Lordship Lane local investors wanted

[Quaywe]

Just a though EDF'ers; are there any "fiscally fortunate" people amongst us that would be interested in getting some funds together to start buying up commercial property on LL? The aim of course would be to shut out the likes of certain well known developers from owning the whole street and leasing all of the premises to chain stores. We would aim to try to keep rent prices low so locals could still afford to trade there. If purchase prices didn't allow low rental prices at least we could give local traders first option to open their doors in the neighbourhood at a somewhat competitive rate.

[bald marauder]

Love the principle - unfortunately struggling at the moment to stay fiscally viable never mind fortunate!

[georgia]

I've a spare fiver if that's any good...

Interesting idea but not sure you will get many takers unfortunately. I think most ED residents can just about afford their rent / mortgage.

[snorky]

as a man of means, I must say that this is a non starter - Strangely enough, I did look into this some time ago , and indeed a whole parade of shops did come up for sale leat year - the price fetched was quite shocking and suggest that landlords have earmarked LL for mucho development and an increase in prices.

I did consider LL a couple of eyars ago for a business idea - I shall go no further on this other than to suggest the my model was accurate and indeed estimates would have been dwarfed by the likely profitability of the venture in the next year or two - the problem being the paucity of good sized properties - there are a few leases for grabs, but the sites are utterly miniscule for my original idea.

um.

[snorky]

PS, I still have a rather sexy idea for a profitable business shoud the right sized LL premises come up

[Jamie]

Might be interested after the summer. Let me know more when you have enough people up for it

[Huguenot]

Snorks, maybe the White Stuff place may be up for grabs? All development work has stopped!

[karter]

Edkiwi

I would be interested.

P...hill is taking over as we speak. The 6 shops snorky mentions sold last year in auction in one block were sold as investment for ?2.5m so not much will change there .

I would love to lease to local people, I currently do, a couple on LL. Very hard to buy anything else as certain agents are in with certain developers.

Let me know if anyone else is interested,quaywe, along shot but you never know :o)))

[AcedOut]

Count me in.

Personally, I think Peckham Rye has the better opportunities to make ??? though. Especially in terms of a passive buy/hold over the next 2-3 years.

For LL, the big opportunity is an Italian restaurant. Personally, I'd be up for buying out one of the less profitable restaurants and making the conversion. If anyone is interested in partnering up on something like this, please let me know.

[Kathryn]

I definately think an independant Italian resturant is missing. What I really want to do is to get the Picture House to open a small cinema here I've got a ridiculous amount of ideas for that. Also a tea shop next to the butchers where that strange underwear shop was for a while. It could serve take out to all the people queing for the butchers and moxtons. I'd like to run/ manage either of those. Any investors

[beth]

You could look at setting up a community development trust - such as the Coin Street Community Builders and the Notting Hill Trust that was set up many years ago with the same purpose and idea as what you are suggesting. There is a national organisation that supports community development trusts - click here for more info http://www.dta.org.uk/

Or you could look at setting up a Social Enterprise - go to Social Enterprise London at http://www.sel.org.uk for more information about social enterprises.

The benefits to these options is that the risk to individuals is lessened and it becomes a truly community owned enterprise.

[Muttley]

It does seem odd that on the one hand Parkhill are hiking rental prices, while on the other there are places that have been boarded up for years (Miss Haversham next to the butchers being the most mysterious, that's now a prime site, can somebody pay her a visit?).

By the way, teensy bit off topic, but I just did a search on this forum for the word "definAtely" - there are a remarkable 14 messages containing that word, including one in this thread. I then searched "definitely". Zero returns (except that now there will be one, since I just put it in this message). Even in liberal East Dulwich, 14-nil is a bit of a spelling shocker to be honest. I blame the 1980s and the disappearance of Latin.

[AcedOut]

Great post. Definately definitive.

[blinder999]

How many people omitted to use apostrophes appropriately, or don't they bother you?;-)

[Administrator]

Please take the discussion about punctuation to the Lounge

[geh]

Just logged on after a while and this post caught my attention. In principle the idea is sound but there are (as ever) stumbling blocks.

Benefit - the true benefit of an 'Estate Management Policy' which is what you are suggesting in a retail sense comes only from contiguous ownership. Put briefly if you own a block of property, or even a street then you are in the best position to control the tenant mix (as far as the current legislation allows). Think about the London Estates - The Crown, Grosvenor, Portman and Howard de Walden and how they have changed their portfolios over the past decade (Marylebone High Street is one of the best eg?s)

Second issue is cost! No 6 LL is on the market for circa ?1M.

Imho, you let the grd floor for at best rent achievable say ?40K (that?s before you start to think of discounting the rent in order to get a suitable ?non chain? tenant).

What have you got then? 2 floors of approx 1,000 sq ft currently used as offices. Change of planning (overcoming local objections!) to residential, convert to 2 X 2 bed flats. What are they worth above a shop? ?250K? (less cost of works)

Total value created ?1-1.1M, less;

Build costs

Transaction costs

Finance cost

Void costs (ie on unlet space)

I can?t borrow money on this scenario, but some can. Undoubtedly someone will take a view on my costs and bid over the asking price. Possibly someone with a track record in the area and existing lines of finance ? you know who I mean!

The figures are very rough and ready and open to criticism but you get the picture!

The parade that was mentioned in an earlier post by Snorky was in an auction with a guide of ?1.5M. There were some cute things you could do with it, ?work the planning? on the rear yard, refurbish the residential (as is being done), but again it comes down to cost and borrowing. From memory I looked at it (as an exercise) and felt I/one could have bid up to approx ?1.8M. What did it sell for? ?2.5M! Undoubtedly to a cash buyer. I don?t think finance was an option because of the low initial rent roll.

You may, as do many, subscribe to the view that hash recession is needed to bring value back to the market. That?s ok if we all keep our jobs/homes etc. Perhaps as a syndicate we could reconvene after such even and buy cheap, but going back to the essence of the post (which I wholeheartedly support) the philanthropic aim to promote LL as a vibrant unique retail offer does not always sit comfortably with the profit motive!

Sorry for such a long post but the postie hasn?t delivered my Property Week yet and it?s a slack Friday morning!!!?

geh

[karter]

geh

your words are spot on. I fortunately purchased some commercials properties in the prime location of LL in time. Getting difficult to buy anything cos of phill.I know i keep repeating myself but gets quite annoying, especially when seeing placards that keep going up. The latest is on the old fish factory next to St Thomas More hall.

The 6 properties last year that sold for ?2.5 m had a rental of ?85k per annum and increasing, not too bad a return.

The shop next to butchers, well lets see who's going to be lucky enough.!!!

K

[beth]

Again, look at the development trust idea as per my post above. It has worked in Coin Street and Notting Hill.

[Ko]

Had a look at the sites Beth mentioned and it made very interesting reading.

I could be interested in something like this, but (!) as others have pointed out, it would be very difficult. It may be too late now to get this to work. Given what prices are like on LL, you would obviously need a lot of money. For the lot of 6 shops that came up last year, if each investor stumped up ?50,000, then you would have still needed 50 people.

Even if you could get enough money initially for a few properties, it would be hard to maintain enough financial clout to take on bidding wars with the big guys.:-S

I read that for the first 4 years the Coin Hill Community Builders were almost entirely dependent on income from temporary public cars parks (because of location - South Bank) to pay on the loan they had taken to buy the whole site plus other costs.

Well done though, EDKiwi, for getting the discussion going and wanting to do something! (tu)

Beth - as you know a bit about development trusts, could you see the idea working in ED?

[beth]

Yes, I can but it would take alot of unpaid committment by volunteers and local residents to get the idea off the ground. I believe there are loans you can access for development trusts which would allow an initial property to be bought by the trust. (Charity Bank give loans to charities to buy property) Once the property starts genering income, the trust could use that income to purchase other property. The trust would be run by a board of directors - and therefore, the liablity for the directors would be limited (the trust would also become a company). All profits would go back into the trust - and the trust would have to generate enough profits to cover not only the property including maintence but fees for a paid worker to manage the activities of the trust and the properties - as in order to keep things running propertly the trust couldn't really depend on the time/labour of volunteer Directors.

A trust could also access funding and grants from the state and even the Big Lottery which run a Community Buildings funding programme. See http://www.thebiglottery.org.uk

Support for the idea could perhaps be sought from the relevant Southwark Council officers in the first instance? Or the local CVS - SAVO (Southwark Action for Voluntary Organisations).

Initially, funding could be sought for a fesablity study - from a statutory funder or charitable trust. The Development Trusts Association might have more information about potential funders.

[beth]

I went to the DTA website to look at the funding situation. I found this link which leads to some exciting new developments http://www.dta.org.uk/whatsnew/dtahottopics.htms:

This includes the transfer of ?30 million worth of funding from councils to community led assets like development trusts.

There is also the new unclaimed assets funding stream that is being set up by the Treasury to support community social enterprises which the trust could access.

So I think it would be worth looking at the idea - particularly if the East Dulwich Community Trust could tap into some seed corn funding to get the ball rolling. Then, if the fesablity is done and the property is choosen with a strong potential to be income generating, the whole thing should be self-sustaining. And the profit would be plowed back into the trust. Anyway, I've got a background in putting together funding bids so I'd be willing to get involved if someone else wants to organise an initial meeting to look into this idea. Local councelliors should be involved as it's important so have some political will behind the project.

'DTA submits proposals to Unclaimed Assets Commission

The DTA has submitted its response to the commission, with proposals for the creation of a fund of around ?150 - ?200 million over the next eight to ten years to help 500-650 community enterprise organisations acquire assets that will generate long-term benefits in their community. The DTA's response is in support of the commissions initial proposals to invest unclaimed assets into the third sector.'

[SeanMacGabhann]

Absolutely fantastic discussion this and well done EDKiwi for starting it

Thought just occurred tho - would any close-to-monopoly landlords in the area (oooh... wonder if any exists!) would be reading this thread with interest and planning accordingly....

[Keith]

I think what your looking for is an eccentric who avoids the Nasdaq Dow and FTSE to build in ED just for the fun of trying to keep ED like WD.

[Jeremy]

Who on earth wants to make East Dulwich like West Dulwich??

[Ko]

Beth - thanks for the reply. You know quite a bit about the subject!