Property Reading – What Sam Saw Today

Today I am going to start a series writing about the blogs that I read and the sources of information that I use. The beauty of the Internet is that you can get your information from the coalface – often the real experts aren’t the talking heads that you see on a TV series but the people doing it for a living.

Sam Collett

I’ve chosen to kick off the series with an as yet little known Blog called What Sam Saw Today . The reason that I say “as yet little known” is because this is the real raw stuff from the front line, and it comes from Sam Collett (National Landlords Association West Midlands Property Woman Award 2010) property developer and investor, who with her ambitious and bubbly personality has soared to success with a nationwide portfolio of 50 properties worth a total of £4m, a Staffordshire based management agency, Gorgeous Homes, and a National Internet Letting Agency .

Trust me this Blog is going to be big.

Sam describes her blog (Confessions of a Property Developer):

For those of you who are familiar with my blog you will know I always start with “Today I saw…”and that’s basically what my blog is – it’s about the properties I see which are (mainly) going to auction and that I am considering buying.  I write about the price it’s on for, where it is and my blunt opinion of the property on offer!

The subtitle of my blog “Confessions of a Property Developer” really hits the nail on the head – this is me and my everyday life “revealed”. So if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a property developer every day read on – there are a whole range of stories from the real life edge of being a full time property professional!

Most days I drive up and around the country looking at a load of properties and it can be anything! I’m not so picky in what I look at – basically I work on numbers and if the deal “stacks” (makes money!).  In any one week I may look at flats for sale on a council sink estate to a theatre to a pub to a patch of grass! Yes, I really cover the whole shebang – and the whole country!

I also write about some of the “scrapes” (read “adventures”) that I get into – whether that is climbing over walls to look at properties, sacking agents, getting rid of squatters to charming the police on my many travels.

As quite a superstitious person I don’t often write about the deals which I do buy and which I sell or rent out….but perhaps this is something that I should share more?  What do you think?

Whilst I would love to hear more about Sam’s successes, what makes this Blog unique is the sheer nitty gritty detail of what Property Development is all about, from squatters, to tips, from burnt out garages, to concrete cancer, Sam sees it all and tells it how it really is.