Buying property? It's about timing too

	Straits Times: Sun, Jun 24
Property is all about location, location and location as the saying goes but real estate executive Dennis Yeo reckons timing has plenty to do with it as well. The 49-year-old managing director of property consultancy Colliers International speaks as one who knows - and as one who has paid the price of buying when prices were on the high side. Mr Yeo, who majored in estate management at the National University of Singapore, joined Colliers Jardine, as it was then known, in 1993 to start the industrial property department after a stint with property consultancy Knight Frank. He has been in his current post for 11 years. His wife Jessica Yap is a contracts manager with a small construction firm. They have a son, Gabriel, 17, and a daughter, Helena, 13. Q: Are you a spender or saver? I am a spender. I spend on artworks, electronic gadgets, business-class flights and making sure things work around me. I've also gone on a watch-buying spree recently, buying a watch a month in the past 18 months. The watches cost about $20,000 to $50,000 each. Money, when spent or invested, gives you more satisfaction (in terms of your return) than when it is saved. I always tell my children: 'The more you give, the more you receive.' I give a lot back to my alma mater, Anglo-Chinese School, because I appreciate what the school has done. I also apply this philosophy at work. To do that, you have to look at the long term, have a lot of trust in people and believe that your good deeds will be reciprocated. But you don't live your life expecting it to happen. I also believe in the Chinese saying that you do not dismantle the bridge shortly after crossing it. Leave it for others to use. If you have this kind of mindset, you would tend to be more generous. Those who are calculative won't have such a mentality. Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month? Approximately $2,000, or more if I am travelling due to hotel accommodation expenses. I would use my credit cards to make payments of more than $1,000 and cash for my purchases and expenses that are less than $1,000. Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself? I have speculated on a few properties in the past but I am more of a long-term investor. There is sometimes a fine line between being an investor and a speculator because you may receive an offer that you can't refuse. My plan is to hold some real estate and to pay off the loans as soon as I can so that I can eventually live on the passive income. Up to a point, you have to stop buying so that you don't have to service more loans. Right now, I think I can still buy more. Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like? I have an elder brother, a younger sister and a younger brother. My father was a sole proprietor selling watches and electronic products while my mother was a housewife. My father's best customers were the airline crews from Lufthansa, British Airways, Qantas and so on. The captains and chief flight attendants patronised his little shop often and he would host dinners for them. He often took me along to these dinners and that's where I learnt how to 'deal' and speak to Caucasians from the young age of 12. My father believes in buying properties instead of renting. In addition, property is a hedge against inflation. It is also my belief and my advice for businessmen is that it is better to buy a property if you need the space for your business. Q: How did you get interested in investing? I got interested in business more than in investing. When you do business, you will forge relationships. With the combined resources of your peers and the relationships you've established over the years, you will have the ability to invest. In the initial years of my career, it was more about making ends meet. My family did not have the ability to fund any investment then. My first investment was in stocks. I dabbled in some during the second year of my working life. I bought a stock based on hearsay and sold it at a loss. My second investment was a shophouse, which I bought with some friends and sold for a profit while my third investment, an industrial property, was a loss-making one. I learnt three lessons from these early investments. Don't invest in something that you do not understand and have no interest in. There is no such thing as a 'convenient investment'. Timing is key. Always consider the potential/latent demand and supply. Know the market environment and understand the product and its potential. Don't get carried away. Again, timing is key. What goes up must come down. Q: What properties do you own? A terraced house off Upper Thomson Road, with a built-in area of 4,500 sq ft. I bought it in 2010 for $2.8 million. A 1,100 sq ft apartment in the Orchard Road vicinity, which I bought in 1993 for $460,000. It is now worth about $2 million. Three apartments in central London ranging in size from 470 sq ft to 600 sq ft. These were purchased between 2010 and now. I paid about $3 million in total, which makes them cheaper than the shoebox apartments here. The first one I bought, in Canary Wharf, cost less than $1 million and is being rented out, while the other two are being built. Central London properties have a good track record of being rented out at a 5 per cent to 6 per cent yield. A couple of strata-titled industrial properties, which I co-owned with some relatives. We bought them more than 10 years ago and they are being rented out at a decent net yield of 3 per cent to 4 per cent. Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought? A $50,000 two-carat solitaire diamond for my wife. Q: What's your retirement plan? I hope to retire by the age of 55. Q: Home is now.... The terraced house off Upper Thomson Road. Q: I drive .... An imperial blue BMW 730Li. [e-mail] A philosophy to live by 'I always tell my children, 'The more you give, the more you receive.' I also apply this philosophy at work. To do that, you have to look at the long term, have a lot of trust in people and believe that your good deeds will be reciprocated. But you don't live your life expecting it to happen.' MR DENNIS YEO (above), managing director of property consultancy Colliers International WORST AND BEST BETS Q: What is your worst investment to date? I bought two industrial units for more than $2 million with a few friends in 1996. We sold them off in 2010 and the loss as well as the interest payments amounted to more than $1.2 million. The purchases were made on impulse and the timing was wrong. I did not take time to study the market at that time. If I had bought residential properties, I would have made money. It was at a very high price and the purchase was made just before the Asian financial crisis came and hit industrial property prices. Because I was in the property line, I saw a lot of deals and I got carried away. Even if we had held on to it till now, we are unlikely to profit from it because the property is old, in a small industrial estate that is not near an MRT station, and not in a prime location. Q: What is your best investment to date? I bought an 800 sq ft apartment in London off the plan in November 2010. I paid only a 10 per cent deposit then and I managed to sell the property in April 2011 at a profit of $150,000. I had planned to keep it but was offered a price I could not refuse. Source: The Straits Times