Has your property investment got a PG rating? 🍿 #personalguarantee Doesn’t that sound reassuring in this game! ⚔️🤕 Not too much drama 🙈🦵 No gratuitous scenes 💪🌏 You have the power to decide whether it’s suitable Except a Personal Guarantee is far more complex. It does NOT guarantee you will regain your capital, no matter what the intentions. 👉 Tough reminder time: ✅ Read the small print ✅ Ask yourself why a PG has become your reassuring exit strategy for this deal. Has

What super power would I have if I could choose? 🎁 The ability to choose exactly when to be able to sleep! 😴😂 (and how long!) When I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) post my time on the trading floor, all I COULD do was sleep 😩 CFS demanded 20 HOURS of sleep from me per day, every day, for a period of about 18 months. People don’t believe me when I say that. 20 hours. Sounds glorious to some! But when it’s not a choice, it’s frustrating and worrying. Especially since in

What money beliefs did you inherit from your parents? 😬😂 Many of us happily swear by the things we learnt about money growing up: ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’ (work hard to get it) ‘Respect money and you’ll always have enough’ And so on. Some of us (me!) needed to change one or two (urgently and drastically!) so that we actually engage with money in healthy ways. And stand a chance to make some! ‘Money is the root of all evil’ (sounds dramatic and doubtful to have this, bu

Do things get easier or harder, when you’re working on your mindset? 😂🧠 Those writing the books say it’s like the layers of an onion, you peel one away satisfyingly (through the tears 😅) only to reveal 32,942,000 more layers 😂 I think we spend A LOT of time searching for the things we need and want. We make all these plans and strategies to get it. When it doesn’t produce the results we want we: 💪 Work harder 💪 Try to work faster In short, we put more effort in. (Well,

Can we talk risky language? 👀😯 I know what I made that sound like, I’ll keep it strictly PG today 😂 Wait, did I say PG?? Well, exactly. The ‘Personal Guarantee’ aka PG. One of the things so many investors trip up on is the VAGUE, NOT ALWAYS BINDING and THEREFORE NON RISK-MITIGATING language which is sometimes used by those raising capital for their property projects. Unfortunately a PG does not GUARANTEE you against loss…although it does sound reassuring 😂😂😂 👉 It doesn

There are several books I go back to time, and time, AND TIME! again…. 📕 Untethered Soul by Michael A Singer 📗 Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself Dr Joe Dispenza 📘 Why Men Walk and Women Talk Patricia Love and StevenStosney And... Principles by Ray Dalio, in which he shares some of his guiding principles in work and life #stoic Such a great read for Solopreneurs or Managers alike and especially good for improving teamwork and understanding others (I can think of a few pe

What’s worse than showing up overdressed to a date? 😬💃 Erm…not having made ANY EFFORT AT ALL because you thought it wasn’t worth it 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️… Then...that moment when they strut through the door and you can only ask yourself WHY? Why did I not at least...brush my hair? 👱🏻‍♀️ #truestory Another truth is how similar dating is to finding investment 🌹👀💸 😎 Too keen / not keen enough… the challenge of finding the balance 😅 👋 Grabbing at your assets before it’s

How do you win people over? 🤔 It’s a bit of a hairy question in property and investing 🤪 As too many of us know, it can sound like: 💸 Being sucked into a false deal 💸 Being fed some high-profile nonsense 💸 Kissing good-bye to hard-earned cash into poor investments… I’m asking because I recently had a conversation with brilliant coach Amy Rowlinson about my strengths - one of which is actually WOO. Not that ‘woo’ 🔮😂 although yes to that too 🧠😂 Winning others over (WOO

I’m reinstating Me Mondays! Possibly one of the best things to come out of my brain last year was the very thing doomed not to last…😂 #trytryagain If I have to explain what this is, this post is for YOU too! It just FEELS so right: 🥰 To start the week centered and in the JOY of things that make life FUN 🦈 To bypass drama of any kind for a whole working day 💌 To just be, and see what inspires me 🧠 To set my analytical brain free to indulge in creativity without deadlines

👉 You have to fight for your money 👈 #investors I wish it wasn’t the case. But when it comes to being taken for a ride by an evasive property developer, it’s not going to work for you to keep taking their excuses ⛔️💰 😡 They’ll continue moving the date 😡 You’ll be last on the list of priorities 😡 They’ll find the money for those people who cause the most noise 🗣 I’m talking about this because for so many lovely investors I know, the idea of ‘fighting’ anyone or having t

I was going to start this post with, ‘I work hard at being serene’ 😂 I think they call that a paradox 🤪 Unless… It depends whether you think serenity is sitting still and meditating? I don’t think it is. Well, I’ve had periods of time where it had to be that; I was so burnt out. But now, I think it’s the tune you do life to, not the activity itself. [I can find serenity in Baby Shark 😂🦈🦈🦈🥳💃 just as well as gong baths and didgeridoos, both work for me!] And I think you

Let's just get real 👀 Who is responsible for your investment? 💷 Hard question in #property. Isn't it the developer, whose job it is to make a return on it? You give them the money, and then they make it grow? 💎 I'm sorry to say it but, NO. We investors make a choice to invest our money into a project, and accept the outcome of that investment. That's all on us. Our money = our responsibility. 🔍 If we did or didn't do our due diligence 🤨 If we went against instinct 🤩 If

Would you like a headache today? 🤯 How about a migraine?! No thank you! 💯 I’ve been talking recently about saying ‘no’ to certain investments, and picking through some of the real Why?s. One of those reasons is a little voice I hear inside which says, watch out! This one sounds like a HEADACHE 😕 Headaches are a common part of the property, I think we can all agree. But migraines… those are lurking in special places in the proposal. We don’t want to admit that they are ther

Wow what a completely awesome day at the Landlords Investing Show in Old Billingsgate! 📸🎥🎙 I had LOADS of fun and thank you everyone who organised, presented (thx Elizabeth Warburton) and made our LIVE Property Elevator session possible. And well done to the pitchers Chris, Omer Mehmet and Jackie. It is NOT easy doing these pitches on the show, let alone LIVE as it was yesterday 🎦 🗯 Key quotes overheard from the angels 🗯 'Options, options, OPTIONS. I love a deal which g

A project with a big heart, a PURPOSE, really makes us sit up and listen. It channels our concentration and makes us really try to find a solution to help make it happen. As an Angel Investor, it’s not all returns, we focus on USE and VALUE. In Episode 3 of this series of Property Elevator we had a presentation by a young man looking to buy a property and develop a new childcare home with our help. With no development experience, you could tell he was nervous, but his idea wa

Let’s have a little (very hypothetical) fun. One for the property investors! Take a look at the burger picture on this post. The burger on the right is from ‘Meat Up’ a new 24-hour burger place just arrived on Canal Street in Manchester. There are approx 40 other restaurants within walking distance, about 11 of them serving burgers. This burger features on Corrie’s Simon Gregson’s Instastory highlights. The burger on the left comes from ‘Ethiburger’ (I did say this was hypoth

‘What I’m hearing is costs, costs, costs.’ This was my response 🤨 In last week’s episode, we had an experienced rent-to-rent property professional wanting to do a new Serviced Accommodation deal in Brighton. When someone wants to go for a new strategy (as in new to them), it can be a while before they really tot up all the 💷 upfront costs 💷 of getting the project going. 🙏 And in some cases, by then, they are personally invested and don’t want to let go of the idea 😫🙏 ❗️

It’s been a while since I’ve done a shark post 🦈 And property sharks are part of the reason I get out of bed in the morning ☕️ Why? How can truth-evading, arrogant, self-serving, CRIMINAL, false 'victims' of circumstance be any kind of motivating force for me?! Or anyone? 😂 Here are the reasons: 🔥 They remind me there’s work to be done to improve opportunities for those hard-working, wonderful property people doing service to this industry 🔦 They remind me that due dilige

How do you feel when someone says to you, 'What's your story?' 😬 Do you try to rack your brain for the best parts to show your success in life? 💪💪💪 Or do you reach for the humour? 🤪 Or do you just start from the beginning? I’m currently refining (articulating/splurging/rewriting/cringing/rewriting) my story for an upcoming speaking engagement [#watchthisspace SUPER excited about this one 🤩] I decided to take more risks… And now it’s so tempting to just OMIT here and the

When I worked on the trading floor, I KNEW certain things were 'unhealthy…’ 🥴 Redbull for breakfast 😶 3-4 hours sleep a night. On a quiet week… 🍟The food I ate regularly. If I could get to actually eating… What wasn’t so obvious were the many layers of mental stress, that you simply didn’t have time to process. In such an environment of stimulation and pressure, your brain does adapt. Oh it does! No sooner is one loss down than another is being fought against. But the mind