home for the second time this week after two great property meet-ups.

Tuesday was our monthly Development Discovery meeting in Sheffield where we got together for group work on progressing our development site in the south coast. Next step will be a site visit and meeting with the architect about revised drawings to optimise our site – very exciting.

As of now, Chris and I have literally just left a brilliant weekend ECA event (Elite Cashflow Accelerator) with our Progressive VIP tribe so we could catch our train back to Edinburgh. Our heads buzzing with ideas, inspiration and excitement for next steps. Here’s a few highlights of the speakers and some of their wisdom that resonated with me:

• Samantha Brown on the power of networking – 1) have a 20 second intro prepared that you can use when at networking events that covers name & company, something relevant you’ve done this week, something specific about what you do/offer and something to build intrigue in what you do. 2) Mindset re-frame – don’t see networking as ‘getting out of your comfort zone’ but rather  ‘INTO THE ADVENTURE ZONE’.
• Shaz Nawaz – ‘Every man is entitled to order his affairs so that the tax is less than it otherwise would be’- actually a quote from Lord Tomlin but neatly captures the essence of what Shaz can help us do.
• David Clouter – brilliant talk, what a career to learn from -in addition to giving us a brief history of the money and the banking system he left us with 15.5 millionaire hacks – my favourite is point #9 INSPIRE TRUST – deliver on promises, make win win situations, be honest at all times, admit mistakes, keep confidences, share credit and acknowledge contributions.
• Lloyd Girardi and Andi Cook – wow – three yrs, 116 properties built/in the pipeline, £20M GDV, £120K/mth cashflow. Lloyd’s mindset reframe – analogy of a jigsaw puzzle dropped on the floor being like property development – the pieces facing up that we can see are like the pieces of the process we know, the pieces facing down that we can’t see are like the parts of development we have no idea about but can fill the gap with the right education and power team. Instead of struggling to find BMV property, why not do BBMV ie build below market value.
• Mark Homer – shared with us some inspiring case studies of big commercial conversion projects he’s completed and is working on – many great nuggets of wisdom shared in relation to focusing on one geographical area so you learn what works and test the market by starting with smaller projects and then scaling the model up,  increasing density, clever design to add rooms where no immediate windows exist, business rate tips and so much more..
• Jamie Madill – The secret sauce to raising £10m in JV funds …… run your own property event.
• Dillon Dhanecha – loved Dillon’s humorous story of mistakes and lessons on his journey to make a difference and feel fulfilled, really resonated – an inspiring message around bridging the gap between commercial profit and social impact. He firmly believes that no investor should ever run out of cash so he shared with us his model to consistently turn assets into sales, into profit and into cash.
• Liam Ryan – 2016 VIP of the year inspired us with a summary overview of the Business Income Blueprint system created and refined over the years by Rob and Mark to help them build a business that generates over £30M revenue.
• Terry Waite CBE – wow, we were privileged and moved to hear Terry’s story of surviving five years being held captive in Lebanon. In that period of extreme difficulty he chose to never give up hope. He shared that suffering is part of life but suffering need not destroy. Out of it can come something creative and brilliant. What an inspirational man to reflect on his experience in such a way!
• David Siegler – was our brilliant and witty presenter who seamlessly hosted the weekend for us- thank you.

Huge thanks again to David, Hannah, all the excellent speakers  and to all the Progressive team for a brilliant event. So great to meet so many awesome fellow VIP’s and thank you for having us on stage to share some of our journey so far.

Here’s to everyone’s continued success.

As I sit on our villa sun deck in our final few hours on this paradise island before we depart for home, pulling out my laptop to type again feels fairly alien after a week of digital detox.

The title of this post captures the intention we had for this trip, and whilst it may sound sickly sweet to some, it’s been the ideal way for my wife and I to mark our first decade of marriage. To reflect on the accomplishments in our family life and business, and to dream up ideas and goals for our next decade together. Our aim for the week was always to disconnect from the reactive demands of our usual busy, but enjoyable lives, so that we could completely reconnect with each other and the bigger picture, free from distractions.

If I were to have a bit of a rant a la Rob Moore’s occasional podcast episodes, it would be this: Do our smartphones rob us of higher level connections with our friends and families? Do we prioritise the second screen over the beautiful, giant world right before our eyes?

With these questions floating in the back of my mind, the goal I set myself this week was to eliminate the constant flow of digital conversations for 168 hours – 7 days. I was unsure about putting my phone on airplane mode when leaving Edinburgh airport knowing it would be that way for a week, but I also saw it as a worthy challenge – to see if after years of ‘being available’ if I could completely disconnect, like I did 10 years ago when we came away for our honeymoon.

I’m proud to say that the self experiment has gone swimmingly well. The headspace I’ve been able to access has given way to wonderful conversations with my awesome wife and opportunity to dream about the bigger picture and longer term ideas. These are things that we rarely give ourselves time and permission for back in day to day life, unless we are intentional about scheduling them in.

Here’s a brief summary of some of the life enhancing things we’ve been able to read/do/discuss over the course of the week:

• Daily morning exercise whilst watching inspirational speeches on goalcast (brilliant)
• Time to meditate for longer than when at home
• Time to reflect on our first 10 years of marriage, and to think about what the next 10 years will hold- what we want to be, do, have and who we want to help our kids become
• Time to dream about long term goals for Adaero Serviced Accommodation and capture ideas about developing new business arms
• Time to listen (start to finish) to the book ‘Start With Why’ by Simon Sinek, and use that inspiration to capture my own notes on creating a clear set of values and beliefs that can guide our company and attract people to us
• Time to read a book about family values and note down ideas to enhance our own family economy with our 3 boys

It’s been a blissful privilege to liberate myself from calls, texts, notifications and emails for a full week. The time disconnected from a device has been a gift in so many ways but it’s also served to highlight how saddening it is to see so many couples who are on this dream island with us, but have their heads buried in their phones rather than being engaged in meaningful conversation with their loved one(s).

I am somewhat apprehensive about opening the floodgates of text and email inboxes come Monday morning but I couldn’t be in a better frame of mind to deal with it.

If you can give yourself the gift of disconnecting fully like this every now and then, I can highly encourage it. See it as an investment as it will pay dividends to your wellbeing, your important relationships and your business.

P.S. Wishing a very happy birthday to my business partner Chris