Insights
Notes from running buildings, and from buying them.
Notes on property and hospitality businesses. Running them, buying them, or both. Written when I have something worth saying, not on a schedule.
On regulation
Madrid keeps narrowing the change of use
Can this flat become tourist accommodation? The city has answered six times since 2018, and the door closed a little further on almost every pass.
6 min read
On owners and operatorsPart 1 of 3
Where the short-let fee came from
Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five per cent of revenue. It suited one owner with one flat. It is the wrong shape for a building, and the reason is not the level.
4 min read
On owners and operatorsPart 2 of 3
A cost shock, and who pays for it
Twenty-five studios, one P&L, two fee structures. One of them pays the operator more for a year bought with discounts. The other does not.
7 min read
On regulation
Madrid moved the paperwork onto the operator
Three authorities regulated the same flat and they did not have to agree. Then the Supreme Court removed one of them, and the April decree changed who answers for the rest.
7 min read
On owners and operatorsPart 3 of 3
What I read first in a management agreement
Owners tend to negotiate the base fee. The clauses that decide how the next ten years go are usually further down.
2 min read
On openings
Why openings slip, and it is rarely the building
The snag list is never the problem. The problem is that nobody has sorted it by what actually stops a guest walking in.
2 min read
On operations and automation
The same night, seen from both sides
I sold other people's rooms for five years before I owned any. The two sides look at one booking and see completely different businesses.
2 min read
On operations and automation
Buying AI is the easy part
Hotels are signing AI contracts at speed. Very few have looked at the work the tools are supposed to change. That order is backwards.
2 min read
On operations and automation
568 listings, a few hours, zero errors
We automated one boring process in our property management system. The time saved was not the interesting part.
1 min read
A first call is free, and usually enough to tell whether I can help.
If I can't, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.