Victoria Jackson

Welcome to our Company Newsletter | Q1 2022 Update Hello everyone I hope that both personally and professionally the start of 2022 has been kind to you and that you and your families are healthy and happy. It has been a very difficult couple of years as we continue to live through a global pandemic with all the unprecedented challenges in our lives and work. Our resilience has never been tested as much and thankfully it feels like we are almost out the other side as we enter the spring. Despite the environment, I am absolutely delighted to tell you that the last two years has been hugely successful for MCG Investments, our clients and our partners. With the continuing buoyancy in the residential property market, we have several acquired properties for our own and others portfolios; secured, transformed and brought properties back to market; and with our business partners acquired a number of commercial and residential sites for apartment developments in greater Belfast. I am delighted to share with you our company newsletter for Spring 2022 which profiles the work that myself and the team are doing right now, some analysis of the property market and a look forward to future schemes that MCG and our partners will be delivering in 2022. I hope you find the newsletter useful and informative. Our summary of services is available on our services page for any potential new clients who are interested in working with us or finding out more about what we do. I wish you every success for the rest of 2022 in all that you do and if you require any assistance on anything property related do not hesitate to get in touch with myself or the team here. Kindest regards Tanya McGeehan Managing Director   To download our Company Newsletter, Click Here   

WEEKLY NEWS HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD – W/e Nov 21st 2021 WORLD NEWS In world news over the weekend our ongoing fight against the global pandemic Covid-19 appears to be moving in to another decisive period. In Ireland and the UK we are facing a 4th wave of the virus 🦠 with transmission levels increasingly at a worrying rate. Another National lockdown begins today in Austria whilst here we await the guidance on the new Covid status arrangements for going about our normal business in NI. LOCAL AND NETWORK NEWS The BBC is in the spotlight with over 50 people leaving BBC Northern Ireland since January 2020 including the latest departure of the very popular well known presenter Donna Traynor last week. I’m sure like many people it feels we all grew up with Donna in our house as she was an ever present figure over the past thirty plus years. Wishing Donna well in the future! In London the BBC was also in the news with The Mail reporting “Royals at war with BBC over tittle tattle documentary”. Senior royals are threatening to boycott the broadcaster over a documentary set to air this week about the feuding between the princes. At a time when there are so many real life challenges it is hard to take this headline or story seriously, never mind a front page exclusive. 🤷‍♀️ PROPERTY NEWS Reports at the weekend that some lenders will be offering fixed term mortgages at rates less than 3% for up to 30 years is a very interesting development. There are a couple of things to keep an eye on here. The first is that it is clearly an attempt to attract borrowers at a time when interest rates look likely to be about to start increasing and the attraction would be certainty for borrowers as opposed to the likely changes that will occur on variable rates. The back story to this is more interesting for those of us involved in property as it looks like large insurance and pension funds are beginning to return to fund mortgage lending and loans. In my opinion this is very good news for the property market in the longer term as these funds target longer term sustainable returns for their investors. They clearly see the market continuing to thrive in the years ahead as governments and private industry continue to build and improve housing stock to meet the ongoing demand. Have a great week all and we will be back next Monday morning with our weekly news review. 👏  

WEEKLY NEWS HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD – W/e Nov 7th 2021 WORLD NEWS In a week when the world leaders arrived at COP26 in Glasgow, we were reminded of how insignificant we all are (all 8bn of us!), as we adjust to the new seemingly irreversible adverse impact climate change. Whilst the news headlines focused on the Queen’s casual reference to her own mortality, the takeaway message was that “we are literally digging our own graves”, with our own mining and excavation.  Hopefully the outcomes of COP 26 will be the catalyst for the change we all need. UK NEWS In a UK context, this week the big news was the Bank of England (BoE) signalling its intention to raise interest rates in the coming months to tackle high levels of inflation. BoE Governor, Andrew Bailey, described the 7/2 decision to hold interest rates for now as a “close call”. In a memorable comment, Bailey said “putting interest rates up, I’m afraid, isn’t going to get us more gas”! Expect interest rates to increase gradually over the coming year, as the BoE assesses the economy’s emergence in the aftermath of the pandemic.  POLITICAL NEWS In politics here, we had the “Ulsterisation of Britain” as Newton Emerson described it. The lobbying scandal engulfing Owen Patterson (MP) and his links with 2 companies here in NI (who have done nothing wrong) was like something you would see in an episode of House of Cards! Corruption and cover up has no place in a credible government and voters have little enough faith in politicians, less so when a government attempts to change the law because one of its elite broke it!  BUSINESS NEWS In business here, the big news of the week was the reported record profits of the Musgrave Group, of near €100mn. Sales in their Centra and Supervalu stores across NI, ROI and Spain soared to €6.1bn in 2020. This is proof (if we ever needed it) that we all ate and drank our way through the lockdowns of the pandemic!  PROPERTY NEWS According to the latest Halifax monthly house price index, the average price of a home in NI has risen to £169,308, 11.3% higher than 12months ago, the strongest growth in 4months.  Some 3830 homes were sold in NI during the month of September. The key factors leading to such a buoyant market include that race for space from all market segments; first time buyers being supported by parental deposits and historically low borrowing costs.  

A lot of recent data and reports continue to tell us that house prices and values here are soaring. If you are a home owner or considering your first time purchase you will be watching all of this with great interest. At MCG Investments we are talking to people all of the time who are involved in buying, selling, investing or simply moving home and we are here to tell you that we strongly believe we are not in a bubble and are not likely to be for a long time yet. Why not? A lot of comparisons are being drawn, in our view incorrectly, between now and back in 2007/8. This is not a fair comparison and I am here to tell you why. The property market ten years ago was being fuelled by debt and the credit boom created an artificial property bubble. Back then, banks were offering more than 100% loan to value mortgages and borrowers were able to secure more money than they had the capacity to pay back. When the market dipped there was zero equity in the homes to protect the home owners or the financial institution that provided the loans. Bad news for everyone. What is going on? We are living through a period of record housing market growth due to a range of circumstances coming together. The property market in Northern Ireland currently has record levels of equity and borrowing institutions are far more responsible now ensuring that lenders are capable of taking loans on and can afford their monthly repayments. At a basic economic level here, housing demand continues to outpace the supply and of course that imbalance ensures that prices will continue to go up. One of the most important drivers in the property market also continues to be the record low interest rates and taken together with limited supply and responsible lending the factors remain in place for property values to continue to increase. There has been a huge shift in both the psychology of home buying and the demographics of who is buying property since the beginning of the pandemic here. Our view of home and work life has changed irrevocably over the past two years. Many of us have found that we have been able to find a healthier work / life balance with working from home, which started as a necessity that I believe is set to become a more permanent feature in all of our future lives. This has fuelled activity in the market place, people leaving cities and moving back home and getting better value for their money in more affordable areas. Companies have accepted that a happier workforce is potentially a more productive work place and it looks like blended working is here to stay. In home improvement terms, even those people who have not moved homes have spent considerable sums of money transforming their houses, adding offices, gyms and outside rooms to their houses. Home owners are enjoying more space and a better quality of life than ever before, this is set to continue. What is going to happen next? Let’s go back to the data, we have numerous reports UK and  Ireland wide that there continues to be a shortage of houses to meet current demands. We will not even get in to future demands in this article. We have a very high demand for affordable housing across all of our local authorities and in Northern Ireland too. Construction costs, infrastructure challenges (water and waste) are making it exceptionally challenging in cities like Belfast to bring new homes on to the market and yet the cost of land for new development is still not getting any cheaper. There is a growing niche market for organisations like MCG Investments to buy, improve, hold or re-sell residential property and at present ourselves and many others are successfully operating in this space. Record low mortgage interest rates will continue to provide borrowers with increased purchase power and any increase to base rates will be graduated and over a longer term. Mortgage applicants are continuing to be asked to meet strict lending criteria including 20% deposits which we support as it keeps equity in the markets. This offers borrowers and institutions a safety net in terms of any price corrections in the future. At MCG we do not see a ‘Property Bubble’ here anytime soon. Our housing market is being driven up because all of the main checks and balances apply correctly at present. However we should not become complacent, and we should continue to monitor the data across the markets and flag any changes in trends. None of us can claim to have a crystal ball but the signals are; it looks unlikely that there will be a ‘Property Bubble’ in the short term in Northern Ireland. We believe that the expansion of the property market here will continue, albeit the rate of increase may begin to slow down slightly in years ahead. Property Investment is not a get rich quick fix and our clients and investors take a long-term view when working with us. Over time property assets go up in value and always have since records began. Our investment strategies deliver in terms of both capital growth and strong rent to value ratios and have proven to work time after time. We will not be changing anytime soon. Tanya McGeehan | Managing Director ‘We are committed to creating wealth through Property’ To get in touch with MCG Investments to discuss how we can help you, contact us today!  

Like many developers and builders, we have been analysing price movement in our materials over the past two years, as we attempt to get a handle on why our like-for-like project costs are coming out 20%-25% higher for reasonably similar repeat scope and repeat specification.  We have noted sizeable increases in a range of vital materials for house building including steel, cladding, timber, cement, glass, and insulation. This is due to a number of factors including the pandemic, Brexit, supply chain disruption, the shortage of labour, in particular HGV drivers, and the continued rise in demand for new homes. The knock-on effect of these factors is very concerning, as it could potentially impact the recovery of the construction and property industry. We have recently acquired a site with full planning permission for an apartment development scheme, in a joint venture with another developer and whilst the prospect of moving in to new build residential schemes really excites us, we do have to be careful in this climate to ensure we carry out extensive due diligence and stress test all our schemes to make sure they remain viable.  That includes assessing building costs per square foot and selling costs per square foot to make sure that we can cover any further unforeseen material cost rises and all contingencies, as best as we possibly can. It is not just the rise in material costs that are causing practical challenges for the industry. “Whilst there is a lot of talk about material costs rising, the other major impact for the construction industry at present is the lead times for the delivery of key building materials such as windows.  Pre-pandemic, we could measure, order and install windows for a project in approximately four to six weeks.  That process is now taking more than 12 weeks due to labour shortages, transport and logistics challenges. Such delays add to our project delivery timeframe taking longer to bring our houses to market. However, as we move into 2022 we believe that these issues will settle. As we move into the last quarter of 2021 we are cautiously optimistic that the latter part of the year will bring some stability to construction costs and enable accurate financial planning for the industry and within our own business.  We currently have over £4m worth of live property projects on our books and have bought properties for both MCG Investments and our clients, at prices that allow us to have more than one exit strategy when the projects are complete.  We buy, improve and re-sell and we also buy, improve and hold for the longer term.  Both strategies are proving popular for clients at the moment depending on their preferred investment approach. We are continuing to invest in the local residential property market and have exciting plans to expand further in 2022 with the benefit of hopefully more settled industry construction conditions.  

Northern Ireland’s booming property market could continue into 2022 according to a leading property developer as demand continues to exceed supply. Tanya McGeehan, Managing Director of MCG Investments said: “The first half of 2021 was an exceptionally busy period for the residential property market here in Northern Ireland.     Following the post lockdown recovery last year and in the context that home building activity was reported as down 15% in 2020, there has been significant demand in new houses brought to the market. According to PropertyPal, activity of this level has not been seen since 2006, with year-to-date sales up since last year by over 40%.  Given the interruptions to the market in 2020 from the pandemic, this increase is not a surprise but the rate of increase is beyond many industry expert’s best predictions.” “There is huge liquidity out there at the moment.  A combination of estimated savings in the region of £200bn cash (Bank of England) by UK residents, alongside the support measures pumped in by government to businesses means that many of the transactions are taking place without borrowings or with modest loan to value ratios.  That is a good thing and is very different to the ‘highly leveraged’ property transactions that took place around 14-15 years ago which were unsustainable and ultimately led to the property crash in 2008. All of the indicators suggest that the economic recovery from the pandemic is ahead of schedule and subject to no further economic ‘lockdowns’ the economy could be fully recovered by late 2023,” Tanya continued. “In my 15 years involved in property management and development I can safely say that I have never seen a time like this.  Properties of all types are achieving sale agreed in record time and in many instances above their asking prices.  Recently we brought three luxury new apartments to the market in South Belfast and achieved sale agreed above asking prices in less than two weeks.   There is little sign of the market slowing down and Northern Ireland still has plenty of scope to grow, since our residential property values had not fully recovered since the last downturn. The summer months are generally a quiet period for the property market, however this was not the case this year with PropertyPal enquiries in June up by 95% from the same period in 2019 however total sales stock is down around 38% so there are not enough homes on the market to meet this increased demand. New homes are being viewed by record numbers and in particular detached family homes are very popular. We are confident that this demand is set to continue for the rest of the year and well into 2022 so if you are considering putting your house on the market, now is still a good time,” Tanya added. According to Tanya, the buy-to-let market is also trading successfully: “In the investment side of the MCG business, we are working with a number of new clients to acquire buy-to-let portfolios in Belfast, as the rental market remains very strong and our property sourcing services have never been busier.  Some investors are achieving yields of 9+% on some of our rental properties which is very attractive alongside capital growth, when bought at the right price, in the right areas.” Northern Ireland’s buoyant property market has enabled MCG Investments to achieve continued growth in the first six months of 2021 and the company has expanded in a way that it would not have expected when the company was formed four years ago. “We have been monitoring property sales closely since the beginning of the pandemic.  The most popular property type is now three and four bedroom detached properties with larger gardens.  In response to that we have purchased a number of these property types for ourselves and our clients. These acquisitions have put us in a strong position for the rest of 2021, as our development projects that are on site are mostly detached and semi-detached properties in popular residential areas in Belfast.  The demand for superbly finished family homes is very high in those areas and in one case, we are dealing directly with one buyer who is essentially seeking to buy our property “off plan” from us prior to the refurbishment even starting. This way, the purchaser gets to input into the layout and interior design to suit their own personal preferences,” Tanya said. “It’s a really exciting time for the team at MCG Investments, as we have established new partnerships with other developers and investors, including overseas connections working on larger schemes including new build apartments in Belfast and other locations in Northern Ireland. 2021 has been an excellent year for our company and with the projects we have in the pipeline it looks like 2022 will be even better!” Tanya concluded.      

Recently Tanya McGeehan spoke with Aine Toner from The Belfast Telegraph, please see below Tanya’s thoughts on the property market in Northern Ireland. ‘Like many involved in the Northern Irish property sector, Tanya McGeehan, director and founder of MCG Investments Ltd, is aware of the market’s current buoyancy.’ “Absolutely, 100%. Anybody in this field is only going to say the same answer to you across the board, UK wide. It’s extremely buoyant. There’s just so much activity out there,” she says. “Funny, a lot of people would ask me is that just in the sales end but it’s in the sales and the rental market space. It’s simply down to the change in lifestyle and what people are looking for through the pandemic. Nobody in a million years, not the best economists in the world, could have forecasted what has happened. See the link for the full article; https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/house-home/tanya-mcgeehan-on-investing-in-property-my-advice-go-in-with-your-eyes-wide-open-40556017.html  

In the High Flyers spotlight this week is Tanya McGeehan, managing director of MCG Investments, which specialises in residential property investment opportunities in Northern Ireland offering a range of services including sourcing, acquiring and re-furbishing buy-to-let properties and delivering extensive residential refurbishments for re-sale working with investors and joint venture partners. What was your first job? My first job was aged 13 washing dishes in a Magherafelt hotel as my parents believed in getting us experience and appreciating the value of money. My first real job after graduating was in a foreign exchange dealing room for an international bank in Dublin 20 years ago. What qualifications do you have? I have a 2:1 BA honours degree in hospitality and business management, Prince 2 project management and various property related qualifications. What do you attribute your success to? Success for me is always somewhere I am always striving to get to and I suspect that will never change. But my drive for success comes from growing up watching my parents work hard at growing their property business and instilling in me and my three sisters from a very young age, the importance of working hard to achieve success. My success is based on hard work, being authentic and consistent in everything I do. How would you describe yourself to someone who’d never met you? I would say that once you meet me for the first time, you will know plenty about me and quickly realise that I’m far from shy and love to chat! I would regard myself as a very friendly, approachable, open and honest person. Who do/did you look up to in business? My dad (sadly deceased in 2012) was my absolute idol, building a successful property business still operating strongly today. Others that I admire include local businesswoman Mairead Mackle of Homecare Independent Living and the genius of Jeff Bezos on a global scale who has literally changed the world. How do you get the best out of people who work for you? I value trust and integrity when working with people and I treat everyone fairly and work on the basis that the best way to develop my business is to build strong, long lasting relationships with employees, supply chain and my investors. I am the same person in work, as I am in my personal life, something which I feel allows people around me, to be more relaxed when working with me. If you could change one thing about doing business in Northern Ireland, what would it be? The conveyancing and planning processes are far too slow and bureaucratic and require radical overhaul. We could deliver more projects each year if we saved some time on those aspects. Which website or app could you not do without? LinkedIn for business What was the last book you read? I just finished Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’ and am currently reading Ollie Otherton’s ‘Battle Ready’. What car do you drive? Audi Q7 Jeep Tell us something interesting about yourself? I recently completed a fitness challenge running four miles every four hours over 48 hours known as the David Goggins challenge with my husband Stephen and others, raising over £13,000 for the Alzheimers Research UK charity. It was mentally and physically exhausting! What’s your greatest passion outside work and family? I love holidays to sunny destinations, so this past year has been a real challenge. As soon as restrictions are lifted, I will be on a plane somewhere hot! Link to full article by Irish News: https://www.irishnews.com/business/2021/06/15/news/tanya-is-building-strong-relationships-across-the-board-2351061/