If your timing is wrong, your property deal is doomed.
I know thousands of property gurus go on about ‘location, location, location’. Lies, I tell you! Yes, location is important. But I’m going to put myself out there and just say it: Those gurus are lying. By omission. What they didn’t say is, ‘But first, it’s timing, timing, timing’.
For every great location there exists a window of opportunity where the timing is good, and then, where the timing is not good. You can have a property on the corner of High Street and three different highways, but if your timing is bad, you’re not going to make money. Or at least, you’re not going to make the money you could have, if your timing were good.
Wrong timing comes in many guises:
It could just be that you overpaid, which is the obvious one.
But it could also be that there’s a shop opening down the road that’s going to change the nature of your High Street.
Or your tenant’s margins are under pressure from another bollworm attack on cotton crops. And yes, you do care about the price of cotton, because your tenant is in the cotton industry, which means you’re in the cotton industry.
Or maybe there are major roadworks planned that will disrupt access for over a year.
Or the properties around you are owned by some guys living across the globe who never do any maintenance, which starts to impact on the value of your building.
Really, it could be anything.
My point is not to scare you with the million things that could go wrong. My point is to make you aware that timing is important and that you must learn to understand the factors that will support or not support the timing of your transaction.
For assistance with your timing and professional property services, contact Kat here.
