Paolo Aliatis will never forget the first time in his life when he was told that when it comes to property investment, you earn when you know how to buy and when to sell. This piece of advice has made a huge difference in the performance of the operations and in the investments in the properties.
Funnily enough, even though the property industry and the property market are very black and white and numbers-based, sometimes there are deals to be found that make a property hot as hell. Some deals make you believe that you are the luckiest person in the world, that the seller is blind or that they are too good to be true. But sometimes, some deals are very good and are true enough, you just need to be in the right place at the right time and this is something that Paolo Aliatis has always firmly believed.
It seems that our brains give us the predisposition to see things in a certain way and I have seen sellers selling property jewels at very low prices because they just were not capable of identifying the potential of their own properties or they simply did not do their homework well enough to understand what could have been done with their property and how to maximise the value and the selling price of it.
As they say, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Aliatis has seen people make millions out of properties that were considered rubbish by their sellers or by their landlords. Depending on if they want to flip it, develop it, change it, buy-to-rent or rent-to-rent, there is always money to be made in properties.
Paolo sees properties in two different ways, on the one hand as an income-generating asset through adding value to it, developing it or adding capital gain-related earnings and on the other side, properties that are just hidden gems due to their location or their peculiarities which makes them easily identifiable and different from other properties on the market.
A nice flat with a nice balcony and an astounding view could be a precious jewel and may cost the same or a little bit more than an average property on the other side of the same building with no views and not having any special qualities.
Now Paolo Aliatis’ focus lays in how to take portfolios that are yielding a 5% return, to a 12% return. From time to time, Aliatis will have a former competitor contact him with properties to take on. It doesn’t take long to see why they are trying to offload them with most of them being structurally flawed and unprofitable. Timing and knowhow are everything, especially in the property industry.
Whatever makes a property special varies depending on how the buyer, seller or investor sees it but for property specialists, a hot deal will always be a hot deal. If you are in the industry and you understand it, you know when you have a hot deal and you better know how to make the most of it.
