New Beginnings

“It’s tangible, it’s solid, it’s beautiful. It’s artistic, from my standpoint, and I just

love real estate.” Donald Trump

Well, Donald would say that, after all he is the greatest Property Guru our

generation has seen, but love him or hate him, he is without doubt a classic

character able to bounce back from serious downturns in his own investments

and continue to set the trend and reaffirm that owning property is in fact a means

of security, a declaration of aspiration and most importantly it’s a home for

yourself, your family and your wealth.

I can already hear the grunts, and tones of disapproval by those of you who for

one reason or another disagree with my thoughts, hence why I am writing this

and not shouting it out on a Saturday morning at the Piazza….getting eggs and

tomatoes thrown at me, is not my idea of fun, although as an estate agent I’ve

had far worse, I assure you.

My point though; in the long term and on the basis of a sensible economy, stable

political prospects and a responsible investor at the helm, it would be fair to say

that downsides in property investments are manageable and that medium to long

term outlooks will, in the main, be positive. Teddy Roosevelt best described this

in the following manner:

“Every person who invests in well-selected real estate in a growing section of

a prosperous community adopts the surest and safest method of becoming

independent, for real estate is the basis of wealth.”

The past five years have been spectacular to say the least, and for all the wrong

reasons that is – I’m referring to the worldwide shenanigans that have almost

crippled beastly economies and plagued

property prices. The most obvious being

Spain, still nowhere near the end and as an

economist I met recently stated, “still racing

to the bottom”.

So why the continuous optimism from yours

truly in all of my articles to date???? Well…….

four words…..THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR!!!!

It might be luck, right place at the right time,

it might even be the fact that we are a small

economy and better able to manage our affairs

– there isn’t one single reason, but rather a

mix of key fundamentals that have for some

reason come together and essentially held

up our economy and with it our property

market, to the extent that we continue to find

ourselves in a strong position.

This year we have once again began with

a strong start involving large commercial

relocations, a few substantial sales (always a

bonus..;), but importantly it is the strength

in the middle market within the £350,000

- £650,000 range that continues to show

growth. Better still it is all locally driven

business, which suggests that our own

internal fundamentals are good and we are

not dependent on new business. Yes it is also

true to say that “new business” is key to future

long term growth and we look forward to

seeing more of this, but to date our position

is really quite spectacular and we are greatly

encouraged by our performance in the first

few months of 2013.

Recently and by way of example, we have

sold a 4 bed at Kings Wharf for near £700,000

– funny that only 24 months ago, had we had

a vendor looking to sell for that price, we

would have politely laughed him / her out the

office. The point I make is that prices have

indeed hardened in the past few years, we no

longer have an oversupply issue and there is

little chance of seeing any new high volume

developments on stream in the near future…

….I’ll leave you to mull over what the result

of these factors might be.

Lettings is yet another aspect of the market

indicating optimism, albeit under circumstances

where there is little to offer but yet another

reason why one might surmise that that

prices may continue to increase. In short, our

portfolio has decreased from an average of

25 to 35 properties available only 12 months

ago, to only an average of 10 units today.

To other matters surrounding the BMI Group.

We are delighted to announce that Maria

Gloria Galliano (our Accountant) has been

made a Director with effect from March 13.

Maddy has been with BMI since 1997 and

over the period has become an invaluable

member of the team. Congratulations to a

super lady whom I prefer to call the in house

terrier…