Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa May/June 2019 | Page 34

FINDING
Trendsetter or Follower?
How to identify your reliable guides and true trendsetters
that produce sustainable, above-market returns in the
property industry.
BY KYLE BATH
I
n any industry there are trendsetters and then there are
followers.
Property is a wonderful investment asset class and
it is worth spending your time to find reliable guides in
organisations and teams, that are able to stay ahead of current
trends in the industry, offer current, proven and established
investment opportunities, whilst providing the value added
services that ensure your investments produces sustainable,
above-market related returns.
Time is needed to establish such a trusting relationship.
The trendsetters in the property industry
can be identified by establishing if they:
•
•
•
IDENTIFY THE NEEDS IN THE INDUSTRY
IN ADVANCE: Do they have an insight into the
future of the property industry, establishing the future
needs, preparing and creating solutions to address those
needs? Look into the management team and history to
determine if they were involved in previous trendsetting
activity.
CREATE
SUSTAINABLE,
LASTING
SOLUTIONS: Are the solutions that they create
a sustainable win-win for most stakeholders or only
a selected few? Any lasting solution needs to have
measurable impact to be sustainable. Organisational
vision and mission statements will provide you with
an insight into why they are in business, but always
measure if their actions and results reflect these. Ask for
testimonies and referrals for assessment. Greed-driven
solutions are not sustainable in the long-run.
HAVE AN EXPONENTIAL AND HOLISTIC
APPROACH: Does the organisation provide a platform
and opportunities for current role players in the industry
to participate and increase their effectiveness, instead of
having a lone ranger approach? Lean decision-making
teams will continue setting the trend should there be
new emerging needs and can move quickly to address
that need.
• ADAPT TO THE CHALLENGES THAT COME
WITH TRENDSETTING: Many people have new
trendsetting ideas but as soon as the first hurdle is
met, they give up. If the vision, mission and massive
transformative purpose is not true to their heart it may
not last. Thus, a good question should always be ‘what
difficulty have you experienced to date to provide these
solutions?’ Find out the story behind the story and it will
guide you to why they are in business!
• EXAMPLES OF TRANSACTIONS THAT WERE
A FAILURE AND HOW DID THEY MANAGE
IT? Always ask about the challenging transactions,
practical examples and how it was managed, what
solutions were found or what the outcome was. That will
provide you with some insight of how your matters will
be managed if it becomes a challenge. If they had no
challenges to date, run, because yours may just be first
challenging one and you do not know how they will deal
with those difficulties.
The Property Assist team members have been trendsetters
in the property industry for more than 25 years.
We focus to continually identify new needs in the property
industry and turn those opportunities into solutions, within
in the life time of those opportunities, for all property
stakeholders including investors.
Find out more out the latest property investment trends
by visiting www.propertyassist.co.za and the unique property
investment opportunities, or email to invest@propertyassist.
co.za for one of our Property Investment Originators to get
in touch with you.
RESOURCES
Property Assist
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MAY/JUNE 2019 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine