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Industry Advice Needed

Mo11920

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May 25, 2017
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Hi,

I'm here for some advice. I'll will provide as much information as possible so that the advice I receive is as relevant as possible. Thanks for reading in advance.

My question: Should I sell my flat that I'm currently renting out, take the 500 Thousand dollar cad that I’ll receive and invest it in my future property development business? I want to start by buying a single house that’s about to fall apart. Renovate and Sell. With a 4 to 6 month turn around. All work will be done by contractors to speed up the process. I will continue doing this till I have accumulated enough to be able to work on multiple houses at the same time. Eventually working up to new builds and townhomes. It would be interesting to see how far I can go. Hopefully after flipping two houses, I can resign from my current job and make this my full time gig. Due to the salary of my current job, I’ve been pre-approved for a mortgage up to 1.2 million dollars cad. The ultimate questions is: is the above plans sane? Can I make a good living out of it? Balancing all the risks, is it worth selling my main investment to start this new endeavor. The way I see it: that money is currently parked in a bank somewhere and while obviously I'm making money via the increase in value of the property plus a bit of rent every month due to the rent being higher than my mortgage repayments. I feel that I can work that money way harder and build a business if I take the above approach. I'm not interesting in generating a passive income for now, or investing in our people's long term projects.

Who I’m I: I’m in my mid thirties, originally for the Uk, no partner and no kids. Been in Vancouver for the last 4 years and now a permanent resident. If anyone knows Myers Briggs, I'm an ENFP. I’m a proactive, sharp fella who’s always on his feet and definitely not afraid from a challenge.

Why do I think I can do this: I currently work in the Film visual effects industry, as a creative and technical supervisor. A position pretty high up the chain, and one I’ve worked 14 years straight to achieve. It requires this skill sets. Very creative: colours, form and space has been my bread and butter for years. Technical: Visual and strategy problems on a daily bases, needs fast and out of the box solutions. Good under pressure. Crew management. Commercially conscientious, i.e. spend the money wisely and make a profit. Finally project management: how do you get the project done with changing briefs, lack of resources and a rigid deadline is my daily conundrum.

I also own a flat in London which I gutted and renovated from scratch. Photo Attached. Top photo is how I bought it. The rest is the after photos. This is also the flat that I would be selling. I spent a year living in my tent in my lounge. Doing a lot of it myself and with the help of professionals. Learned a crazy amount that year. Also, for the last year I have been researching the industry and the property market. Met with mortgage advisors and realtors. Been to seminars and build my own spreadsheet to work out all the cost of a build etc. So have a decent understanding of what goes into the process from buying, renovating to selling.

Why do I want to do this: To build my own thing. To break from my addiction: the bi-weekly paycheck. New challenge. Shape my environment. Financial gains that I can use to enrich the lives of people around me. I love architecture and interior design.

Thanks for reading,
Mo
 

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Matt Crowley

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Hey Mo, cool package you put together there. Your passion is quite evident.

Why do you want to leave film? Sounds like a great gig you have there already. Development is a tiny, tiny, tiny bit creative but if you want to run the developer service shop it is actually an incredibly administrative business with intense financing and cash flow requirements. The field is so broad that as a developer you can't hope to run a full shop to carry out the development and the creative initially. You need to focus on the execution as much as possible and sub out everything. Most guys start out by doing very cookie-cutter projects. I'm wondering if developer is the right starting point? Perhaps designer, architect, planner, marketing, Realtor worth exploring? Development is extremely regimented. Municipalities often have zero capacity to understand something creative and write zoning the to minimum standards of their immediate neighbours and are generally not willing to take any design or use risks.

That being said, developers come from all kinds of areas of real estate. There isn't one set path but having experience in larger scale real estate (or substantial experience in lower scale) is a prerequisite. The bigger the project, the deeper your pockets need to be initially and the timeline extends dramatically with great uncertainty.
 

Mo11920

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Hi Matt, thank you for your reply. I completely agree with you. I guess the "property development" role is something that I'll be working towards. Initially as you say it will be very cookie cutter work. I will initially be focusing on simple flips. First property will only need internal renovation work, and as I continue they will get more complicated. All in the aim to build capital in the company, and move on to the next stage. I completely understand that the job is mostly project management and administrative. My creative experience will initially help me make fast decisions on things like do these colour tiles go with the wall colour, etc. Eventually it will also make working with architects and interior designers a lot easier. What I don't want to do though is work in a service industry. I've been doing that with film and you're always in the mercy of the client, or the property developer.
 

Mo11920

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And also, creativity is a universal tool that can be applied to anything and everything. Not just picking colours.
 
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