BraemoreGemini Properties

What it was

A joint venture with a British property developer to build and sell premium villas on the Bodrum peninsula in southwestern Turkey, mid-coastal-boom. I started with no track record in property and no resources on the ground. Just an idea on a piece of paper.

What I built

The work was orchestration. Convincing the British developer to partner. Raising the capital. Finding the land. Working out planning. Lining up architects and construction firms. Marketing into a foreign-buyer audience that didn't yet exist for Bodrum. None of those pieces were in place on day one. By the time the first villa was finished, all of them were.

A 34-villa residential complex generating over £5M in revenue. Alongside it, a land-development play in Milas, Muğla that quadrupled the investment value over eighteen months. And along the way, Turkey's first hard-currency off-plan mortgages for foreign buyers, a market first on two counts: the currency, and the customer.

The partnership

What the JV actually taught me: the documents are easy compared to the alignment underneath them. Get the alignment wrong and no contract saves you. Get it right and the contract is a comma.

The keys

Handing keys to a family that had bought a holiday from a render. The journey from a piece of paper in my hand to a key in someone else's. That's the part that's stayed.

(Steven Gerrard and Emile Heskey were among the buyers. The project picked up some awards. I list these last on purpose.)