The property seminar

Have you ever wondered what goes on at the property “seminars” you see advertised in all types of publications? I went along to one recently hosted by the George Wimpey Property Investor Club at the Britannia International Hotel, in the London Docklands, to find out.

The venue was impressive - a 440-room hotel, all gilt and glass. The sales “pitch” - let's call it that and put the silly “seminar” idea to one side - took place in a first-floor conference room and was due to start at 6.30pm. There was no meet-and-greet formality. Instead my fellow punters, many looking distinctly uncomfortable, found themselves on a landing walled by advertising boards, each showing posters of the apartment blocks you find in all our towns and cities.

Why, I asked, had these particular individuals been targeted? “It's simply a way for us to set up a dialogue with smaller-scale investors,” said Kevin Belsham, the sales and marketing director at Taylor Wimpey, which ran the session. “We have 2,500 members in our club and we like to give them the sort of discounts that would normally be reserved for seasoned investors.”

It all sounded sweetly innocent and unthreatening, but I was struck by one thing. The punters, who were by now on the receiving end of a charm offensive from the smiley-faced sales staff, were being referred to as members of the “club”. Yet no enrolment appeared to have been carried out. It transpired that anyone who had ever bought a home from Wimpey could be a member of its “club”. So, too, could the people who had responded to the advertisement on the company website. In fact, this “club” was open to more or less anyone.