Keith’s weekly property news September 5-2021
Again, another intense week in the country. A nasty bout of insomnia laid me low mid-week. Thank you for the many well-wishes. Melatonin did the trick for regulating sleep again.
I spent an incredible amount of time on the phone this week trying to put deals together with other realtors, many of whom are cooperative, friendly, professional and aim-oriented. A few are just intolerable, so they make way for some space on my rolo-dex.
Negotiating these days is tough. In my mind, we are usually going at the top 10 percent of property offerings on the market, maybe the top 5 even. We often view success at securing the properties at their asking price, perhaps with all the closing costs included. That can be the sweet spot. Sometimes we have to pay above that, but if we are really happy with the property, which it seems we mostly are, then maybe saving that 10 or 20 thousand Lira should not be the biggest concern. But believe me, we try. We often walk away from the table, sometimes just even on principle. However, if the deal is there and we like the final number, it really should be trigger time. Proceed ( : MV
This week we had crypto people, famous youtubers, HNWI clients, a Turkish celebrity, a pole dancer, and many new Iranian clients breezing into our world. Fascinating.
Andrew Henderson of Nomad Capitalist will return in about 10 days and he says he would like to do a video with me in Trump Towers. I am trying to persuade him to perhaps do another project, but he feels this might be nice eye candy for his client base. In any event, the impact could be enormous for our business. I will have to worry about that later. We are delighted with our own client base and want to continue to serve it as best we can and on as individual a basis as possible. I think at some point, new incoming clients will have to be taken on selectively. I really do not know. It is just a little old me trying to figure this out. I do not have an MBA, am arguably pretty disastrous in management capabilities, and prone to fits of indecision. What I do love is snatching a good real estate deal. That thrill never goes away. I want to stay in that zone and not even think about the rest of it. I went out hunting Saturday afternoon-evening, just me, my phone and Arman. No distractions. And we did some damage. I need more days like that
I also have a great team around me, some paid, others entirely voluntary. You know who you are and many of my clients know who they are. My deepest gratitude. In the meantime, I am open to suggestions about how to manage this dilemma (a pleasant one to have I suppose, compared to the agony of client-less days post-coup 2016). I would like to spend 10 minutes or so discussing this tonight and having an open and honest discussion about it.
Luckily we still have enough bandwidth to deal with our current clients.
But what I really ask from you is that if you are an imminent or current buyer, in the ready position with POA and open bank account….LET ME KNOW.
Also, you may want to switch from the more subdued and non-interactive Istanbul Insights whatsapp channel to the more “no holds barred” country or online whatsapp channel, where it is interactive, wide ranging in topics. It can be an overload for some people, but if you want more videos and links to the properties we see every day, that is where you need to be. I find it a lot of fun.
In addition, Angelina also has a Renovations channel. You can contact her to join.
I need to go into a little explanation of how my two channels work. On Insights, the videos that I put are entirely random, but could be said to be representative. I try to avoid putting up any bad properties on this channel. If they look bad, scratch beyond the surface and you may see that the numbers are good. On the In Country, you may see some bad properties. You are seeing them as we see them. If I think they are rubbish, I will just come out and say it. If I think there might be something of interest, I usually note that as well. Keep in mind, I am not always available for viewings.
However, once something gets a positive review, or looks good to me, I jump in and will personally vet a property for you, usually followed up by a quick call to go over numbers and discuss merits or demerits of a property.
So, how does it all work, you ask? It is primarily “first come, first serve”
If you see a video that you like, fire me a message and whoever does that gets first attention. But many times a property goes to the person 3rd or 4th in line. I usually try to match the property with the profile of the client, so even if a person answers first, but I feel in some way it is not a great match for them, I am blunt and tell them why.
We also have another priority. If a client sends us a link and it is NOT already on our list, they have confidentiality and priority on that property, if it passes our CBI initial checks, etc. We made a mistake with this in the past and it was highly embarrassing for me, but when you are dealing with hundreds of property links every week, an error is possible, However, we will endeavor to keep a close watch on this. Having said that, many property links that clients send me, are already on our radar.
I regret that some whatsapp messages might have gone unanswered last week and that I was not able to do intro calls with newcomers. Let us try to do that this week.
Now for Irish meat and potatoes…the PROPS.
A lot of new properties on the market this week folks, We have not vetted yet, but are busy starting to make calls. Could be an exciting week. On paper, I see lots of interesting properties. There may be the elusive “9” in here somewhere. Just a hunch.
Sorry guys and gals, I am back to the policy of only sharing links in meetings.
This is just a sneak peak. Buyrun!!!
Property links distributed during weekly zoom session
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