Its June, the sun is shining and I'm looking forward to summer. Just the chance of some vaguely warm temperatures makes me so very happy. I'm one of those people who always seem to be ten degrees colder than everyone else, so when I'm wandering around sites or derelict buildings I always struggle with the cold, regardless of whether I look like a Michelin woman with six layers of clothes on!

I cannot complain, because wandering around sites, come rain or shine, is all part of the package when you focus on property renovation and development. In fact the colder, more unloved, derelict and ugly a building is, the better I like it. The worse the condition, the more chance that Mr and Mrs Smith will shy away from viewing it, considering that it is more than they can handle, regardless of what Sarah Beeny has told them. Their friendly mortgage lender is suddenly not so friendly if the property is uninhabitable. So unless they have the cash to buy and somewhere else to live while the works are undertaken, these sorts of properties are generally beyond their scope.

I mention this because as the property market improves in London and the Home Counties, where I base my property business, it does become increasingly difficult to find deals that really 'stack up'. If you do have cash or you have a good relationship with a commercial bank then there are more opportunities. Of course, you are still in competition with other investors, builders and developers, but at least taking Mr and Mrs Smith out of the running gives you a fighting chance.