Lord Alain Levenfiche
"I'm always too busy living in the present to look in the past," states Lord Alain Levenfiche, who has been labelled “The Luxury Lord”.
In his fifty-nine years, Lord Alain has covered a lot of territory. Starting at age 17, he travelled to 123 countries and held numerous odd jobs before launching his own real estate company at age 29 and he has retired no less than three times, unsuccessfully!
Lord Alain was born in Paris to a British family and raised in London. Over the years, Lord Alain's real estate holdings in London grew significantly. Today, his real estate portfolio stretches right across the globe from London to Thailand to Argentina. Ironically, he doesn’t drink and is a founding investor in a vineyard village in Mendoza and he does not play polo, but owns a polo estancia.
In addition, Lord Alain owns the 14th Floor at Edificio Kavanagh, the entire floor (855 M2 including a terrace and two hanging gardens off the main rooms). The Kavanagh Building is known throughout the world for its chic 1930’s rationalism and is one of Argentina’s most important national monuments.
Whilst most of the world’s property developers suffer with properties unfinished or generating poor returns on investment, the property development team at Luxury Lord TM chose to develop a number of unique properties in pre-emerging markets, where mortgages do not exist and nor does outlandish levels of credit that cause property markets to overheat or ‘bubble’.
In addition, by choosing to develop property in pre-emerging markets and specialising in niche luxury lifestyle and luxury living concepts, Lord Alain’s formula of ‘striking before the iron’s too hot’ has meant his investments are relatively recession proof. Lord Alain continues to see his investments appreciate in value and generate a good annual return on investment.
Andrew McCance, Luxury Lord’s managing partner in Argentina states, ‘The Argentine property sector is unique for a number of reasons, but mainly, cash is king in Argentina:
- There’s no mortgage market to speak of, so generally 100% of a property’s value is paid in cash and I mean cash is literally handed over the table. If you pay cash, you never sell cheap.
- Property is transacted in dollars and thus investors are protected from the unstable nature of the Argentine Peso.
- Supply and demand influence price movements, which means the Argentine property market is both stable and orderly.
Unlike our home property markets, Argentina has no bubble created by outlandish levels of credit. In addition, the property sector is where Argentines lock away their wealth to avoid losing their hard earned savings to a needy government or the value of their savings being eaten away by peso devaluation and inflation.’
In addition, Lord Alain is a man who has an affinity for beauty and nature and that is what attracts him to very special locations around the world. Rather than collecting fine wines and polo ponies, he prefers to collect homes and islands.
Lord Alain spends his calendar year moving from place to place enjoying each of his unique homes.
He is in Argentina for polo season where he enjoys his newly completed polo estancia that is alongside polo field number 1 at the exclusive Santa Maria de Lobos Polo Ranch. At Santa Maria de Lobos, in the heart of Buenos Aires Province (the Pampas), Lord Alain can sit on his veranda or bathe in his pool and watch the polo action. Actually, he can view polo from just about anywhere on his property from many different vantage points including his dining room, living room, quincho, Jacuzzi and even his four-poster bed!
Tommy Lee Jones is his neighbour and the Caset polo family are nearby. Spring and fall, Lord Alain heads to his spiritual home and his very own paradise places in Thailand and Bali.
Then, eventually, Lord Alain ends up in his favourite spot for the European summer, Ibiza, where he boards his yacht, M/Y Praise the Lord to unplug and unwind for the summer. Squeezed in between are trips to London, Paris, Africa’s Ivory Coast, Brazil’s secluded beaches and jungles, and Miami Beach.
If you contact Lord Alain, he will tell you, “I get somewhat attached to my properties, but never too attached. Everything I own is for sale, but at the right price. When you are making money from property investment you can afford to wait for the right offer.”