Blog 101: 23 High Street: Where are they now?

Now that the dust has settled and we’re nicely easing into the new year. I thought it would be a good idea to revisit: No 23 High St, giving you the low down and where we are today.

Wow! what a ride it's been, who needs to go to the fairground and ride the rollercoaster? These last two years have seen so many highs and lows that even I didn’t know where I was at times. As the saying goes, you either win or you learn, believe me this was one hell of a lesson we learned. From dodgy project managers, bad managing agents, ruthless bridging company to repair issues, this was a fast track property development course with plenty of spice. 

Life of a Property Investor

We managed to reign back the out of control carriage by taking charge of the project as soon as we found out the project manager was using some of our money to fund his own projects and deliberately delaying our completion. He would come out with every excuse in the book as to why it wasn’t done on time. Never again will I be duped by such people again, hopefully. Luckily for us the builders were not as bad, we had built a good relationship with them, however, some we only spoke to over the phone right towards the end to sort out  issues that were created by the project manager. He never paid the plumbers the money we gave him so they wouldn’t come back to finish the job, even after we told the PM we’re running out of time and money, he still blamed the plumbers. One of his many talents he showed whilst on this project. 

On top of this we had the bridging company taking a monthly payment of over £1200 because we had gone over the deadline, twice. So we scrimped and scraped whatever funds we could to make these payments, even begging family and friends to make ends meet, just so we don’t lose the property. This was the year both me and my partner lost the most amount of weight. Who needs WeightWatchers or Slimfast, just start a property project and the weight will just come flying off of you and your wallet. Thankfully we managed to get all the work completed and refinance the house and pay the bridging company back, but not with one final blow from them. They said we were £10k short and the mortgage didn’t cover this. This was confusing as I’m sure we didn’t even take all the money they agreed to give, anyway, one thing is for sure, I will not be going back to them again. Dealing with them felt like we went to some local gangster and asked for the money, at times we thought if we dont pay we’ll have a visit from the suicide squad to take us out. 

“Kevin” you are one ruthless individual”

Considering the fact the property was less than 10 minutes from the beach and after talking to the locals, we decided to place this on the AirBnB market with a managing agent. The agent had hotels of their own and managed other residential properties as holiday lets so we thought we were in good hands. What a mistake that was. Our first guest decided to have a food fight, smear food all over the walls and thought it was funny to steal a duvet as well. After this introduction we were a little apprehensive to continue, but we persevered thinking it won't happen again. Fortunately this never happened again, but the events to follow were just as bad and caused us financial loss. We never actually made a profit in that year we were with them. The management was absolute rubbish to say the least. In fact at one point we were asked to pay for eight gas cylinder changes in two months when we never had any bookings in those two months, if we didn’t spot this they would have taken the payment. 

“ I didn’t think managing agents need managing”

We finally decided not to renew the contract with them and manage the property ourselves with a long term tenant. We focused on building good relationships and for this reason we managed to find a tenant straight away. The cleaning company that was contracted to do the cleaning ended up becoming our tenant and they were delighted as they loved the house dearly. This has so far been the easiest part of the journey, but I don't want to speak too soon. The best thing now is at least we’re not paying the mortgage and bills from our pockets and we have some change left over at the end of the month. When the tenant did move in, there were some small teething problems which was expected because the managing agent didn't do their job as agreed. So we called out a plumber and electrician to complete some small repairs to get the tenancy rolling.

So, if you're thinking of getting started in property, just start! 

As you can see from the illustration above: 

”You don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great”

(haha)

At this moment in time all seems to be running smoothly and we have left the rough waters behind us. We now have the huge task of paying family & friends back. Again, it will take a lot of creative thinking to get this money back to them. They have been very patient with us and we couldn’t have done this without them. As we are in the world of business, there's always something waiting around the corner for you to deal with. 

So until that happens, I’m just going to take a breath and enjoy this fleeting moment of solace….