How Do You Know Who To Trust With Your Money?

How do you know who to trust with your money?

I’m writing this because of a little occurrence that happened yesterday, which I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. 


I had put my car in for the MOT in the morning and so had to get the bus into Leeds. I was booked in to attend a workshop.

Whilst I was on the bus, it went through one of my property investment patches, one of the poorer areas. 


A young lass on the seat behind me began having a phone conversation. Now I didn’t have much choice but to listen to this girl’s conversation, and as it panned out, I began to feel sorry for her. 


She was on the phone to what appeared to be some sort of loan or debt repayment company - explaining how she was baffled that a payment of £19 had been missed and that she couldn’t afford the double payments of £38 plus a £12 late payment charge.


I listened, and felt bad for her - especially as during her conversation she triggered all my emotional key phrases, such as “I’m a single mum”, “I can’t afford that”, and “If I pay you all that I’m going to be left short this week”. 


This phone call had lasted ten minutes by now while she argued her case.

I had a discreet look round at her, bearing in mind I hadn’t seen her up to now, just heard her phone call. 


She was a young lass in her early 20s, plainly and casually dressed. She looked quite tidy, not rough or drug-addicted, nor too extravagant, jazzy or flashy - just a normal young girl who appeared to be having some hardship.

I ummed and aahed to myself, and decided that I would try and help her.

I looked in my purse. I’m a bit like the Queen these days in that I don’t often carry real money anymore (in fact did you know that only 30% of transactions in the UK now are cash? But that’s another story…)


However, I had a 5 pound note in my purse.


It wasn’t much, but it would make me feel better knowing that she’d have enough cash to make sure she had food for her kid.

I thought about my plan to give her this fiver. 


What if she was insulted? 


Humiliated?


In the past, I’ve had people feel sorry for me, when I was a skint kid with a poor single mother - and I know how that humiliation burns.




Her conversation continued, and she mentioned to the person on the other end of the line that she was annoyed that she was having to have this embarrassing conversation on a public bus. 


I felt her humiliation for her, the last thing anyone wants to be doing is airing private problems in front of everyone.

The bus arrived at the main stop on Leeds and everyone started to disembark. She got up, continuing her phone call, and I immediately got up after her, discreetly touched her on the arm and tried to give her the fiver.



What happened next baffled, confused and surprised me.



She laughed, moved the phone away from her face and said, “Oh it’s alright, don’t worry, I’m lying to them”. And then a farcical scenario occurred, where I didn’t believe her, tried to give her the money anyway and she laughed and refused.

I got off the bus absolutely bewildered.

I contemplated this.


I thought how convincing her story was.

How plausible.

And how I, normally cynical and savvy, had believed what I had heard from her.


Am I going soft?




How could I have not spotted that she wasn’t genuine?



I’m normally so good at spotting fibs and incongruencies; my gut instincts are very strong.

And then I was baffled: she had easily lied to a stranger on the phone that she didn’t know, but then told the truth to someone right in front of her, when they offered the help of money.

I laughed at this juxtaposition.

Was she lying to them?


Or just lying to me?


And if them; are things really so bad that being short of £19 is an issue?


What would have happened if I’d had a twenty-pound note to offer?

I genuinely thought that she needed help, and tried to give her it.
We don’t see people as they are, but as we are.



What would you have done in that situation? 

And how would you have reacted to her revelation?

I went on to my workshop, which was about private investment.
It became absolutely clear to me that you really need to know someone very well when making an investment.

How can you ever be sure you trust someone with your money?


And know for certain that they’re not a wretch?

I’ve met people before, and within half an hour of meeting them, they’ve offered to lend me money. This makes me very nervous and dubious, and I tell them, “But you hardly know me!”. 


It makes me concerned how easily other people agree to things so quickly. I’m nervous for them: not because I’m a wretch who will rip them off – but because there are other people out there who will.


I want people to know me first before they invest with me.

Because although I know that I’m trustworthy, it’s very important to me that I know that other people know that I am trustworthy as well. 


I’m not content with just taking someone’s money to invest if I think they’re uneasy about me.

After all, anyone could say anything on the internet, and perhaps, like me, you could be fooled by a one-sided conversation.

My point is this: meet people in person before investing anything: time, effort, or money. 


Get to know them.

Watch what they do and how they behave, over a period of time.

Get proof that they are what they say they are.

Because I would absolutely hate to think that someone has taken advantage of your good nature.


Even if it is only a fiver...

The five pound note in question!

Kellyann is a full time property investor and investment strategist, based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. 

For further details of her work, and how she can help you, please visit:

 www.kellyannmartin.co.uk

In my beautiful Leeds before my workshop! City Square.

Who Surveys the Surveyors?!

Who Surveys the Surveyors?

Who invests in property?

And of those, who has ever had a surveyor make an absolutely ridiculous valuation on the property?

Hmmm, that’ll be every property investor then!

Despite our best due diligence, our most recent sold and for sale comparables, our best work, time and money spent in refurbishment…  there will always be some utter clown of a surveyor who is more interested in covering their own arse than daring to admit what your newly-refurbished property is now actually worth.

What’s all that about?!

Sadly, it’s becoming more and more frequent to have a downvaluation: I’ve had it, my friends and all the local investors have had it, so it seems it’s a scourge across the board.

Surveyors obviously belong to some evil underground unit, where they get rewarded with downvaluation commission. There’s no logic to their madness.

What’s more infuriating is when the surveyors appear not to even look at the comparables, even when you give them them in their hand. And what’s doubly infuriating is that sometimes you are charged a surveying fee for them to go out and shaft you... #cry

One house I had last year was exactly the same as the comparable 4 DOORS DOWN, which had sold 7 months earlier. And although mine was newly refurbished, it was EXACTLY the same house, both with internal layout and outside grounds, but the surveyor still valued it lower than the twin one twenty metres away.

WHAT’S ALL THAT ABOUT?!?!

If I was if the murderous type, that surveyor would now be under the patio, Brookside style...

Still, what’s the point of my rant?

Well, to help you minimise the risk of this happening, and these are the things you can do to help that.

1. Minimise the risk when you are doing your due diligence on the property by assuming the end value will be the worst-case scenario. Let’s be a pessimist here, then if some miracle happens and they do actually do their job properly, then anything above your worst-case prediction is a Brucie bonus.

   

   Good game, good game! 

2.     Look carefully at the comparable properties within a half mile radius in the last two years. And compare apples with apples, for instance a two-bed terrace is not going to be the same as a two bed semi-detached, so find houses that closely match what you have. Look at sold prices, and then current similar properties on the market.

3.     Make a full list of every single refurbishments item you have done in the property. Don’t bother putting down what it cost you, it’s none of their business! Let them think you’ve paid more than the savvy tight-fisted bargain-hunting investor you are.

4.     Take clear before and after refurbishment photographs during the project. The grimmer the better! (I mean grim before obviously!)

5.     Meet the surveyor at the property, Even if it’s already tenanted, just explain to your tenant what is going on, and allay their fears that no, there is nothing to panic about, you’re not selling the house!

Be nice to the surveyor! Smile! Make genteel pleasant small talk, and point out things that were absolutely terrible in the house before you had your magic charm fixing them. Confirm the rental amount, with the tenancy agreement if required.

6.     Prepare a little report pack, which you are happy to give to the surveyor. This should include details of the house, your list of refurbishment works, your before and after photos, and some Rightmove screenshots of comparable sold prices and current similar for sale values. Obviously, make sure you pick some examples which are in realistic keeping with your current property – it’s pointless showing them the other ones that sold really cheaply because they needed work!

7.     Pray that your surveyor is not an absolute clown. Keep praying.

8.     If the survey report comes back with a ridiculous valuation, you can either suck it up and take it, change lender (and thus surveyors), or get your mortgage broker to dispute it. If disputing it, work with your mortgage broker to build up a case of evidence, which politely shows, that actually, Mr Mortgage Surveyor, you’re talking tosh, and these are the reasons why.

9.     Another option which may be considered, is to pay for your own independent RICS survey before the mortgage lenders surveyor goes out. This will obviously cost you a couple of hundred pounds, but it makes it more difficult for the surveyor to downvalue something, when you have placed in their hand a report from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

10. Finally, if all else fails, seek out and destroy the surveyor. There is no other option.

Good luck, and let’s hope that the surveyors all get standardised and trained properly very soon!

# Disclaimer: no surveyors were harmed in the making of this blog or portfolio.

…but there’s always time…

When not entertaining herself with impromptu amateur photoshoots, Kellyann is a full time property investor and investment strategist, based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. 

For further details of her work, and how she can help you, please visit:

 www.kellyannmartin.co.uk

KELLYANN’S FABLES: It's A Dog's Life

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin….

A few weeks ago I bought some new doggy bags for my walks out with my sexy doggy lad. However, they weren’t the usual 100-for-a-£1 nice thick ones I normally get, I was swayed by another box…200-for-a-£1.

“What a bargain!” I thought, “How bad can they be?!”

And this, my friends, is where it all went wrong…

For in life, I am blessed / cursed by a bounteous affliction: I was born in Yorkshire. 

This means we have a natural instinct, nay, inbred desire, to get our money’s worth at all costs. 

It has been said that the notoriously tight Scottish are just Yorkshiremen in training; we just do not like to pay high costs for anything.

In my property career, I have had to learn that this is not always a good thing, and I have come to realise, that you get what you pay for.

I have paid cheap plumbers that have turned out to be poor. 
I have bought cheap paint that on opening has been akin to water. 
And I have hired cheap solicitors that have turned out to be incompetent, and thus ruined and lost me deals.

I don’t do these things anymore. 

I realise that for good quality, you have to pay good prices. 

So why, despite my learnings, did I choose to buy these dreadful, flimsy, see-through, crappy doggy bags? 

Which as it turns out, are not even big enough to accommodate the devastation that occurs when my German Shepherd drops his German bombs...

Lesson learnt.

You do indeed get what you pay for.

Because if you don’t, sometimes, as with these cheap doggy bags, you can indeed quite literally end up in the shit...

Jerry Lee: The German Bomber

Kellyann is a property investor and investment strategist, based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. 

For further details of her work, and how she can help you, please visit:

 www.kellyannmartin.co.uk

Have a lovely day!