Life challenging situations can often make you face up to your limited time. Lukas Sheens incredible journey takes us from his school days and an awful life changing event to how he’s now pushing the property industry across the world in a new direction. Lukas Sheen is certainly an investor you want to be following in the footsteps of, read on to find out more:
Hi Lukas,
Thanks for coming on the NC Real Estate Blog, thank you for agreeing to answer these questions.
Wow you have a lot of great businesses going on as well as being an investor, it’s very impressive!
How did you initially get into the property world?
After I left school at 16 I took up a career in the music industry and went straight to study at one of the countries leading collages for sound engineering and production. The SAE institute in Islington London. The course was quite testing and involved booking studio time at 3am to hit targets etc, and combined with a fairly colourful leisure life, I found myself in hospital with a heart-attack by the age of 17. I knew then that this was a passion but without getting too dramatic would most probably be the death of me and my inability to say no had not worked well in my favour. After a two month recovery from hospital it was my Father came to the rescue really. He owns a double glazing firm but has always dabbled in property. He was looking at a large grade 2 listed manor house around about that time to renovate and offered me the chance to get involved. I had always loved property even from a young age so he set up the company for us as partners and we have never looked back. Our development company has been going strong ever since.
Your businesses seem to revolve around the simple sharing of data and really speeding up the buying / selling process, how are you improving the industry?
What we are aiming to bring to the industry is total transparency from both sides of a property deal from start to finish. From a buyers point of view they want to be able to see what exactly they are paying on top of an asking price regarding fees. (which can sometimes be misleading) And from a agents or sellers perspective they want to know for sure that the the buyer they are negotiating with is capable of purchasing the property and is a legitimate buyer.
Which business came first? Did this start as a catalyst which propelled you throughout your other businesses?
Coex our property development and lettings company came first. I would never have had the knowledge and know-how to stand up and be counted as a knowledgeable source without all of the hands on years in the industry. From building, renovating, buying, selling, lettings, auctions we have really done it all and all of it from scratch. Having this experience from every aspect of the industry has really propelled my thinking and overview of the market. It has enabled me to see the weaknesses that we have experienced in the industry and allowed me to try and do something worthwhile about them.
Was it tough getting your ideas out into the world? How did you spread the word that you had an awesome thing going on?
Getting a new idea in the world like this is something I had never even attempted to do. It has all been trial and error. Some things have worked well. Others not so well. The key is to be persistent and flexible in the approach. If one thing doesn’t work then change it. Re-evaluate the approach. Make it measurable and work out why things aren’t being received as well as others. You also have to ask yourself why what you are doing is so important. For me, if my grandmother was selling her home I feel that she should have every right to know who she was letting into her home and that they were legitimate buyers before negotiating to sell. This is what my ethos is based upon. Transparency.
How do you fit in investing around your businesses? What does a day in your life look like?
Time management is my biggest challenge. I talk to my developers in India everyday, reply to emails and plan my evenings work from 5am – 7am every morning. We then have a breakfast meeting everyday from around 7:15- 8am regarding our property development and rental side. My daily activities consist of visiting our various building sites, backend paperwork and managing our portfolio . Searching for new developments, investment opportunities and logistical planning for the team we have. Depending on when the day draws to a close I usually get a couple of hours family time in the evening and then I start work from around 8-9pm again for a couple of hours talking to our guys in Florida who mainly handle our design aspect and media side to the online businesses.
What’s the best investment you have brought?
We have recently invested a fair amount in the east end of London buying old clothing factories etc and going for planning ourselves. We knew the cross rail was set to go through where we are so the prices are set to go through the roof. That should see a nice ROI.
Do you have any advice for investors who are struggling searching for good deals?
Apart from using our website! Absolutely, there are lots of Facebook groups these days with all sorts of off-market deals and private seller. If you don’t have any direct contacts that are dealing in unique investment-orientated properties and you are not getting any luck via auction or though conventional agencies. Start putting your feelers out on some of the social platforms they really can be quite surprising and contain some little hidden gems.
You work globally, is it difficult to keep up with the different property markets?
We facilitate platforms that are global entities yes. I would not claim to know every detail about the Chinese property market though for instance. But Buisines and the property investment Industry, where ever you are around the globe virtually all have the same common aim. Buy low sell high. Make sure that the yield on a development is covering your costs and leaving you some profit. As long as we are providing an easy to use transparent user friendly space for our clients to do business too achieve these goals the buyers and sellers will keep up with themselves.
Do you only invest in the UK?
No, we have invested in various European countries including, Spain, Sweden and Italy for instance. The U.K. Is where we are based so we spend most of our time here which allows us to remain hands on regarding our lettings side and keep a gentle control over the development aspects.
Finally, what’s next on your property journey?
I’m looking to grow the web-based technology side of things RealesconGlobal significantly in the next couple of years with talks taking place now for possible investments etc. This is the company that holds and owns the rights too all of our companies like Vamoove and Reashare. As for the property development we will continue too invest in the UK property market. Possibly venturing back into west London in the next year or so depending on the stability of the market place.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions, both I and my readers appreciate it. If anybody would want to get in contact with you how would they do it?
Your welcome it has been my pleasure. You can find out more about Vamoove @ www.vamoove.com @realescon or www.realesconglobal.com
If this has been super useful for you then don’t forget to share it far and wide and comment with what you took away from this below! Don’t forget that Lukas wrote a blog for us about Vamoove and a great investment he has been working on last week, so check it out HERE.
NC
If you loved this interview, check out our previous one here with Alex Hickman.
