By Raj Sharma,
As you know, PIP Birmingham is usually on the first Friday of the month, but not the April meet up, due to Easter! We met on the first Wednesday because of the Good Friday holiday – and we had a superb turnout, despite it being half term too! We heard some brilliant and insightful presentations by the following:
Alex Baker and Max Rayner – Stuart Clinton Property
- The first speakers of the day were duo Alex Baker and Max Rayner of Stuart Clinton Property. Two speakers, providing double the value for members, they told us about their childhood friendship and how both losing their dads at an early age really shaped WHY they are in property.
- Their social impact investing is designed to create a better society with high end developments in the supported living sector – and want to help other investors do the same. Definitely ones to watch and follow on their journey!
- Our second speaker of the day was Craig Beesley of The Mortgage Consultancy. It’s always good to get a mortgage update – rates seem to be heading the right way, with the best rates heading below the 5% mark.
- Craig also talked about financing flats above takeaways. It can be done, but lenders look at these properties to be more risky, with more anti social behaviour and harder to sell at lower resale values than other flats. The Mortgage Consultancy is always happy to talk about financing difficult projects!
- It was great to see the return of Ranjit to Birmingham, representing Property Investor News magazine. The ethos of PIP is for members to be better informed and many associated with PIP regularly contribute to the publication and Ranjit is always at hand to onboard new subscribers with lots of special offers.
- Following the coffee break, it was time to hear Adam Lawrence and a special presentation he put together for the meeting – “The Banking Crisis and Interest Rates”
- Adam talked about the 2008 recession being about the banking financial crisis but in the last few weeks banks have entered the news with crises at SVB and Credit Suisse. Any major problems have been controlled, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
- Since the last meeting, there has been another Bank of England rate rise with inflation still on the rise.
- But, the 5 year swap is back to around 3.75% territory, meaning costs of finance around 6.25% including fees
- It’s impossible to summarise everything that Adam talks about in his presentation – the best place to be is at our meetings where you can hear it first hand and ask questions at one of the Round Tables that Adam usually hosts
- Our last speaker of the day was our sponsor from Falcon Insurance, Pinder Singh Dhaliwal
- He highlighted the massive problem underinsurance is causing in the current climate.
- The message is, If you are a property owner you need to review your property rebuild costs!!
- Falcon have heavily discounted access to rebuildcostassessment.com to carry out professional valuations.
- That concluded the morning session with a break for lunch, leaving lots of time for members to network!
