covid19, from a Property Developer’s Perspective
I wanted to write this blog post because I am an everyday woman, a mother of two, and someone that just happens to be a self-employed property developer during a global pandemic. During a time when life changed for us all overnight, here is what happened to me…
On Thursday 19th of March 2020, the day after it had been announced that schools would be shut for the foreseeable future, I sat on the bed at RUBEE 3 and sobbed, a lot.
I was at the house to do the final stages of dressing ahead of the professional photography which was booked in for the following day. Overnight it felt as if the rug had been pulled from under me, literally. Armageddon was coming.
Looking back, I felt like I was in some weird sort of mourning for myself. I had worked so hard to build my businesses up to that point. I had hired my first member of full-time staff, a lettings and operations manager, and we had spent the months before systematizing the business and getting ready to become a leading serviced accommodation provider in Nottingham. I was surrounded by amazing opportunities on every level and was totally ready for my most successful year to date.
RUBEE 3 looked amazing, I had poured my heart and soul into the project. We had taken the house through a full back-to-brick renovation. The house was a bit of a state when we bought it but the location right by the iconic Nottingham Castle was a no brainer for serviced accommodation.
I had my next property already in the conveyancing process and we were sourcing trying to find a third to purchase in Nottingham City Centre. We had built our team and SA systems perfectly, we were ready to go!
It felt like very exciting times were ahead with both SA and HMOs. The week before we had finished BEE 5, and the house was ready to go after nearly a year-long project of rebuilding the house after a bad case of subsidence. It is my best HMO to date; 6 bedrooms, all en-suite with walk-in wardrobes and a communal space of 40m2, a total beauty!
I had more design clients than I could ever have wanted, and I had to start turning work down. Rightly, they all disappeared overnight, which is totally understandable.
At that stage, I felt sad, demotivated, worried and scared about what the future might look like. But I knew that I would need to get a grip and make a plan, as after all, we were only being put on pause and it wouldn’t last forever. Hopefully.
As a property developer one thing I have learned over the years is that you need a plan B, C, D, E…. and that mindset is EVERYTHING. So, after a few yo-yo weeks, I finally found myself in a place where I was ready to start thinking about a positive future.
One thing that has kept me sane over the past few months was staying active on Instagram, driving my business forward. Just small steps every day; posting, engaging, organizing challenges like the Create for Covid design challenge.
Social media gets slammed a lot as a negative thing, but I think that it really depends on why you use it and your approach to it. Even on the days that I considered not posting at all, as I felt like it wasn’t relevant as there were way more important things happening in the world, I just made myself. It’s important to keep going and keep your brand alive even when times are tough.
Amazingly, even while everything has been going on, I have still had some fantastic opportunities pop up – including my HMO mastermind group and launching my consultancy calls,amongst other things.
I’ve realized recently that my job is very much about creating opportunities for myself. Even in a global pandemic I’ve made things happen and I am proud of that. I’ve realized that this is the time to thrive and survive.
If you have followed my stories on Instagram you will know that I am currently at home with 2 small children both under the age of 5, trying to keep them happy and homeschooled. I really don’t have a lot of spare time at the moment, but I have used the odd hour I do have to make sure my business is maintained, my tenants are safe and happy, and that we are looking to the future to create new opportunities to grow. Small steps every day have made a difference.
Of course, I couldn’t do this without the support of the people I have around me. Some days I have wanted to slump into a pit of despair, but that lasts for about two minutes before I am commanded to get the Play- doh back out and provide more snacks (#whenyouknowyouknow).
In terms of actual property developing, my existing portfolio has performed well so far, we have had some small rent reductions for people on 80% pay. My lettings manager has done a brilliant job of communicating with everyone and keeping track of everything along the way. In terms of moving forward, we will have to see, once the furlough scheme ends I think there will be lots of job losses so we will need to protect our assets and ride the wave back into recovery.
Both of my JV partners are keen to keep investing when new opportunities arise in the coming months, so in many ways we will pick up from where we left off.
We had plans to grow our student portfolio but the first round of houses will be ready for September 2021 now and I am feeling positive we can fill the gaps from our original plans of portfolio size and hit the goals we set out at the start of this year.
I’ve had many chats with people over the past few weeks who are facing challenges in their lives due to Coronavirus and my advice is always the same – in these times it’s about one thing, survival! Just getting through and coming out the other side is more than good enough.
We are at war with a silent killer. A killer that can affect our mental, physical, and financial well-being more than we could of ever imagined.
If we can survive this, we can survive anything. We will come out stronger and greater.
