There isn’t one way into property as Doug Hardman explains with his Non Standard Real Estate Career. Doug’s incredible journey through property started off from the need to succeed, to Partner of a big firm and then onto his own firm. Doug shares his story with me in this awe-inspiring interview.
Hi Doug,
Thank you so much for agreeing to come on the NC Real Estate Blog. You did a great guest blog post for us the 10 Reasons to Crowd Fund Commercial Property a few weeks ago, so thank you for agreeing to come back on!
When I asked if you wanted to do an interview for NC Real Estate your words were ‘Happy to do an interview, if you are looking for a non standard real estate career!’ so of course that made me even more interested in your property journey as I love the non-standard and my readers do too.
How did you initially get into the property world? Did you do a real estate degree?
They say that necessity is the mother of all invention, I bought my first investment property at the age of 21 and used my brothers student loan for the refurbishment costs.
I was studying in a small South African university town in 1990, broke and facing the harsh reality of funding my studies in market oversupplied with cheap students labour all willing to pull pints and serve food for less than the minimum wage. After a string of failed hare-brained schemes to make cash, I secured a contract from the university that allowed me to install coin operated pool tables and video games in the student café and bar. The scheme was a runaway success from day one and I was literally making money while I slept ….and studied of course.I quickly expanded to other sites and began generating significant cashflow. Apartheid and trade sanctions meant that the local real estate market was very depressed and there were many vacant buildings with desperate sellers. I bought my first property in a derelict light industrial part of town on receiving a tip off that a Belgium charity had leased most of the surrounding workshop space for an education programme. The seller owned a small corner house that was rapidly being dismantled by vandals and carried off to be rebuilt in the nearby shantytown. Let’s just say that if he had not agreed to leave 20% of the purchase price as deposit for me, to be refunded when the mortgage was paid or settled when I sold, he would have been left with nothing but the foundations of his property.
I paid 20, spend 6 refurbishing and sold in 18 months for 46 after renting it to the Belgian hippies running the charity for twice my mortgage costs. If I had held on to sell after the first free post apartheid general elections I could have doubled my exit price but I had the small issue of repaying my brothers student loan.That was me hooked on property and here I am in a property start up 26 years on.
Has it always been investment that you have been interested in?
The great thing about investment is that everybody’s business is my business. I am interested in everything and I care about rent reviews, property management, Landlord and Tenant Act and every legal, technical or personal component that makes up a real estate investment deal.
Being a naturally inquisitive person helps and property investment has always kept me interested.
I know you have worked at both DTZ and Cushman and Wakefield, what was it like working your way up the corporate ladder?
I arrived in London, the greatest city in the earth, thinking I was a rock-star-entrepreneur on the back of my small town success. In my first job interview with a bushy eye-browed partner at Stutt & Parker, I was rather scornfully asked if I had been selling “mud huts” in South Africa. Let’s just say, from that point on I knew that my career path was not going to be strait forward.
I was told only RICS qualifications allowed you a career in real estate, I was out of time, out of money and very disappointed so I just stated working in property anyway doing what ever I had to do to feed myself. After being turned away by successive employers for being too ambitious, I was offered a role as a trainee estate agent in Croydon and a job in Mayfair in the lowly role of arranging short-term-let apartment viewings.
I opted for Mayfair, the worst job offer but it put me in the best place to meet people who could positively impact my career and then I worked incredibly hard. In those days e-mail had just come in but Google and it’s wealth of information had not been dreamed up and I had to be a sponge for information, learning the hard way mostly; but I was doing it.
In life it seems like everyone is ready to tell you what you can’t do – only you can show what you are capable of. I have always put myself just beyond my comfort zone and then worked furiously to close the gap.Fast forward a few short years and I was working as Investment Director for a private equity fund in Eastern Europe, when a recruitment agent called me with a job prospect working as CEE Regional Investment Director for DTZ, a top global advisory firm. I told her “I am not your man, you need someone corporate with RICS behind their name..”
So I ended up going to the interview as I had never been to Budapest, convincing myself that I did not want the role but having work furiously day and night preparing, second time luckily right?The letters behind your name are a stepping off point in your career, not a privileged right. I absolutely supported my juniors’ study ambitions but it does not absolve you from getting things done and thinking for yourself. I feel I jumped the cue at DTZ and Cushman & Wakefield in not climbing the corporate ladder but I worked incredibly hard and was not afraid of pushing ahead to show what I could do.
I am not sure I would recommend my career path to anyone. I suppose the takeaway is that you do what you have to do with what you have, hard work and thinking for yourself will help you on your way.
You were a partner at Cushman’s what did it take to get into that position – I know for a lot of my readers that is the dream?
I don’t think I am the best gauge of success as I am not a corporate animal, I just managed to jump the cue because I showed I could get things done. Remember, a partnership or directorship is not the only measure of success and I have seen talented property professionals get their careers stuck behind an equity partner or boss who does not have their best interest in mind. Think for your self and don’t let other people tell you what you can’t do.
Oh, but don’t forget to be honest with your self if you can or you will be learning the hard way like I did.
Now you have set up your own firm, what made you jump to that?
I am an entrepreneur at heart so I see this as a return to my natural state. Working for two excellent global firms was fascinating and I learned an immense amount through working with such excellent and knowledgeable colleagues. Perhaps if it had not been for the global financial crisis I would still be in a big firm, though I know now that danger lurks everywhere. Perhaps more so than you realise in the large corporates.
What are the pro’s and cons of working in a big corporate to working for your own firm?
Best thing about working for a big firm is getting the opportunity to play with the corporate machine, working with global resources and clients you could only dream of in a start up. On your own you have the freedom to follow your instinct and make your own mistakes and be directly rewarded for your successes.
To run your own business you need to have a high pain threshold together with the ability to sustain your positive outlook through set backs, there is a 100% chance you will fail at least once.
If you do not fail at least once, you are not trying hard enough.
I know you know source and buy property on behalf of investment funds, has ‘Brexit’ had an impact on this at all, it’s all I seem to hear thrown about at networking events?
After nearly 2 years of work with our Chinese investors and almost 6 months of that time working on a student housing development pipeline, after Brexit we were out of business from one day to the next. We also had to pull out of the launch of our Crowdfunding business PEVAM. It was defiantly the slowest summer in the property sector I have ever seen, but then you deal with the failure and refocuse your mind.
Brexit is a massive opportunity, we are working it out as we go.
Hindsight is the clearest vision, I am sure we are all going to see the Brexit opportunities we should have taken in hindsight.
Where are you looking to source and invest at the moment? Is there one particular part of the country which is interesting you more than others?
London is looking fully priced to us currently and having spent two years trying to land a major development project with our Chinese investors, we called the top of the London residential market towards the end of 2015.
In these uncertain times we are investing defensively and finding an attractive yield arbitrage in the UK regions against historically low senior debt rates. Having worked internationally, my business partner and I are back in the UK regions after almost 20 years away, everything has gone full circle.
What would you advice be for anyone looking to get into the property industry who doesn’t know where to start?
Focus more about placing yourself in the best environment to learn rather than choices based on short term material considerations. If you are lucky enough for that choice to be university, so much the better, but if you are like me and did not have the time or financial resources for a second stint at Uni. work for nothing if you have too.
Job applications can be sent to; doug@rcap.eu
Finally, where do you think your non-standard career will take you next?
I am a dad of to two little people who have changed my view of success, I still work hard and enjoy working but my measure of success has changed.
I am increasingly focused on technology and its ability to overturn traditional models; such as crowdfunding and how that can make a positive difference to how we interact as a community on many levels.
The old adage of “cut the middle man out” does not quite capture what is happening here. Professionals like you and I are able to do what we love with skills we have gained over decades, monetising skills directly with investors and property clients. We have more options to shape how our careers look, how we want to work and who we work with.
I want to make sure that my businesses are making a difference within our sector and in the wider community, to do this we need to be successful first.
A goal worth working for I believe.
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?
doug@rcap.eu
Has Doug’s story inspired you? Has it excited you to get into real estate and find your own Non Standard Real Estate Career? Comment below, I’d love to hear from you. If this has been really useful for you then don’t forget to share it around so that everyone can feel the benefit from it.
NC
P.S Did you read last weeks interview with Pasq Puglisi about getting into the world of construction? If not check it our right here.
