About Me

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London, Greater London, United Kingdom
My name is Laura and I'm an Overseas Property Consultant with Sunsplash Homes. I have worked with the Company since early 2006 and look after my clients by making sure the properties they buy are absolutely what they are looking for. My clients range from an investor looking for the best possible return on his/her money. To the retiree looking for a place in the sun (or hills), to the young family looking for a holiday home. Whatever you are looking for I can help you! I spend a great deal of my time travelling across the world looking at property developments, reading about property developments, studying property developments. Simply put I am obsessed by all things property related! As a bit of background, I spent 10 years practicing as a Solicitor before I moved into International Property. This experience has proved invaluable when it comes to reviewing property developments across the world. I will try as often as I can to write regularly on here; little snippets of my day here and there. All in all I hope this can be of some use to anyone looking to buy property anywhere in the world.

Thursday, 9 April 2009

An Interesting Day...

I had an interesting day yesterday. In the morning I drove to Muswell Hill in North London for a breakfast meeting with my friend Geraldine McMahon. Geraldine is a coach who specialises in helping people find their aim and passion in life. People who are perhaps scared to take that 'leap of faith' to lead a life with their true passion in mind. She and I relate with each other as we each spent several years working in very stressful environments before finding something more enjoyable; she as a TV producer on a well known chat show and me as a litigation lawyer!

Anyway, we had a lovely breakfast catch up and agreed that we were in the ideal place to cross refer clients. She with clients looking to buy property overseas and me with clients and friends looking for a coach.

You can have a look at Geraldine’s website here . I can wholeheartedly recommend her as a good and kind soul who will help you find your passion in life.

After the meeting I headed back to my office, it was such a glorious sunny day I wasn't in too much of a hurry and on the way received a call from a client seeking copies of my calculations for rental return and capital growth for a property he has bought in Barbados.

Back at my desk I settled down to review the figures before sending them on to him. I knew they were good (had prepared them last month after my Caribbean inspection trip) but had forgotten just how good they really were. I decided to double check the figures and comparables.

In essence, what I confirmed was that the property my client was buying in Barbados had an instant equity of over £130K and could reasonably earn him a rental return of £40K per annum. Ideal for him as he has become increasingly tired of the daily drudgery of his day job and dreams of running his own business.

My client was delighted with the info I sent over and told me he can now really see his dream of being self-employed and financially free coming true. It occurred to me that this was exactly what Geraldine’s clients might be looking for; a property investment to give them an income to enable them to leave their day to day jobs and live the life of their dreams!

After my chat with Mr Client I turned my attention to plans we were putting in place for a charity climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. My Partner Marcus climbed it last year and motivated by him and the comic relief team we decided to organise a 'Sunsplash Climb’ in 2010.

To my amazement a good friend of mine; Sarah, then emailed me completely out of the blue to say she and 7 others were planning to climb Killi in 2010. I told her of our plan to do it in aid of a Kenyan orphanage we sponsor and she agreed it sounded like an excellent idea.

On reflection it occurred to me that this had been a very special day, one full of interesting coincidences, overlaps and synchronicity. I couldn't help but realise, if I hadn't taken my own 'leap of faith' a few years back and followed my own dream then my day might have been very different indeed. The question might follow for anyone reading this note; have you taken your own leap of faith yet? If yes, has it worked out for you? If you havent then I only have three little words (to quote a well known brand); "Just do it!"

Blessings to all over the upcoming Easter festivities.

Laura.

Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Welcome!

Welcome to my first blog posting!
This is something I've been intending to do for a while but this year has been so hectic I just hadn't sat down and started blogging.

So today is the day that all changes and the reason for it is simple. I am lucky enough to have a job that I absolutely love. I feel so inspired by what I do every day and if I can convey even a tiny proportion of that on here then I am sure that might help someone out there in their property search.

I get to travel across the globe looking at property developments, I work with a fabulously inspiring team at Sunsplash Homes http://sunsplashhomes.com I help my clients secure safe and profitable property investments and at the end of all of that we build homes for the homeless as a social enterprise.

What more could I ask than that?

I shall write here regularly with updates of all that I've learned and seen so please check back here often.
Best wishes!
Laura