So given we can’t look into the future – what is Henry’s Investing Ethos?
Property is a game of risk and reward and Henry believes in “Investing cautions” which is a less glamorous term or way of saying “apply reasonable risk aversion” – this will push you to do better due diligence, employ more conservative assumptions, insist on a margin of safety, and invest when the potential return is at least commensurate with the risk, based on trying to understand how a deal will play out over the short, medium or long term depending on the deal strategy target.
So what does this mean in practical terms? Worrying about the downside and how a deal will play out BEFORE you exchange, will focus your priorities and dramatically sharpen your focus and enhance your due diligence skills.
So how do you balance being cautious, yet confident? Investing proactively, yet cautiously will result in making fewer mistakes, but it does not have to be at the mercy of you being overly pessimistic and needs to be balanced with an investor taking maximum advantage of a riskier and more complex opportunity. The law of economics suggests that more risk and complexity - increases the profit opportunity. So what happens when you cross the line? It's important to have confidence in your decisions - but remember Overconfidence has been called “the mother of all psychological biases.''
