Hi, Peter Jones, author, property investor, ex-chartered surveyor.
This week one of the first proper lockdown, although I suspect we’re going to be into a more rigorous lockdown over the next week or two as we get closer to what the government calls the peak of the tsunami of cases. If you’re like me you’ve suddenly found yourself at home with a lot of time on your hands and I just wonder how you’re filling it and what’s going on?
Because I remember one of the things which perhaps is one of the few benefits of being old is that you get experience. I’m not saying that I know everything, of course I don’t, but I remember in 2008 when that little minor tsunami of the financial crisis hit and my business was devastated because I had one strategy in property which was buy to let and suddenly the banks weren’t lending and my way of coping with that, I’m ashamed to say, but I’ll be totally honest with you, was really just as a lie in bed and pull the duvet over my head and hope it would all go away. That didn’t really help.
So this time although this crisis is in many ways much larger than 2008 because this is a whole economy, a whole world economy crisis, it’s not just the banking crisisbwhich had a knock-on effect on some sectors of the economy, this is where everything pretty much stopped everywhere and it’ll be interesting to see what happens when it’s all over and how quickly things pick up.
But in the meantime, we’ve got to cope and we’ve got to get through this period of waiting.
So what are the things which I learnt in 2008 is watching my mind space and making sure that I stay positive. This isn’t saying be delusional there are some bad things happening out there and we need to realise that we need to keep safe, we need to keep well, we need to help people who are close to us, we need to help people that are strangers to us, all of that is beholden upon us, but it’s not going to help if we go to pieces.
So I’m not pulling the duvet over my head this time, I’m trying to do things which are a lot more positive. So I’m thinking how can I help the local community blah blah blah, that’s a given and I guess a lot of people are because an amazing number of people have now volunteered to help the NHS for example, 600,000 people which is great. So that’s all good stuff.
But as a very practical thing what can we do to make sure that we don’t sink in all of this.
One thing which I remember was very important from 2008 was just having access to cash, so one thing which I did this week was to look at my lines of credit because I don’t know how long this is going to go on for, this initial lockdown they’re talking about three weeks but I think we all know it’s going to be longer than that, and of course it could take months and months and months before the economy bounces back, it could take years before the economy bounces back, and we don’t know what it’s going to look like when it does bounce back, so I think we need to be prepared.
So what are you doing about thinking about your own lines of credit? Have thought about that?
Now at the moment the government is saying that they’re giving grants to particular businesses and I’d guess that quite a few people who watch this video, or take my newsletter, or follow me on Facebook or whatever aren’t just in property. Property is probably a sideline and you may even have your own business or you may be employed or whatever it may be so you need to be looking to see what help you can get and to make sure that you’re in line to get the help that the government want to give you because the government do want to give it to you. I genuinely believe that the government was us all to get through this if we can because they need us, they need to have us in the economy rebuilding the country basically at the end of all of this.
So again for the self-employed, because yesterday announcements were made about help for the self-employed and I’ve seen on social media there are many people are bit disappointed that they fall between the cracks. Don’t assume that’s the end of the matter, I’m sure that the government will tweaking and looking and refining what they’re doing as they’re going on, they’re having to make it up on the hoof, we’ve never been through a pandemic before, we’ve never been through anything of this scale before like this so they’re working it out as they go along.
Write to your local MP, email your local MP, go online and find out who your local MP is. If you feel that you’ve fallen through the cracks let them know because they’re the best voice for you at the moment, they’ll be able to go to whoever needs to hear about this and then they can refine and tweak and hopefully make things work which aren’t working at the moment.
But for all of us, it’s beholden upon us all to do some simple things like think about your cash. How can you preserve your cash? Have you got any cash? If you haven’t got any cash how can you get credit? If you haven’t got any credit how can you get it? Is it going to be a loan from the government? Is it perhaps applying for a credit card? I don’t know what it is, I mean when I say that people are going to raise their hands in horror and say credit cards are evil. It’s just a tool, It’s how you use it which is evil or not evil. The card itself isn’t but it could give you a lifeline of credit just when you need it.
So think about all of these things, also what are you going to do with your time? I’ve talked about keeping positive. One of the best ways to keep positive is actually to do something purposeful.
At the moment I’m not really thinking about property and for the reasons I said in my last video, personally and this has perhaps me being a little bit oversensitive, but I think it’s too early to be thinking about it. A lot of bad things are gonna happen to a lot of good people, a lot of people are going to die before this finishes and I just think it’s far too early to be thinking about coronavirus as being a potential profit centre.
I’m not saying that people who are talking about it are being cynical, we’ve all got to cope with this in our own different ways, my way of thinking well I’m just going to park that for the time being.
When it is over and we come back out and we can see how things stand then of course my business is property and I wil pick that up again, but in the meantime not really thinking about that but what can I do? I’m dealing with my admin, I’m actually getting ahead of my accounts which I’ve never done before, so I’m getting my bookkeeping up to date so that when the tax returns are due in a few weeks time I’ll be ready to go.
All seems a bit bizarre, you know, in the scheme of what’s happening it seems like we are who really cares about tax returns but it’s there, it will need to be done at some point so I’m doing that.
What else am I doing? Well interestingly I’m trying to learn some new skills and as I say not necessarily around property. You can see my american-style strap there. I bought an online course about two years ago which I’ve never really done. I’ve sort of tinkered over the first couple of lessons, I think I might sit down and actually go through that and buff up my guitar skills, limited as they are, and see how that goes. Maybe learning a different language.
For those of you who are perhaps wanting to get into property, I’m not saying you shouldn’t by the way we all have to cope with this in our own different ways, eLearning in property could be a good thing to do as well.
So the point is this, the world is kind of like all shaking about and we don’t know how it’s all going to look when the bits settle and the dust settles but we can look after ourselves and we can look after our loved ones and we can do the stuff which is positive. So think about that, think about how you are going to get through.
I think one of the things about the modern age which is a little bit sad is that we’ve kind of lost the art of taking responsibility and you can see with the way that a lot of people are talking about how the government should be bailing them out. Yeah it’s great that the government are bailing us out but at the end of the day we need to take responsibility for ourselves and we need to be looking to see how we can help ourselves and not just expect somebody to come riding to the rescue. If they come riding to the rescue that’s great, but what if they don’t? We need to be there to look after our loved ones, we need to be able to look after people who we don’t even know yet, we need to be looking after ourselves.
So think about the very practical things that you can be doing over the next few weeks to put yourself into a stronger position so that maybe ironically coming out of this you’re in a slightly stronger position, if not financially then at least mentally. What about your physical health? Maybe being physically stronger will a) help you beat off the virus if and when it comes knocking at your door but b) when it’s gone it’ll mean that you’ve got more energy to be able to put into rebuilding your business. All of these things are going to be important.
What about your relationships? Building your relationships, I guess for a lot of people spending time at home with somebody when they don’t usually spend that amount of time with the family, with the spouse, with the significant other, with their partner, that could be trying. So building your relationship and learning how to build your relationship. All of this stuff is good stuff and we all need to do it don’t we, because we’re all in the same boat.
So anyway I don’t know whether that helps you or not probably not, it probably helped me far more than it’s going to help you.
Until next time, here’s to successful property investing.
Peter
Peter Jones
(ex) Chartered Surveyor, author and property investor
https://thepropertyteacher.co.uk
PS. By the way, I’ve rewritten and updated my best-selling e-book, The Successful Property Investor’s Strategy Workshop, which is an account of how I put together my multi-property portfolio, starting from scratch and with no money of my own, and how you can do the same.
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