Blue but not so chipper

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When I got involved with property one name that was often mentioned as a “Don’t touch them” was Blue Chip. As I got more industry knowledge and saw how they operated I became one of those voices myself warning people from going near their company.

Funnily though it was because I saw that they basically took advantage of uneducated people, over charging them for property and management that caused me to take a dislike to them.

In theory this meant that they were probably very profitable, just very unethical.

So it is interesting to see their likely financial demise being news. After all if you are running a business and extracting exorbitant financial gain then you should be rolling in it right??

Now without knowing anything about the management of the company they may have simply stripped it’s assets and be deliberately leaving thousands of people out to dry. However if that is not the case then I know the law of sowing and reaping is simply starting to show its effect on their business.

You see you can run but you cannot hide from universal principles.
Screw people over and the it will come home to roost. Be greedy in your business dealings and there will be consequences.

I hope that with the likes of Olly wading in there that as many punters as possible are rescued but sadly it is likely that many innocent people who didn’t take or heed the advice of myself and others may get burnt in this process.

So what can we learn from this??

Well firstly pursue honesty in your business dealings and life in general. Don’t get sucked in to things.

Secondly listen to what people say. When it comes to property there is plenty of advice available and public comment from many sources including myself. Yet many people just ignore advice. I really don’t get that.

For example look at Auckland apartments. I tell everybody to avoid them. Kieran Trass did a report showing the risk and warning people to avoid them. Almost every educator and industry professional, (except one that has been selling them to it’s clients), has warned people to stay away.

So at least once a week I deal with someone who went and bought one anyway and is now taking a bath.

Now in some cases these people read an article about someone making money out of apartments in Auckland so they thought they could emulate their success. And it is true that if you specialise in an area you can do well in any market, Auckland apartments are no exception to that rule.

But these people are new and inexperienced investors. So they take the hope of profit from a magazine over industry professional advice, and fail??

I guess as I read what I’m writing that at the bottom of that is greed over riding sensible fear.

Now there’s valuable lesson

Stay safe, get your money out of Blue Chip if you can and tear up that S&P for an Auckland CBD apartment!!