I, like many other people, have remarked over the last couple of months, that the market feels very much like the last days of the Roman Empire, sorry, 2006 with higher and higher prices being driven by a huge wall of liquidity looking to buy what few assets are available.  Clearly a major difference is that this liquidity is equity driven, rather than debt driven, but the effect on pricing is much the same.

However increasingly I am starting to believe that this time it is very different.

If I recall correctly, back in the boom-time mania of 2006 everybody actually believed in what they were doing.  Those nice Candy boys genuinely believed that they could pay vastly more than anyone else for prime sites because they could add more value, Modus thought that the UK needed 35 additional non-prime town centre developments, Peter Cummings honestly believed that every tubby middle aged man he was introduced to was a property genius, Gordon thought that he had abolished boom and bust……

What is very different now is the level of open cynicism abounding in our industry.

No one seems to genuinely believe in the current bounce.  After a bottle of wine (or two) fund managers will admit that it is clearly quite embarrassing to be buying back assets at a premium of 20-30% over what they sold them for less than 12 months ago, despite rents falling; but they are paid to splash the cash.

One agent described doing deals with them “like clubbing baby seals”.

Other, allegedly more savvy, investors are buying on a momentum trade, knowing/hoping, that they are clever enough to get the hell out of Dodge before the next inevitable correction.

However, should there be a double dip, the Nuremberg defence of “I was only obeying orders” or if “I don’t do it someone else will”, will ring doubly hollow and as Warren Buffet would put it, we really will see some horrible sights/sites as the tide goes back out.

Whilst I have no truck for self help books, I do enjoy reading the odd business biography or books on the psychology of investing.

It’s fair to say that Gerald Ronson’s autobiography, with the above title, will never rival Branson’s inspirational rhetoric or the psychological insights into investing of George Soros’ books, however it clips along at a fair old pace and covers clearly a long, but a lot more varied career than I had, at first, assumed. 

Some might say he can come across as chippy, painting himself as an outsider, when from many peoples’ perspective he is the epitome of a property establishment figure and I agree with his wife, he is clearly far from the simple man he claims to be.

What else would you expect in a man who has fought in street battles against fascists, mixed with celebrities and royalty, lost a billion, gone to prison and then made back a billion for his investors.

He is also a committed developer, which is my background and is often derided as a mugs game by successful property investors.

Apart from a few diverting hours on a sun lounger in Ibiza, I have taken two things from this book; first is the confirmation of my suspicion that I am not an entrepreneur, I don’t have the stomach or inspiration to run other businesses, I am a business man in property and second is to stop agonising of what other people think of me, if I am sure I am doing the right thing by my own principals. 

So watch out world.