In Your Shoes - Leanne Carling

Team meetings and travel plans

Breakfast and back to Dundee just in time for our team’s daily service circle meeting.

Much of my time right now is spent trying to grow PRS Group, through acquisition, so it’s a busy time for us visiting and carrying out due diligence on various property portfolios around the UK. Next up is Yorkshire, where I’ll view some sites and meet with vendors. I grab some time to arrange accommodation before going into a conference call with our solicitors BTO.

Catch-up with our property manager on our residential stock and holiday lets. Then it’s a meeting with our credit control manager about rent collection and credit control, and the Group Portfolio Manager about our Kingsway Apartments and Dundee Digs operations. By then I’m in need of my 5K walk. Then it’s dinner and overseeing our two kids with their homework.

Edinburgh bound

Meetings in Edinburgh with Gilson Grey LLP about some projects PRS Group are working on. Then meet Josh Littlejohn, founder of Social Bite, about how we can help them with accommodation. The thing that grabs us, and so many others, about Social Bite is that their mission to end homelessness is practical and unique. It doesn’t surprise me that their Sleep in the Park this year has so much interest. We’re a corporate sponsor and we’ll be there on December 8th at the Sleep in the Park Dundee.

Stop off for a tapas lunch at Café Andulucia then it’s back to Dundee to respond to the emails I know will be piling up in my inbox. I have a weekly property management update call with Your Move, talking about our residential stock, current vacancies and properties for let. I squeeze in a quick haircut and colour and collect the kids from gymnastics before dinner and movie time.

Never a dull moment

Property management is never dull! This morning there’s a meeting with Rankin Risk Solutions Insurance, a loss adjuster, operations and credit control manager, about insurance works being carried out at some of our properties. After that I deal with some property maintenance updates, then there’s a strategy meeting to discuss PRS Group’s criteria for selecting a National Portfolio Manager.

I’m known as a hard grafter but I’m also a big kid. Tonight it’s Ryze with the kids then dinner and a game of bingo with my daughter.
Graeme and I like work/home balance. We’re entrepreneurs and business owners so there’s a lot of working from home. But when we spend time with our son and daughter it’s quality time with no distraction. Phones are off! Later in the evening there are invoices to be reviewed and passed to accounts, and I sift through the CVs for the people we’ll be interviewing tomorrow.

Mama Mia!

I start the day with a 30-minute spin class. If I don’t get my daily exercise I’m not nice to be around! It’s my me time and I really value it.

At work, I’m negotiating and agreeing sales of property with Remax, then no less than five interviews for finance and PA positions. Then a quick change and out for dinner to Daisy Taskers at the new Hotel Indigo with the ladies in my street. After that we head to Gardyne Theatre for Mama Mia.

And here I go again…

5k walk then, in the words of Abba, here I go again… meetings on-site all day, catching up with paperwork, reviewing property deals, emailing and a team catch-up, then a monthly accounts review, and negotiating a new contract for Dundee Digs. DD is a favourite of mine in our property portfolio. It’s a place for businesspeople and contractors to stay, offering them reasonably priced long-stay accommodation. We’ve had everyone from berry pickers to TV crews stay there. I think it’s a genius idea.

Headed off to Glasgow for one of my best friend’s 40^th Birthday - a hilarious murder mystery night at a casino. I survive it, in all respects but am glad it’s the weekend.