Published: 30th October 2008
Industry Millionaire: Kim Jamilly talks to Globaledge
Kim Jamilly has worked in property since the mid 1970s, when she ran her own estate agency business in London. In the early 1990s, she put her property career on hold to help her late husband run the UK’s most iconic fancy dress store,
Laurence Corner (their jackets inspired the Beatles album cover
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). After making a packet with her share options and fatigued by the demands of dressing
Boy George, she set up Mediterranean multiple-language property portal
Medhead.com early last year.
To help our readers come up with ideas for future projects, we gave Kim £25k, £100k and £1 million of fictional funds to invest anywhere in the world with the objective of maximizing return over a five-year period.
Ashley Rigg: Hi Kim, thanks for meeting me today. What’s it like to be back in property again?
Kim Jamilly: It’s great, well I suppose the timing could have been better, but I’m really enjoying it.
AR: Let’s start things off with £25k. Where would you invest to maximize my return?
KJ: I’m going to go for
Italy. I spotted a great
three-bed house in Carassai, Ascoli [
Le Marche] for £24,000. It’s a beautiful area and it’s much cheaper than
Tuscany. It’s like Italian wine, this investment would get better with age, it would be something for my granddaughters to enjoy.
AR: It must be a bit of shack for that price?
KJ: It needs work, but I wouldn’t call it a shack. You would probably have to put in another £15,000 to get it into a habitable condition but I’m allowed to leverage the money, right?
AR: Absolutely. So why pick Italy, out of interest? Isn’t it the sick man of Europe?
KJ: It’s all about finding the right opportunity. They’ll always be good demand in certain parts of Italy for holiday lets. It’s a beautiful country with fantastic food, within a short flight from the UK. You just have to pick your property carefully and really do your research.
AR: Anywhere else you’d consider?
KJ: I think there are opportunities in many countries at the moment if you do your research and you’re willing to be bold and negotiate hard on price. “Buying other people’s dreams” is a good strategy.
AR: What do you mean?
KJ: Buying half-finished projects that have stopped for financial reasons. You can often get them a good price and get them finished relatively quickly and cheaply.
AR: You’re a hard woman, Kim!
KJ: I’m not, honestly!
AR: Let’s raise the stakes. Where do you fancy spending our £100k?
KJ: I found something in
Oliva in
Spain earlier for £82,000. It’s got four bedrooms and two bathrooms. It’s in immaculate condition.
AR: My word, you have prepared for this interview. Why mainland Spain? It’s not the first place on every investor’s lips right now.
KJ: I’ve always been fond of contrarian thinking. There has been massive over-development and there is still a disparity between repossession prices and asking prices in many areas, but Spain is a big place and it’s impossible to generalize. There are some good bargains to be had. You can afford to be cheeky and make wild offers. For silver surfers, it’s still a great place to retire. It has the amenities, the convenience and people’s friends and family are there. Spain will never go out of fashion, with the Brits and Germans especially. The most popular locations tend to do better as you come out of recessions. That was certainly the case in the 80s and 90s. I’m backing Spain.
AR: Why Oliva in particular?
KJ: It’s a solid expat base. It has the amenities, bars, restaurants and tennis courts. It’s only an hour from
Alicante so there are still plenty of flights from Northern Europe. It’s really popular in season so you’d get good holiday lets and you could get a good long-term let during off-season. In high season you could get around €800 (£640) a month for it.
AR: OK, let’s make it interesting. We’ll take it up to £1 million. Where would you spend it?
KJ: With a million, I’d be tempted to buy land in a number of different locations across Europe. I regret not buying land in
Tenerife, where I used to spend my summers. It’s almost impossible to find land there now.
AR: Where would you buy?
KJ: Let’s see, I think there are some great bargains to be had on the Costas in Spain at the moment but I’m going to go for
Greece. It’s so underdeveloped; it’s really at the bottom of the European property ladder. The only way is up!
AR: As
Yazz once said! Would you put the whole million in Greece?
KJ: Yes, I think there are some terrific opportunities. I know it’s a little risky but the returns are considerable and hey! – I’m rich and I’m spending your money! There are two options I’d look at, Patra on the coast and
Athens.
AR: What would you buy?
KJ: I'd buy land in Patra. It has one of the most spectacular coastlines I’ve visited and is totally undeveloped. I’d look to buy land and develop an exclusive resort aimed at Russians and other Northern Europeans. For around £500k you can get about 50 hectares (120 acres) of land. I’d look to build around ten two- and three-bed apartments which would take care of the rest of the money. I’d need to leverage to finance facilities for the development.
AR: Sounds good. What would you get in Athens for the money?
KJ: Obviously a lot less. In central Athens you can get around 300 square metres for about £450k. I’d build a small development of maybe eight flats aimed at the local market. Prices in Athens are still a fraction of other European cities. There’s not been the same kind of property boom in Greece as there’s been in the UK, for example. I think prices have some way to go and over five years, I think it’s a solid investment.
AR: Thanks Kim. Good to see you.
KJ: You’re welcome. Come and see us the next time you’re over in Spain.
Would you like to be an industry millionaire?
Do you have a good knowledge of a particular country or region? Could you point overseas agents and developers in the right direction when looking for partners and projects? If you’d like to participate, please contact us.
About Medhead.com
Launched in spring 2007,
Medhead.com is the only overseas property portal focusing exclusively on the Mediterranean. The site currently covers Spain, France, Italy and Cyprus with other countries to follow. Properties are automatically translated into six languages: Danish, German, Russian, Spanish, French and Italian. They are currently offering a limited number of free listings to agents and developers on a first-come, first-served basis.
User Comments
I think the fact that you can enter your property details on the site in any of the languages and the site shows it immediately in the other languages, is what is so useful with this site. Often we estate agents have staff whose first language isn’t English, so my staff can type in the information about any property in their own language (Spanish or Russian for example) and you can see the property on the site in the other six languages. Great time saver!
David,
LHESTATES S.L.
I had a look at www.medhead.com, it is a lovely site.
What a great idea to have the site immediately translated into the 7 site languages.
If I had a million, I would buy this property featured on medhead
https://www.medhead.com/en/house-for-sale-in-sagres-faro/173164.html
In Kim's credit the site is professional and easy to use. Well don!
Emma,
Se Vende Casa