The Progressive Property Podcast Mark Homer: Coronavirus Update All Property Investors Need To Know!
Progressive Property Co-Founder, Mark Homer takes over the podcast and is joined by Property expert and Co-founder and Managing Director of Progressive Lets, Wayne Beecham. Together they discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the property industry and the challenges landlords, tenants and agents are facing and how they can overcome them. Don’t miss the on this must-listen episode.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Q. How are you handling the Coronavirus situation and what are you doing in your businesses at the moment?
- At the moment from a letting agency's point of view, from both how the business operates and managing the financials of a business and also how it affects each individual landlord and tenant. From the business point of view, we are going into a hibernation mode where we are prioritising what jobs are important and what fundamentally needs to be done and to make sure we are protecting the income of the business. From a business point of view, we’re working on reducing our overheads, as well as evaluating problems such as tenants not being able to pay their rents and the impact that may have on the landlords and the action landlords need to take to ensure they can still profitably run their property portfolio.
Q.How’re you dealing with tenants being unable to pay their rent?
- First of all, we need to assess each individual tenant, it is very easy especially with a three-month ban on evictions is making sure the tenant is not being an opportunist at this time. First of all, we have had to assess whether the tenants are affected by this and they have got a list of documents, queries and questions to answer to ensure that they are being affected, from there it is about educating and finding a solution to that problem.
Q. What would you do if a tenant decided to stop paying their rent?
- If the tenant has had a change in circumstances it is a case of evaluating the situation, so exactly what has happened? And what sort of situation they are in? What losses are they currently encountering and how can we deal with that situation? You do have to evaluate each individual tendency depending on the situation they are currently in.
Q. Is now a good time to sell?
- Now is a terrible time to sell. You’re not going to find any buyers because agents are shut, any buyers that are here are probably scared about their job, mortgages and what will happen to property prices. If you can hold on, get it to let and maybe take less rent and trade your way through it. The worst thing to be at the moment is to be a seller.
Q.Are you scared about this crisis or do you see an opportunity?
- It doesn’t help to be scared, the best thing to do is to plan, or out hat the new world looks like, get in really early and or really hard and modify your business and take advantage of the opportunities that are inevitably going to appear. In times where there are big shifts like this where there are big money transfers and this happened in 2008/2009, a big transfer took place, an it will happen again this time so you need to be ready. You need to be alert, learning, surround yourself (metaphorically =) with god people, and educate yourself through this period and learn from the best.
BEST MOMENTS
“By helping and assisting your tenant to pursue getting all the help that they possibly can ensure that there is income owing in assisting both the tenant and the landlord”
“As and when travel restrictions are lifted, opportunities will come about”
“I don’t think it really helps to be scared”
“The world is changing, and you have to grasp these new opportunities” and set your sail in the new direction”
VALUABLE RESOURCES
ABOUT THE HOST
Mark Homer is an entrepreneur investor. He has worked with investment since he was 15 years old using the laws of wealth! He is a spreadsheet analyst with an impressive following from major publications including BBC Radio, The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, as well as co-authoring the UK’s best selling property books. Mark has always looked for the best investment vehicle, and at the end of 2007 with Rob Moore the co-founder of Progressive Property his joint portfolio produced more profit than any of the other investments he’d tried in the last ten years, combined.
CONTACT THE HOST
- Email: Markhomer@progressiveproperty.co.uk
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhomer1
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markprogressive
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/markprogressive