A response to the truth about property TV Show on BBC2!
Hey guys,
I had the chance to sit down and watch ‘The Truth about Property’ show on BBC2 tonight with Jenny Scott and Andrew Verity. It was interesting to see their perspective on the current state of the market and the problems that investors may face.
I guess you could say that my biggest disappointment about the show was that rather than being a show that actually provided education on how to overcome the problems facing all investors over the next year or so it simply stated the challenges. Anyway overall it was an accurate presentation of some of the challenges in property.
Here’s some of my thoughts:
Jenny did an exercise where she spoke with a young girl, I missed her name but she said that because she had bought the property for around £200,000 it would be worth £675,000 (using Government figures) by the time she retired. Great!!! she then she proceeded to take away all but about £140,000 of the money. My biggest problem with this example was that she assumed that she would sell the property at retirement. This makes absolutely no sense, but it does make for a great diagram.
I felt sorry for Matthew Batterson who bought a property that was worth the same 5 years after he bought it. That simply means that he bought way over value at the time. This is extremely disappointing and I would never wish it on anyone. The interesting thing is that if you listen to his comments ‘I just took the figures they presented and thought they must be true!’, ‘I got caught up in it all!’ This is typical of a seminar attendee that is forced to buy on emotion. It’s one of the reasons why YPC has the 24 hour Sleep Test. I never want my team to sell something that you have not had the time to research, even if this means you miss the opportunity. My recommendation of is always do your due diligence and always remember ‘The best deal in property comes along every day…’
Some guy called ‘Nick’ (I missed his last name) who used to work for an seminar company stated that ‘Off plan wasn’t investing it was gambling!’ Well that is just rubbish, what he neglected to say is that off plan is an awesome investment opportunity if you know when to invest in it. The problem with off plan is that if you buy it when the market is stagnant (the past 3-4 years) you are likely to have problems when you come to complete. This is the very reason that YPC has only sold 3 off plan developments in the past 4 years. I am monitoring the off plan potential and I still think we are a little way away from selling off plan properties, even when we do they will be for completion in 2010 or after.
I agree with Jenny Scott when she said ‘The UK is a small island’ and ‘part of our obsession is with the status of being an investor.’ It’s absolutely true, the ego is a powerful motivator. More importantly is that pensions have failed the UK. My deepest recommendation is the Gordan Brown gets off his arse and solves the pension problem by forcing all employees and employers to contribute to their pension. Compulsory Pensions will go a lot way to solve the pension problems we have in this country. Australia did it over 20 years ago and now they are a long way to solving the problem.
Jenny Scott’s final comment was ‘Property investment can be lucrative but risky’. I hate to say but she couldn’t be more correct… That’s exactly why you need to get educated and not believe everything that you hear about property. Investing based on fundamentals is risky but even more risky is doing nothing!!!
Live with passion,
Brett Wood
PS. If you have any questions about anything that Jenny or Andrew bought up during the show feel free to give the team a call on 0207 812 1255.
