Monday: Short trip into Leeds city centre to inspect an apartment one of our buy to let investors has agreed to buy. Happy to report it was in great condition and the tenant is not just looking after the place but there is genuine scope for rental increase and therefore greater yield returns for the buyer. This might sound a little greedy but the rent has not been increased for four years and the Leeds centre property market is very strong and we have to look after our clients.
South on the M1 to Sheffield to meet a valuer at a large tenanted block of apartments. With an asset fund buying the entire block the valuation was worth attending purely to make sure all went well. It did!
Tuesday: Golf was rained off which gave me the opportunity to catch up with some paperwork and reports in the office and plan the week ahead.
Wednesday: West on the M62 through Merseyside to Crosby for a meeting with an old friend and colleague. After a quick lunch talking family life, buy to let, new opportunities, the student market, land prices and ground rent multiples for those buying freeholds. Then into Liverpool city centre to check out a new opportunity potential where a period building is going to be refurbished and converted into office accommodation and new residential apartments on the top two floors. Back on the M62 and heading east with a stop off in Rochdale to discuss a new build scheme with an old contact.
Thursday: Early dash on the M62 again but east bound this time to Castleford or CasVegas as it’s locally known by some. It is never the most glamorous of locations but a good solid growth town with lots of potential. In the late eighties Yazz sang “the only way is up” which I always think sums up Castleford rather well.
Good meeting, great to catch up with a long standing developer client and discuss tenanted stock opportunities, as well as freeholds, ground rents and block management with the inevitable lengthy chat about the EU vote and the implications either way.
Back via two schemes in Barnsley to see how build work is progressing.
Friday: Short drive to the Wakefield M1 junction for a hotel reception meeting. Worryingly the staff there are beginning to know who I am as it’s a regular convenient place for meetings for those travelling to meet me on the M1. However two back to back meetings. The first with two regional land & new homes people who requested a meeting to primarily discuss exit strategy for any new build houses or apartments they may have now or in the future in the north of England. Good meeting, lots discussed and lots of opportunities for them and Bastion Estates. The second meeting was with a ‘specialist’ investment broker who insisted on telling me that he only offers thoroughly researched investment opportunities to his clients that was clearly rubbish as I’ve seen what’s on his website. It’s always interesting to hear other people’s experiences and opinions but when you discover what they are offering is brown and smelly you realise all you’ve done is spent more money on expensive tea and wasted some of your life.
Back to Huddersfield via a scheme in Ossett, Wakefield to see if it is 100% completed as notice has been served to the twenty five buyers we introduced.
Weekends are precious and are family time for me and just when you think you’ve escaped you receive a message on a Sunday afternoon from a professional footballer asking if I can find him an apartment to rent in London near his new club. Challenge accepted!
The random week summary might not make the most interesting reading but it was uploaded to give an example of the miles we cover in a week catching up with old contacts, meeting new contacts and inspected schemes.
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