Honest Property Investment with Natasha Collins

I’m going to be honest and say, when I first started out as a property manager I had no idea what I was doing.

When I first set up my business, I had no idea what I was doing.

Every morning I’d get up, put 101 things on my to do list. Try complete them all and be everywhere and then end the day at midnight successfully having ticked off about a quarter of what I needed to do.

Sound familiar?

The only way I have been able to grow, and grow quickly over the last 12 months, is by systemising my business. I now have a team of 7 people who work at NC Real Estate.

Team doesn’t happen if no one knows what they are doing. I’ve had to step into a leadership role in a big way and make sure I slap my own wrist when I try to do the small stuff instead of look at the big picture.

Everyday my business is a work in progress. I’m now OK with that. However, if I hadn’t taken bold steps to outsource and hire, I just couldn’t keep up at the pace I was going and the way I wanted to grow.

In this weeks podcast I go through the 10 steps to systeming your business. Some of which might sound familiar, because its the same system I use to build property portfolios.

Over to you, time to build a scalable busines!!

P.S Remember to register for Mondays Webinar, build a property investment business plan in 60 minutes a day. HINT: This forms part of my systemising business strategy so I’ll actually teach you how to do it in the webinar.

Come to my webinar on how to create a Property Investment Business plan on the 22nd February @ 6:30pm by REGISTERING HERE

If I could put anything in Room 101 this week, it would be Property Managers who aren’t transparent.

Honesty and clarity are values which make my world go round. Who’s got time for game playing… or for people who pretend they know something but actually don’t?!

(I see this far too much in the property industry)

This week, I’m high fiving myself 🙌 because I successfully got £14,855.60 refunded back into my buildings service charge account.

Caveat… this didn’t happen overnight. Oh no, it first started on the 6th October 2020 when we got served our end of year service charge accounts, which demanded that everyone pay an extra £1,499 for the year.

My initial reaction ‘Why?’

Then after an investigation it changed to ‘Hell👏effing👏no, not on my watch!’

The property managers had:

Oh… and we’d just been through 12 months of leasehold tribunal and so I was in no mood to roll over and leave this be, because:

Want to hear how to resolve this if this happens to you? Go listen to the podcast.

Leasehold Tribunal puts the fear of god in a lot of leaseholders… and then if it gets referred up a level to Lands Tribunal it seems scarier, especially because you end up in the Royal Courts of Justice trying to settle a dispute that can be really heated.

If you’ve been a with me a while, you’ll know in 2020 I ended up in Leasehold Tribunal myself. It was a pain more than anything. I got a lot of people reaching out to me to tell me how scary they thought it all sounded.

So I thought I’d get to the bottom of what the Leasehold Tribunal and then the Lands Chamber actually does, the process and why it’s vital we understand it AND alternative dispute resolution.

Today I’ve invited Peter McCrea onto the podcast. Peter is a Chartered Surveyor, Arbitrator, former chair of the Conduct and Appeals Committee for the RICS and was appointed the youngest ever member of the "Lands Tribunal" at the age of 44. The Tribunal has equivalent status to the High Court in England and Wales. Peter is also Chair of the Board for LionHeart.

We go through, litigation, ADR and the best way of resolving a dispute and why the Lands Chamber and Leasehold Tribunal isn’t as scary as everyone makes out!

https://twitter.com/mccrea_frics

https://surveyorhood.com/peter-mccrea/

Lionheart --> https://www.lionheart.org.uk/

I’m excited, this week the Members Club is open!! Woohoo… only until Midnight on Thursday 28th January.

This year the Members Club has stepped up. You not only have access to masterclasses in a quick easy sequence that will build out a strategy and then make sure you purchase the perfect property in the right location. But you have access to a wealth of industry databases that surveying firms have access to, for both residential and commercial properties.

Each week you will be invited to come to a commercial Q&A and residential Q&A as well as a Masterclass with either me or our resident coaches where we cover industry updates and asset management strategies.

There are also co-working sessions if you want time to focus on property investment and my team and I are always at the end of an email or in our community to answer any of your questions.

You’re invited to as many sessions as you want to attend, we recommend taking time to come to at least one session a month (if we don’t hear from you we will be checking in as accountability is our thing).

It’s £97/month and you can stay for as long or as little as you want. CLICK HERE TO JOIN

OK right, let’s get into this week’s podcast!

I’m sure you’ve heard about the Governments consultation to grant PDR (permitted development rights) from E class to C3 as of August 2021.

In practice seems phenomenal. Woohoo lets build resi because it’s in demand, but in reality I can see it ending up in an unregulated mess and investors loosing money, here’s why:

So I propose a solution to this and how you can still make good money, want the answer? Listen to this weeks podcast!

Back on the 7th January the Ministry for Housing announced their radical leasehold reform proposals.

This is on top of their current proposals for £0 ground rents on Help to Buy and Retirement Housing.

Sounds great, right? Well, there’s always got to be a catch, which is why I invited Katie Kendrick from the National Leasehold Campaign to discuss what this announcement actually means.

You can find Katie on Twitter @NLC_2019 / https://nationalleaseholdcampaign.org/

Also remember, my webinar on Monday 25th January @ 6:30pm, the Traps you MUST avoid in property investment in 2021. CLICK HERE to register.

Before I start, remember on Monday 25th January at 6:30pm I’m hosting a free Masterclass: The Traps You MUST Avoid in Property Investment in 2021 make sure you register!

The top two things that hold a property investor up:

I talk about finding deals a lot… I always start there because I know in my heart of hearts that I’d be able to find finance on any property I cared deeply enough about. Whether I have the deposit in my bank or I have to raise a little bit of cash.

I talk less about raising finance.

Raising finance is all about having a strong network that trusts what you are doing. This doesn’t happen over night. It takes time to buikes time to build that relationship.

Think about how long you’ve known your BFF’s? A long time right? It’s similar for investors. They need to have that connection with you. That connection needs to be consistent. That connection needs to be authentic.

I know a lady who does this well, Ellie Mcky. This week I’ve invited her on the podcast to explain how she raises investor finance through social media.

Pens and paper at the ready!

Remember to register for my webinar on the 25th January - The Traps to Avoid in Property Investment This Year!

Happy New Year!

Did you manage to take some time off over the break?

I did… two whole weeks mostly away from my computer. OK, I’m terrible at putting my feet up, but I loved getting creative with DIY and adding a design twist to our lake house. I’m excited to live here for a few months before it goes on Air BnB!

If you want to see progress, come follow me on Instagram @natashaccollins

(In fact, I’ve enjoyed it so much, I think I’ll make this house renovation an end of year tradition. Buy something new, do it up, move on in two weeks over Christmas!)

These two weeks also gave me time to think, what will 2021 bring?

I’m not a New Year Resolution kinda gal. I take this time to set business goals, so that my team and I have something to aim for. This year it’s to double the number of Members in the Members Club and double my Surveyor team as I’m going to need more hands on deck to support all of these portfolios.

Personally, I’m open to what happens.

In terms of the property market… I’ll give it to you like the weather forecast.

Residential; a stable market. More tax hikes for second home owners and investors (see the precedent set in Wales and Rushi’s need to raise income). No SDLT STILL for first time buyers and single home owners. Even harder hoops to jump through for lending for both. All of this will keep market values stagnant. Oh… I also think rents will stagnate to and probably be capped at universal credit levels.

Invest in moving assets which will grow over a 10 year period, don’t look for the unicorn BRR in 6 months as lenders might not play ball.

Commercial; A bloody mess. For big commercial tenants who’ve failed to communicate or paid rent (even whilst declaring profits) expect forfeiture on 1st April as Landlords have had enough. The potential changes to PDR will signal the demise of the high street as we know it regardless of Robert Jenrick and his £830 Million #futurehighstreetfund (OK mate, you’re going to save every high street with that are ya?!). Give it until 2025 and we’ll see if this is a good year… commercial market trends typically change every 5 years.

However the PDR will keep commercial values stable. Commercial landlords there’s still money to be made, just pick good tenants and think about tenant mix, please, I’m begging you as that’s the only way to keep your tenant trading.

That’s my 60 second pitch… you want all of my predictions AND what you should be focusing on right now, go listen to my podcast

Remember to register for my webinar on the 25th January - The Traps to Avoid in Property Investment This Year!

Happy New Year!

Did you manage to take some time off over the break?

I did… two whole weeks mostly away from my computer. OK, I’m terrible at putting my feet up, but I loved getting creative with DIY and adding a design twist to our lake house. I’m excited to live here for a few months before it goes on Air BnB!

If you want to see progress, come follow me on Instagram @natashaccollins

(In fact, I’ve enjoyed it so much, I think I’ll make this house renovation an end of year tradition. Buy something new, do it up, move on in two weeks over Christmas!)

These two weeks also gave me time to think, what will 2021 bring?

I’m not a New Year Resolution kinda gal. I take this time to set business goals, so that my team and I have something to aim for. This year it’s to double the number of Members in the Members Club and double my Surveyor team as I’m going to need more hands on deck to support all of these portfolios.

Personally, I’m open to what happens.

In terms of the property market… I’ll give it to you like the weather forecast.

Residential; a stable market. More tax hikes for second home owners and investors (see the precedent set in Wales and Rushi’s need to raise income). No SDLT STILL for first time buyers and single home owners. Even harder hoops to jump through for lending for both. All of this will keep market values stagnant. Oh… I also think rents will stagnate to and probably be capped at universal credit levels.

Invest in moving assets which will grow over a 10 year period, don’t look for the unicorn BRR in 6 months as lenders might not play ball.

Commercial; A bloody mess. For big commercial tenants who’ve failed to communicate or paid rent (even whilst declaring profits) expect forfeiture on 1st April as Landlords have had enough. The potential changes to PDR will signal the demise of the high street as we know it regardless of Robert Jenrick and his £830 Million #futurehighstreetfund (OK mate, you’re going to save every high street with that are ya?!). Give it until 2025 and we’ll see if this is a good year… commercial market trends typically change every 5 years.

However the PDR will keep commercial values stable. Commercial landlords there’s still money to be made, just pick good tenants and think about tenant mix, please, I’m begging you as that’s the only way to keep your tenant trading.

That’s my 60 second pitch… you want all of my predictions AND what you should be focusing on right now, go listen to my podcast

Here's the link to the January webinar: https://ncrealestate.co.uk/january2021/

I want to thank you for being a part of the NC Real Estate community, it’s an absolute pleasure having you here and I hope you continue to enjoy being here long into 2021 and beyond.

OK, so this week, the podcast is looking a little bit different as it’s definitely time to have a little bit of fun and lay down our property investment hats just for a few days (so I hope you’ve got some good property managers overseeing things for this holiday season)!

I invited my friend Rach back onto the podcast to round up the year. We talk highs and lows and play the 10 Questions Game… Ok we just made up the questions specially for this pod, but it’s a good way to reflect.

If you want to get involved and go through the questions, here they are:

Why not post the answers to social media and tag me in it @natashaccollins so I can see… the quiz graphic is HERE to make it easy for you to download and post!

Right, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If I don’t speak to you over the holidays, I’ll catch up in 2021.

Here's the link to the January webinar: https://ncrealestate.co.uk/january2021/ 

I want to thank you for being a part of the NC Real Estate community, it’s an absolute pleasure having you here and I hope you continue to enjoy being here long into 2021 and beyond.

OK, so this week, the podcast is looking a little bit different as it’s definitely time to have a little bit of fun and lay down our property investment hats just for a few days (so I hope you’ve got some good property managers overseeing things for this holiday season)!

I invited my friend Rach back onto the podcast to round up the year. We talk highs and lows and play the 10 Questions Game… Ok we just made up the questions specially for this pod, but it’s a good way to reflect.

If you want to get involved and go through the questions, here they are:

Why not post the answers to social media and tag me in it @natashaccollins so I can see… the quiz graphic is HERE to make it easy for you to download and post!

Right, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If I don’t speak to you over the holidays, I’ll catch up in 2021.