Week 20: Cats and One Direction
Boy this has been one hell of a week. I'm sorry I got side tracked as I was supposed to discuss my new strategy and/or plan. I know everyone is on lockdown but life is still happening around us. For starters I am a proud parent to a new cat, (well an eight week old kitten to be precise) and she is so cute and adorable. But it's not a bed of roses as I've had sleepless nights with this little thing who won't stop meowing for my attention. She also leaves lovely presents around the house for me. I think she’s testing my sense of smell. Litter training! What was supposed to take a couple of days has cost me a fortune and a lot of distress. I purchased the most expensive litter but nah, she refuses to use it, then a medium range and nope she put her nose up to that too. Turns out she likes the cheapy stuff from the pound store. Who am I to argue.
Right now my life is surrounded by three very important P’s; Poo, Pee and of course Property. Not easy running a start-up in the midst of Poop. You will have to run your personal life and business simultaneously. That being said little one is starting to show signs of settling in as last night she purred for the first time! And I'm so glad I was home to witness this. I deliberately made this decision to take on little kitty as this is the perfect time I can train her and start the bonding process. It is a decision, no accident. I planned this in advance. Decision making are very important business skills that you will have to adopt very early on in your journey. This takes me onto the next bit that I wanted to talk about: One Direction. No! Not that gorgeous British Boy Band but literally take one direction. I have decided to drop the Rent-To-Rent service from my repertoire for now.
Although, I wasn't able to do any viewings I had released from speaking to ‘A Lot’ of agents/landlords that we’re all (property investors) trying to get a piece of the same pie. Rent to Rent is 5% property related and 95% sales! You have to first get a Landlord who is willing to handover the reign to his asset to your capable hands. Which by the way he is getting swamped by ‘Us’ ‘Rent-to-Renters. All this and we don't even own the property. A landlord can pull the rug anytime (within reason) and your rental is gone in an instant. Now don't get me wrong i'm not saying this is a bad strategy to employ but i'm giving you my experience of it. These property advocates will rave on about how quick, cheap and efficient it is. But, what they fail to say is you have to win the deal in the first place. So there is a lot of work involved for a very risky strategy. So how risk averse are you? This strategy does not resonate with me per say. I figured if i'm going to do all the running around might as well do it for a bigger project I own, as the level of work is still the same but the difference in reward is huge.
While this might seem like I have taken a step back but this is the nature of the game. You get close and then you realise you got it all wrong. No shame in that, its work in progress. If it aint working ‘MOVE’ your not a ‘Tree’! You will always have to adapt, adopt, compromise, improvise, re-vise but as long as you're moving forwards that's the main thing. Don't be afraid to change things as you go along. You are going to be in your property business a long time so you might as well enjoy what you're doing. Also, forget looking at your peers who have almost finished their 1st HMO project and are probably looking at going round 2 and you're stuck in 1st gear. Remember this is just noise to distract us. Instead wish them well and you carry on working your plan. I have decided to concentrate on something else for now so come on board next week to have a read.
Wishing you all a lovely week from Team Opi and Kitty.