PROPCAST: Recent Episodes
BIMBOLA OSAGIE & DAMI SIYANBOLA
PropCast is a Property Podcast which aims to educate, inspire and engage existing and would be property investors.
Abri may be one of the UK’s most significant large-scale housing organisations you have never heard of. It owns and manages almost 60,000 homes, stretching from Somerset and Bristol through a Hampshire heartland to Bracknell, Berkshire and, through Octavia, west London. As Andrew Teacher observes on this week’s PropCast, that scale would make it comparable in size with a FTSE 100 company, were it listed. For context, Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord, owns just over 11,200 rental homes; Abri owns more than five times as many. Even adding Unite Group’s 64,000 student beds to Grainger’s total (and beds, admittedly, are not quite homes), the two listed names together reach around 75,000 roughly the scale of the group Abri now hopes to create through its proposed merger with Curo Group, which would bring the combined organisation to more than 73,000 homes and community assets serving around 142,000 customers across the south and south west of England.
Like the G15 giants, Abri has built scale deliberately, through the merger of Radian and Yarlington in 2019, Silva Homes in 2023 and Octavia in 2024, and built capability alongside it: customer satisfaction at the top end of the sector, an A3 stable rating from Moody’s and the Regulator of Social Housing’s G1 and V1 grades, confirmed in November 2025. G1 is the highest governance grade, the regulator’s assurance that the organisation is effectively run and manages its risks. V1, the highest viability grade, confirms “the financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse scenarios”, and has become rare among large associations.
Gary Orr, chief executive of Abri Group and its predecessor organisation Yarlington since 2011, has done a remarkable job steering the organisation through significant change and significant expansion, never an easy thing, particularly in the housing association world. The result is a balance sheet that equips Abri both to manage the daily complexity of providing homes and services for well over 100,000 people, a figure approaching 150,000 through the proposed Curo merger, and to pursue an ambitious growth strategy supported in part by institutional capital.
“We’re ambitious about being a trusted partner in delivery and piloting some of these ideas,” says Theo Plowman, Abri’s head of policy and campaigns. “We’re in the room on several different conversations, we’re really well placed and we have the expertise to do it.” Plowman joined a year ago from the British Property Federation, where he led much of the trade body’s residential policy work, particularly on supporting institutional investment into build-to-rent. The conversation that follows ranges across pension capital, shared ownership reform and why the sector needs to stop underselling itself.
Scale as strategy
Growth is deliberate. In April 2026 Abri published an investment strategy targeting 20,000 new homes by 2036, “doubling our output” as Plowman puts it, alongside around £450m of investment in existing homes and an ambition to become a top five provider by scale, customer satisfaction and as a place to work. Delivery runs through its Strategic Partnership with Homes England, which awarded Abri £300m under the 2021-26 Affordable Homes Programme as part of a £2.66bn investment in new homes, joint ventures such as the 50:50 acquisition of the former Ford Airfield in West Sussex, where 1,500 homes are planned, and ambitious regeneration schemes like The Granges in Windsor, where four tower blocks containing 192 properties are being replaced with 413 sustainable homes.
The next step came on 1 July 2026, when the boards of Abri and Curo announced they are exploring a new partnership that would create a group owning and managing more than 73,000 homes and community assets, serving 142,000 customers across the south and south west of England, with combined turnover of £598m in 2024/25. Curo, formed in 1999 through a stock transfer from Bath and North East Somerset Council, owns more than 14,000 homes concentrated in Bath and Bristol, a natural western extension of Abri’s footprint. Gary Orr calls the two organisations “an excellent fit for one another”: the same geography, the same core purpose and values, and, in his argument, the combined strength to invest more in customers’ homes, offer greater services and build more much-needed affordable homes. A final decision is expected later this year, following formal consultation with customers and approval of the full business case by both boards.
The logic is the one that has driven every stage of Abri’s growth since 2019. Scale spreads fixed costs across more homes, cuts procurement costs per unit and builds the balance sheet capacity that funds better services and more development. Against the triple squeeze Plowman describes later in the conversation, on grant-funded delivery, existing stock and compliance, consolidation is one of the few levers a housing association controls entirely itself. A combined group would lift Abri from around 20th to around 13th among UK housing associations by turnover, according to Housing Today’s rankings of 2024/25 accounts, a meaningful step towards the top five ambition set out in April’s strategy.
A century of shelter
If scale is the future, purpose is the foundation, and Abri’s roots run deep on both sides of the group. Its founding organisation, the Swaythling Housing Society, was established in Southampton on 26 November 1925 by three local men: Fred Woolley, an accountant and civic leader who went on to serve as Mayor of Southampton and became the society’s first chairman; Claude Ashby, a businessman and director of the Bursledon brickworks; and the architect Herbert Collins. Between them they put up £200 of shares, with Collins’ father lending the fledgling society £14,000. A group approaching 60,000 homes began with £200.
That same year the society built its first homes at Pilgrim Place, off Mansbridge Road, under the Housing Act 1924: let at restricted rents, built by the society’s own workforce to Collins’ designs, and still standing a century later, characterised by generous green spaces and a strong sense of place. Collins cross-subsidised the work by designing larger homes for wealthy buyers. At Southcliff House, built in 1930 as flats for single women, the society’s women rent collectors lived among the tenants they served. Abri marked the Swaythling centenary in 2025. Few businesses of any kind can point to a hundred years of continuous social purpose.
Collins took his inspiration from Octavia Hill, a figure every bit as significant to the housing association movement as the better-remembered names of Peabody, Guinness and Rowntree, and arguably more so. George Peabody (1862), Edward Guinness (1890) and Joseph Rowntree (1904) endowed the great institutions that bear their names; Hill invented the method they all came to use. In 1865, aged 27, she persuaded John Ruskin to buy the leases of three run-down cottages in Paradise Place, Marylebone, on the condition that they returned 5% on his investment. She renovated them, collected the rents weekly in person and built a professional, predominantly female force of housing managers around a simple conviction: decent homes, fairly managed, change lives. By the end of her career she was managing housing for 3,000 to 4,000 Londoners. She saved Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill from development, foresaw the green belt in her 1888 essay More Air for London and co-founded the National Trust in 1895. Her “five per cent philanthropy”, a fair return on capital doing social good, is the direct ancestor of the pension fund proposition Plowman spends much of this conversation making. And her legacy lives on inside the group itself: Octavia, the west London association that joined Abri in 2024, descends directly from the homes she managed. Through that merger, Abri now carries the weight and heritage of Octavia Hill’s foundational housing association, with a history stretching all the way back to 1865. Where Herbert Collins laid the cornerstones in 1925, Hill’s model of professional, ethically driven management and “five per cent philanthropy” had already set the blueprint sixty years earlier. In this sense, Abri’s story is not only one of modern growth and consolidation, but the continuation of the very method that built the movement.
The settlement and what comes next
At the June 2025 Spending Review, Rachel Reeves committed £39bn to a new Social and Affordable Homes Programme over 10 years, almost doubling annual grant funding, alongside a 10-year rent settlement at CPI plus 1%. There has been plenty of speculation of late about the settlement and whether it should be reallocated. That is not something Plowman comments on, but he is clear about what it delivered: “The housing association world got a lot of what it actually wanted - a long-term and workable commitment from the government.” The question now, he says, is what comes next. “We can’t really go back to government cap in hand.”
Plowman credits the National Housing Federation and Angela Rayner for securing the settlement amid competing priorities everywhere. It is a remarkable turnaround for a sector that spent the second half of the 2010s absorbing George Osborne’s 1% annual rent cuts, a policy that in effect cut the sector off at the knees.
But many politicians, and those outside the sector, misunderstand how the grant regime works - it is not simply £39bn to go and spend on anything. Housing associations need their own cash, their own equity and debt, to go alongside it, and when other priorities trump ground-up development, these sorts of settlements can often go unspent. This is why, Teacher argues, there needs to be maximum flexibility within the affordable housing budget, so that a multi-tenure approach can be prioritised and housing associations have the agency they need to make the right decisions. Ultimately, that can benefit many different areas of government spending. Teacher pushes the fiscal logic: every pound not spent on social housing surfaces somewhere else, in temporary accommodation, in housing benefit, in the NHS, in the criminal justice system and in lost economic growth, all of it landing back on the taxpayer. “Those figures stack up and make sense in Treasury’s mind,” Plowman agrees. “I think that’s partly why the settlement did come through.”
Less house for your buck
The headline numbers also flatter to deceive. “Because of build cost inflation and all the extra compliance issues, we are getting less house for our buck,” Plowman says, describing a triple squeeze: delivering grant-funded development already committed, investing in existing homes and absorbing compliance costs from MEES and EPC requirements, with the capacity to acquire Section 106 units under strain on top. Housing associations also plan beyond the political cycle. “Things like the 10-year settlement are development plans we’re seeing through for the long term, way outlasting any government tenure,” he says. “That’s sometimes where you get a bit of a clash of priorities.”
The pension capital answer
“One of the great things about the scale we’re building, and the superb quality of the team we have, is that it will enable us to grow and explore outside capital, with institutions that want to come in and back affordable housing,” says Plowman. It is an approach that, while not yet commonplace, is growing in popularity among the leading, pioneering housing associations, who recognise that expanding the balance sheet is a powerful way to deliver their ambitions. “There’s going to be a big shortfall between what we can fund on our current balance sheets and what we can fund with the grant funding we’ve got,” he adds. “That’s a really interesting question for me and all housing geeks: finding the best way to unlock it.”
The Mansion House Accord, under which 17 of the UK’s largest workplace pension providers pledged to allocate 10% of defined contribution default funds to private markets by 2030, with half of that in the UK, sets the pathway. UK pension allocations to private assets currently sit at around 3%, a fraction of American levels, and housing is a small element within that. President Trump’s reforms to the 401k system are pushing US retirement money the same way. Plowman talks of the “beautiful synergies” on offer: “it would be really wonderful to see a world where local government pension scheme cash is invested in their local area, invested back into those schemes.”
For pension funds, the attraction is the profile of the income. “It’s all about security, long-term safety and stability,” Plowman says. “You’re almost buying a premium there. That’s why affordable housing is just so beautifully attractive. Housing associations have been around for a long, long time, providing those steady returns.”
Abri’s approach, wanting to partner with patient capital, has clear echoes of what Octavia Hill did with Ruskin 160 years ago: a fair, modest return on capital in exchange for professionally managed homes that change lives. It is also where the G1 and V1 grades earn their keep, as the first assurance any institutional investment committee will ask for.
Fixing shared ownership
Shared ownership has a reputation problem with consumers and policymakers alike. It is seen as illiquid and hard to exit, with complaints about fees and valuations wrapped up in the wider leasehold scandal, and shared owners paying 100% of service costs on a property they only part-own. “Shared ownership is a real headscratcher for all policymakers,” Plowman concedes, “because we can all see it definitely has an important place, and the policy idea behind it was a good one. The challenge has been the number of people actually staircasing, actually turning it into the product it should be.”
The fixes are coming from inside the sector. Paul Hackett at Southern Housing has proposed working with mortgage lenders on products that let shared owners at lower loan-to-value ratios borrow their way to 100% ownership, which helps consumers staircase out and helps associations recapitalise, freeing money for development pipelines. “As a policy guy, I was very bitter and jealous, because I wish I’d come up with that idea,” Plowman admits.
The Shared Ownership Code and the reinvigorated Shared Ownership Council are early steps in the same direction. But they do not yet resolve the more difficult, structural questions around how risk, cost and value are sustained over a household’s full stay in the tenure The unavoidable issue underneath all of it is service charges. “Service management is expensive and difficult,” Plowman says, “with razor-thin margins for the likes of FirstPort, Rendall & Rittner and Savills. It’s a difficult industry to get right and to have done well and cost-effectively for any owner, let alone shared owners.” There is an opening for housing associations, with the management infrastructure they already possess, to do it better- and to use their learning to inform the next phase of shared ownership thinking, moving beyond access and transparency towards long-term sustainability as an affordable product, better system design and clearer shared risks on service charges.
The modesty problem
Since the global financial crisis, housing associations have extended far beyond their formal remit. “The amount of stuff that housing associations do outside their basic remit as a landlord was one of the big things I saw when I joined Abri,” Plowman says. Teacher goes further: “pretty much every housing association since the GFC has been running the country by all of the things that they do beyond housing”, providing support to people who would otherwise fall between the cracks, largely unseen by policymakers, customers and the public.
Plowman agrees the sector undersells itself. “I feel like we do have a little bit of a problem with modesty, almost,” he says. “There is a nervousness, because across the sector we still have so many issues where we’re not delivering for our customers, that there’s almost a fear of shouting from the rooftops about all the good things you are doing.” Context matters, though. With almost 60,000 homes, even a 99% success rate, remarkable for any organisation in any industry, still leaves 600 households a year with a bad experience, and 59,400 without one. Abri’s customer ratings sit at the top end of the sector, and Plowman is “proud of what we’re achieving”.
Looking ahead towards Q3 and Q4, Plowman is positive about Abri’s ambitions and the increasing prominence being placed on the affordable housing sector, but warns: “We can’t take anything for granted. Given all of the instability we face in the world right now, as a sector we need to come together and work more closely with everybody around us. Punching out of the echo chamber has never been more critical.”
In the latest episode of PropCast, Chris Riley of Bywater Group and Oliver Lowrie of Ackroyd Lowrie discuss what it takes to design, fund and deliver co-living at scale, why timber construction halves upfront carbon, and what the sector’s rapid growth means for institutional capital.
“Design shouldn’t cost extra,” says Oliver Lowrie, co-founder of Ackroyd Lowrie, the architecture practice behind a growing number of London’s co-living schemes. “Gone are the days when you hired a star architect to produce something that looked amazing but wasn’t buildable. We know what the thing’s going to be built out of. It needs to be about pragmatism and making great design.”
Nearly 9,000 co-living units were consented across the UK in 2025, according to data compiled by Savills, up 27% on the previous year’s record. In London alone, consents nearly doubled. The capital is arriving. The question is whether the capital (and customers) believe the buildings will be worth it.
Lowrie is joined on this week’s PropCast by Chris Riley, who leads development at Bywater Group, the timber-focused developer and investment manager majority-owned by Sumitomo Forestry. Lowrie has designed several co-living schemes for Bywater, including a 112-unit development at Tanner Street in Bermondsey that won planning consent earlier this year. The two firms share a passion for timber construction and low-carbon delivery that sets them apart from the pack. Their collaboration is a useful lens through which to see where the sector might be heading next as it becomes more institutional-ready.
Bywater began life as a family-office developer with a conviction for timber long before sustainability became cool. In 2019, Sumitomo Forestry, the Tokyo-listed forestry and housebuilding group founded in 1691, came in on a single scheme: Paradise, a mass-timber office development near Vauxhall. By February 2023, that relationship had evolved into a full corporate merger, with Sumitomo taking a majority stake. The business has since grown from four people to more than 20, with an FCA-regulated fund platform and a first fund, Bywater Fulcrum Value Add Real Estate, now closed and deploying through an LTAF structure. Its first acquisition is 1 Frying Pan Alley in Spitalfields, another office scheme which will be retrofitted to A-grade status using timber.
“It was a game-changer,” Riley says of Sumitomo taking a 51% stake. “We’re a timber-led business. Where we can, we will incorporate glulam and CLT into our schemes. But this is as much about commercial performance as it is carbon.”
Sumitomo stewards more than 40,000 hectares of forest in Japan. Its US housebuilding operations include Tri Pointe Homes (acquired in February 2026 for around $4.3bn) and DRB Group. That scale of parent gives Bywater patient capital, timber expertise and a governance framework that has alerted institutional investors to their unsung book of opportunities.
Living is now at the centre of the strategy. Bywater is active across co-living, build-to-rent and student housing, with three co-living schemes in south London designed by Ackroyd Lowrie and operated by Greystar, and a mid-rise BTR scheme in Kingston approaching planning consent.
Paradise, which opened in 2025, is the UK’s lowest embodied carbon mass-timber office development at 413 kgCO₂e/m². Riley describes the residential ambition as building “a platform on the same low-carbon, timber-led foundations”. Lord Walker of Broxton, Bywater's chairman, brings a platform that few property businesses can match. As chairman of Iceland and the government's Cost of Living Champion, he sits at the intersection of housing, affordability and political access, and has used that position to make the case, including in the House of Lords, that the way Britain builds homes is inseparable from the cost-of-living crisis it is trying to solve.
Both believe co-living could be playing more of a role in solving the housing crisis and, with headwinds still impacting the housing market and notably the viability of ground-up BTR, its younger sibling of an asset class is attractive on account of its higher yields and lower entry point in terms of rents.
“Last year was the year it went from a small subset to something becoming mainstream,” says Lowrie. “Particularly in London, there is so much coming through the pipeline. These applications are going in, they’re going to get consented, they’re going to get funded. Probably not all of them. But a lot of them are.”
Lowrie recently published a co-living design guide, drawing on data compiled exclusively by Savills, covers room sizes, amenity ratios, communal space design and the planning framework that now governs co-living in London. Rather than rehearsing the investment thesis, it takes the decision to build co-living as read and sets out how to get it right. “There are plenty of white papers making the case for why co-living is the next fundable asset,” he says. “This starts from a different place. Chris is in the room to confirm that it is fundable. So the question becomes: how do you actually deliver it well?”
A cautionary tale
Of course, the first name that enters everyone’s minds when discussing co-living is The Collective. Founded in 2010 by Reza Merchant and once the poster child of UK co-living, collapsed into administration in 2021 after racking up losses of £54m in 18 months. The Canary Wharf flagship was sold to Crosstree for £190m in 2022. The original Old Oak scheme, the first large-scale purpose-built co-living building in the UK, was valued at £125m in 2018; Henderson Park acquired the 551-bedroom property for around £60m.
“The second generation are going to blow them out of the water,” says Lowrie. “Before the policies existed, there were no minimum room sizes, no standardisation of amenities. Those first schemes were under-amenities, and they’re going to struggle against what’s coming through now.”
The evidence from better-designed schemes supports that. Cheyne Capital’s Mason & Fifth at Westbourne Park, a 332-studio scheme, was fully let within three to four months of opening. “If it’s the right scheme in the right location, the demand is there,” says Riley.
A “dream project”: timber, heritage and 50% carbon savings
The duo’s Tanner Street scheme in Bermondsey is a fine example of how such projects can rejuvenate old buildings while preserving the spirit of their architectural past. The 112-unit co-living development retains an existing Victorian warehouse and builds new elements in glulam and CLT, saving roughly 50% in upfront embodied carbon compared with traditional construction.
“We’ve put sustainability at the heart of that building and we’ve put building users at the heart of it,” Riley says. “Gym, co-working, shared dining space, rooftop terraces, interactive rooms where you could play golf on a simulator or watch TV together as a group.” Lowrie adds that it is “a dream project for us”, one that “puts sustainability at the front and centre of the design process, not just in the retention and celebration of the existing Victorian warehouse, but through the cross-laminated timber structure.”
Riley is emphatic when pressed around the obvious question of fire safety. “Anything below 18 metres meets building regulations,” he says. “I would actually argue it’s safer. We have fire consultants involved from day one. The microscope is on us more than others, so we definitely do not cut any corners.” The bigger practical challenge, it turns out, is acoustics. Despite being comfortable with the fire performance of exposed CLT, Bywater had to encapsulate the timber at Tanner Street because of impact sound between floors. “You had to put 150mm of concrete on top of the CLT,” Lowrie explains. “Which is somewhat ironic.”
Timber also offers commercial advantages beyond carbon. Riley points to faster construction: CLT is lighter, requiring fewer piles in the ground, and erection times are materially quicker above it. “So we’re out of the ground faster, which de-risks us.” On adaptability: “I just don’t think it’s any different. We’ve got a glulam frame which acts the same as steel or concrete. It’s a frame.” On the carbon numbers: “The 50% upfront saving is substantial. We’re seeking to do the same in a residential world as we’ve done in commercial.”
Lowrie’s rules of thumb
Across the conversation, Lowrie returns repeatedly to a handful of practical convictions. “Good design is good design,” he says. “The principle is the same whether you’re doing a school, a climbing centre or a co-living scheme.” He calls his approach the Dave Brailsford method: every decision optimised. “You’ve got to get the best consent, but that consent also has to be completely buildable, fundable and exitable. If you’re not thinking from the end point backwards, you’re going to get planning for something you can’t build or can’t fund.”
On scale, he is blunt. “Too big and it doesn’t work. You need to build communities.” Bywater’s approach is to co-locate schemes in close proximity with a single operator (Greystar across all three south London sites) to optimise opex without sacrificing intimacy. On the GLA framework, he gives credit where it is due: Policy H16 “made it so much more fundable” by establishing minimum standards for co-living above 50 rooms. But the guidance is “probably slightly over-amenities” and some requirements “are actually in contradiction to one another”. A good architect needs to know where to push back.
On the first-generation schemes that are now being repriced: “The second generation are going to blow them out of the water.” And on design: “It shouldn’t be a cost on top of the building. Design has a real function in making a stable asset. You have to make places where people want to stay for longer than a year.” Riley agrees. “The key word once you’ve stabilised is stable. You don’t want to be on the treadmill of occupancy that a lot of resi teams run on. If it’s dark and miserable and doesn’t inspire people to want to live there, you’ll never get there. If you can exceed 12 months, happy days.”
As the country’s housing market continues to evolve, what’s clear is that co-living has moved beyond being seen as a fad. While any category of business anywhere will always have a few false starts, now that the sector has experienced grown-ups involved driving design and development; with all manner of learnings fed through from PBSA, BTR and hotels, the sector is fast becoming institutionalised. Both the designs and the data speak for themselves.
In numbers: the co-living market
The broader UK Living sector is now the dominant destination for institutional real estate capital. JLL’s Q1 2026 Living Roundup, authored by Marcus Dixon, Director of UK Residential Research, and Simon Scott, Lead Director of Living Capital Markets, records £3.7bn of Living investment in Q1 2026, up 31% year-on-year and 13% above the five-year average. CBRE’s Q1 2026 data puts the figure at £2.5bn, 74% higher than Q1 2025. Andrew Saunderson, CBRE’s Head of UK Living Capital Markets, describes the attraction to the UK market as “strong”, with “cautious optimism manifesting into positive sentiment across the Living sector”.
Colliers’ EMEA Living Sector Snapshot, published in March 2026 by Damian Harrington, Head of Research for Global Capital Markets, reports that European living sector investment reached €45bn in 2025, making it the second most popular asset type. Colliers’ Global Investor Outlook survey names living as the most popular asset class for 2026.
Co-living’s trajectory within that universe is the steepest. Data compiled exclusively by Savills for Ackroyd Lowrie’s 2026 co-living design guide records 8,847 co-living units granted planning permission across the UK in 2025, with 5,845 in London (nearly double the 2024 figure). Lizzie Beagley, Savills’ Head of PBSA and Co-Living Transactions, describes co-living as “emerging as a distinct sub-sector within the wider institutional market”, noting interest from Cain International, BlackRock, Real Star, Crosstree, DTZIM, APG and CDL.
In this week's PropCast episode, Andrew Teacher, co-founder of Lauder Teacher, speaks with Raoul Malhotra, founder and CEO of Orka Investments, about building a £700 million real estate manager in just a few years. From partnering with global institutional investors to navigating volatile markets, the discussion explores why operational expertise has become a defining advantage in today's real estate sector.
For two decades, finding somewhere to rent in Britain has meant typing a postcode into Rightmove or Zoopla and scrolling. Steven Charlton thinks that is a thin idea of search, and he has built a platform to prove it. nHabit, which reaches the App Store and Google Play in mid-June, lets renters describe the life they want in plain language and hands back neighbourhoods they would never have thought to type in. “Instead of following the herd to the same old postcodes,” Charlton says, “our aim is to let people search the way they’d plan their perfect holiday with ChatGPT.” The idea has already pulled build-to-rent operators including Quintain and Grainger into conversation, and it arrives as Rightmove, which by its own research takes around 80 per cent of the time British consumers spend on property portals, defends a £1.5 billion class action over the fees it charges agents. Charlton, a former Perkins&Will managing director turned founder, used a wide-ranging PropCast appearance to set out why he believes the two incumbents are too big to fix the thing renters actually struggle with.
How the search actually worksThe starting insight is almost embarrassingly simple. “You need to know where you want to live before you can search,” Charlton says, “and how can you know all the areas you could live in when you’ve never been to them all?” nHabit flips that around. A renter draws a boundary by travel time, a method Charlton calls isochrone generation, then tightens it with the things that actually shape a day, a ten-minute walk from a Tube station, good schools nearby, and the app surfaces homes in places the renter had never weighed up.
Behind the conversational front end sits Milo, a proprietary large language model wired to a three-dimensional graph database. It is deliberately closed, working only across the roughly 100 datasets nHabit has ingested rather than crawling the open internet, and it answers in whatever language the question is asked. Renters tune five dials, safety, nightlife, amenities, digital connectivity and mobility, to their own priorities. “Everybody’s different,” Charlton says, recalling a South Korean renter who put safety first and still ended up somewhere that felt unsafe for want of the data to choose well, against a group of Australians who cared about nightlife and nothing else.
Taking on the incumbentsThe duopoly has barely moved in twenty years, and Charlton is blunt about why. The portals, he argues, cannot rebuild themselves around AI without tearing up the systems they already run on. “This is a ground-up build, not a ChatGPT chatbot wrapper dropped on top of an existing system,” he says, and the two giants are, in his view, simply too big to attempt it. He is just as withering about the wave of look-alike tools claiming an AI edge. “I look at a lot of businesses and think, that’s basically an AI wrapper,” he says. “You’re just piggybacking on somebody else’s technology. It’s essentially a dashboard.” OnTheMarket and others have tried to break the lock before and offered, in his words, alternative versions of the same thing.
The £1.5 billion claim against Rightmove, led by former Competition and Markets Authority panel member Jeremy Newman and funded by litigation specialist Innsworth Capital, reaches its certification hearing in November, and Charlton reads it as a market finally losing patience. He has heard the standard objection plenty of times. One national agency told him he would need venture capital, private equity and a £20 million annual marketing budget to land a punch. “Social media has genuinely levelled that playing field,” he counters, pointing to the direct-to-consumer brands that scaled through COVID on a fraction of the old launch cost. “If the industry is genuinely sick of the status quo, people need to actually support an alternative rather than just complain.”
What it means for landlords, operators and agentsFor the operators and agents who pay to be seen, the first benefit is cleaner demand. Matching renters to homes on lifestyle and neighbourhood fit produces better-qualified leads and fewer dead-end enquiries, the difference between a showcase and a switchboard. The deeper prize is the data underneath. “Data is the new oil,” Charlton says. nHabit builds anonymised personas from how people behave in the app, whether they own a dog, what they linger on, what they swipe away, and reads the patterns the way Netflix reads viewing. “Why is it that people with dogs are less age-sensitive than people with children?” he asks. “The data might tell us.” Ownership is the point he keeps pressing: with the incumbent platforms, the insight ends up in someone else’s hands.
That rewrites the commercial model. Rather than a monthly listing fee, nHabit offers a developer the news that a particular profile of renter was ignoring a location six months ago and is now circling it. Quintain, the Wembley Park operator, grasped the idea at once, Charlton says, and a conversation with the build-to-rent landlord Grainger surfaced something he had missed, that many of its tenants work in the NHS on shift patterns whose travel times look nothing like a nine-to-five. The same logic carries into student housing, where operators such as IQ and Unite hold safety credentials Charlton thinks they undersell, and the recently enacted Renters’ Rights Act only sharpens the appetite for better data.
Agents, meanwhile, get a read on roughly twenty renter typologies and on exactly what a prospective tenant is hesitating over. A structural shift sits behind the sell. A year ago, Charlton estimates, about one per cent of an agency’s leads came through tools like ChatGPT or Claude, and he now puts it at seven or eight per cent, noting that those systems crawl websites selectively. “Agents understand they need to get their websites ready for LLMs,” he says, “and we’ve essentially done a lot of that work for them already.” The value spreads wider still, with one of his non-executive directors, who previously led Microsoft’s digital-cities work, pointing to retailers, hospitality and councils as buyers of the same locational insight.
From architecture to a blended businessThe route here ran through the top of global architecture. Charlton trained in interior design at Edinburgh College of Art, decided early that he “would rather employ great designers so we could elevate together”, and moved to Dubai to set up the Middle East studio of Pringle Brandon, the commercial-interiors firm the architect Jack Pringle founded with Chris Brandon in 1986. When Pringle, now chair of the RIBA board of trustees, sold the business to Perkins&Will in 2012, Charlton’s remit widened from fitting out offices to winning architecture for the Dubai developers Emaar and Aldar. A country-scale masterplan changed how he saw the work. “It’s about data, understanding what the infrastructure is going to be in ten, twenty, thirty years,” he says, and the conversations that followed, with Siemens and Schneider, planted the idea behind everything since. He became Perkins&Will’s UK managing director in 2017, ran the London studio for four and a half years and left in 2022 to start i/o atelier, named for the binary of input-output and the atelier, a house of artisans, a “blended business” where machine-learning engineers and designers sit side by side.
nHabit emerged from that studio almost by accident. Asked to measure the “vibrancy” of the places i/o was designing, the team-built mapping software that scored London neighbourhoods on amenities, green space, transport, gyms and the rest of the texture of daily life, then triangulated those points of interest into a picture of how appealing an area really was. Bolted onto the language model the studio had already built, the engine turned out to do something else entirely, helping people find somewhere to live. ChatGPT launched roughly six months after Charlton founded the studio, and the doubters came round. “Many people clearly went away and thought he’s lost the plot,” he says. “Over time those same people have come back and said, actually, you were just ahead of the game.”
Ambition, and what has been builtThe proprietary work, Milo, the isochrone engine and the graph infrastructure beneath them, is where Charlton sees defensible intellectual property and the prospect of patents. Because the infrastructure is built, new markets switch on quickly: Manchester and Liverpool are ready, and the longer horizon is Paris and New York, cities restless enough to reward the model. “Why can’t we be the Airbnb of residential rental?” he asks, noting that most rental apps he meets abroad are stuck serving a single city. Airbnb itself started in San Francisco.
nHabit is self-funded and was founded only in April 2025, and the design business is heading the same way, toward helping occupiers procure design rather than only producing it. An adviser put the trajectory back to him, that he is “becoming a tech business that does design rather than a design business that does tech”, a verdict offered with equal parts admiration and unease. The name says as much. nHabit is “inhabit” with the i taken out, a small act of rebuilding from the letters up, which is roughly what its founder has set out to do to the way Britain looks for somewhere to rent.
Three decades on from joining a graduate scheme during one of the deepest property recessions in living memory, Marcus Phayre-Mudge, fund manager and partner at Thames River Capital, has watched the listed real estate sector cycle through booms, busts, structural change and a creeping crisis of confidence between boards and shareholders. Speaking to Propcast host Andrew Teacher, the long-serving manager of TR Property Investment Trust delivers an unvarnished assessment of governance, manager-investor alignment, communications and the persistent question of scale that continues to challenge the UK market.
Phayre-Mudge begins by setting out a framework he still uses to explain the two distinct ways property cycles inflict damage. “There are two diseases for real estate,” he said. “One is a much more short, sharp shock, a bit like being punched in a pub. It hurts like hell, but it’s over quite quickly. That’s when you get a very dramatic change in the cost or availability of capital, which is what we saw in the GFC and more recently in 2021 with the dramatic change in the cost of money.”
The second, he warns, is more pernicious. “The other disease, which is actually much more insidious, more of a long COVID if you like, is the consequence of a long period of overdevelopment.” In periods like this, landlords across entire sectors become price-takers, dealing with tenants who know that competition to lease space places enormous downward pressure on rents.
His own entry into fund management came via a deliberate pivot away from surveying. Recalling a conversation with his boss at Knight Frank & Rutley over funding for an accounting night course, he laughed at the negotiation. “Marcus, if I fund this and you get the qualification, you’ll leave. I said: well, if you don’t fund it, I’ll also leave.”
The qualification opened the door to Henderson, predecessor to Janus Henderson, where alongside veteran fund manager Chris Turner he looked after the private allocation of TR Property Trust, then a smaller vehicle with exposure across both listed and private real estate. Later, in 1999, he assumed control of the listed property equity sleeves of two small Henderson diversified equity funds, each capitalised at between £20 million and £30 million, marking the start of his career in the public markets.
A move to Thames River Capital (TRC) in 2004 with mentor Chris Turner remains a moment Phayre-Mudge recalls fondly. “We told the founders of Thames River, Charlie Porter and Johnny Hughes-Morgan, that the only reason we’d really moved was because we didn’t have to change the name, which was entirely fortuitous.”
A new hybrid fund, blending equities with physical property, launched in 2005 and remains a source of pride. “That fund is still alive and strong and has never closed to redemptions,” he said, a particularly impressive feat given the recent difficulties faced by PAIFs in the UK as well as some of America’s largest real estate fund managers.
The Global Financial Crisis tested the model and, by his own account, came close to derailing it. “Whether by good judgment or good luck, probably a bit of both, we moved to 20% cash in both funds the quarter before Lehman went down. That’s why we survived.”
But he is quick to acknowledge the asymmetry that defines life in fund management. “If you’re a fund manager and you move to 20% cash and you’re wrong, you’ll massively underperform your benchmarks. If you’re right, your clients are still losing money, just considerably less than if they’d been fully invested.”
Among the more provocative observations of his career has been how the rise of passive capital has hollowed out the dialogue between boards and shareholders. “Around 20 years ago, I only ever engaged with the C-suite and had virtually no engagement with boards. That has changed a lot. We’ve had to feed back views to boards behind the scenes, partly because so much capital has moved passive that boards are living in something of a vacuum. They get feedback through formal channels via brokers and bankers, but you hear what you want to hear through those channels.”
That conviction underpins his views on a generation of CEOs and the quality of governance they preside over. He singled out the rise of finance directors moving into the top seat, an evolution he regards with mixed feelings. “There’s always the exception that proves the rule, and one must call out David Sleath for what he’s done at Segro. He’s been there a long time now and is a good example of a CFO who became CEO.”
But, he added, the picture in smaller companies is different. “In the smaller and mid-cap space, I’d say you absolutely need these businesses to be run by people with a property background and a property outlook.”
Alignment between management and shareholders is the thread that runs through much of his commentary. He cited Big Yellow as the gold standard. “The best example of all is Nick Vetch and Jimmy Gibson at Big Yellow. Obviously Jimmy is now retiring, but Nick founded the business and remains executive chair. You know you’re in safe hands because there is alignment.”
LondonMetric’s Andrew Jones and Shaftesbury Capital’s Ian Hawksworth drew similar praise as executives capable both of articulating a strategy and demonstrating meaningful skin in the game.
The era of zero interest rates, he argued, produced a swathe of externally managed vehicles that have since had to confront the consequences of weak structures. “Some very smart people, smart possibly at creating structures rather than necessarily skilled at spending other people’s money, launched a full range of externally managed vehicles.”
On notice periods, his message is unambiguous. “A one-year notice period should be standard. I don’t speak with a forked tongue here. I’ve had a rolling one-year notice period on TR Property since I started in 1997. You’re always 12 months away from the chop, but if you do a good job the board will back you. You can’t have notice periods that are essentially just poison pills.”
He also points to the internalisation of Supermarket Income REIT by Atrato Partners as an example of improved manager-shareholder alignment.
Life Science REIT drew a particularly sharp post-mortem. “I think the creator of Life Science REIT is talented at spotting a business opportunity and market timing,” he said. “Unbeknownst to him, the high noon moment turned out to be the IPO. But the capital had been raised, (was quickly spent on an ecletic mix of standing assets and development opportunities) and the value destruction was borne by shareholders not the manager”
Phayre-Mudge argues that had management been more closely aligned with shareholders, the outcome might have been materially different. The point carries added weight as the sector begins to recover. UK leasing activity across London, Oxford and Cambridge accelerated by 6% year on year in Q1 2026, with Cambridge alone accounting for more than 166,000 sq ft of take-up. That momentum sits within a broader structural story, with the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board and Public First estimating the corridor could deliver £78 billion in additional gross value added if growth accelerates, underpinned by 3,000 knowledge-intensive firms employing 152,000 people and generating £45 billion in annual turnover across the arc.
On the UK majors, Phayre-Mudge is sanguine about Simon Carter’s departure from British Land. “Does it mean there’s a problem inside British Land? Absolutely not. Their campuses, and Broadgate in particular, will continue to thrive. Their retail warehouse portfolio is very good, if fully valued, which is contributing to the share price’s 35% discount.”
Canada Water, however, appears to him more burden than opportunity. “Perhaps a bridge too far, even for a balance sheet the size of British Land’s.”
His critique extended squarely to City Hall. “Unfortunately it’s taken a long time for the Mayor of London to wake up to the fact that he has essentially destroyed large-scale residential development through unrealistic affordable housing requirements. You can’t solve the problem by ensuring that no developer can make any money. The developer will simply wait for a change in government.”
Landsec’s foray into residential drew similarly direct treatment. “Of all the sectors Landsec could have chosen, residential is the hardest to make stack without prior knowledge of that market. The single reason the wider market didn’t like that strategic shift is because it simply couldn’t explain how it would be in any way earnings accretive.”
He sees a wider strategic failure among the UK majors. “Tritax Big Box barely existed 15 years ago. Landsec and British Land could easily have reduced their shopping centre exposure and moved into logistics. But hindsight is a beautiful thing.”
Grainger was treated more sympathetically. “Helen Gordon has done a good job over the years repositioning Grainger, fixing the balance sheet and giving it a clear strategy,” he said, while warning that political risk continues to weigh on the sector. ‘However the earnings yield remains too modest for many REIT investors’.
The US multifamily market, by contrast, offers what he sees as a clearer model. “What you’re selling to the investor is something eminently secure, with genuine index linkage, run with efficiencies that can only be driven by scale.”
Few episodes attracted sharper criticism than Unite’s pursuit of Empiric. “Our counter-argument was straightforward: if you’re an undergrad you want to be in a building with hundreds of other people, facilities, a bar. Postgrads aren’t getting out of the PRS for purpose-built student housing.”
When a profit warning followed within days of the takeover announcement, he was withering. “The whole thing was a catalogue of disaster. Whether it’s reality, communications or both, this is the price you pay for being in the public market. Shareholders say: I no longer trust you. And trust is at the heart of all of this.”
Hammerson, by contrast, has earned its way back into his portfolio. “The new CEO has been sensible in what he’s said so far,” he noted, while flagging Brent Cross as a genuine opportunity and questioning the retention of Terrasses du Port. “We are back owning Hammerson shares after a period away.”
The conversation closed on the structural challenge that has dogged the sector since the REIT regime was introduced in January 2007: scale, and the obsession with net asset value that constrains it.
“We’ve had some dark days where we described NAV as standing for Not Actual Value,” he said. “You’ve got to go to the US model, which is earnings-based.”
The logic, he believes, is straightforward. “When the underlying market is weak, REITs are reflecting that by trading at large discounts. Their boards won’t allow them to raise capital below NAV, so they’re hamstrung. But that’s exactly the moment when you should be raising money, and that’s precisely what happens in the US. That’s how you grow these companies.”
Consolidation, he added, is now a matter of necessity rather than choice. “The wealth managers who own these businesses have themselves consolidated enormously. There simply is no place for a sub-£500 million market cap business in that world.”
LondonMetric and Tritax Big Box, he argues, demonstrate what is possible. “We encourage companies to raise capital to make accretive acquisitions and we are far less sensitive about whether the price is above or below a figure pencilled in by one of four major valuation firms.”
Asked for his closing advice to listed CEOs, Phayre-Mudge returned to first principles. “Show some respect to the owners of the business. If you think you’re being smart enough to hoodwink people, you will be found out. Building and maintaining trust is sacrosanct and you will be hugely rewarded for it. Because for all of these people, it is a very lucrative environment. And in many respects, a very safe one.”
The day job, he reminded listeners, is rarely complicated in concept, however demanding in execution. “Do not obsess about short-term performance, that’s your shareholders’ job. That’s my job. Your job is to get on and do the day job: spell out what you’re going to do, be clear, be honest when things go wrong. It’s all very straightforward. It’s what we all tell our children. Work hard, do your best.”
Tom Sleigh, Chairman of the Planning and Transportation Committee for the City of London Corporation, is the youngest planning chair the City has ever had, and potentially the country. Working in one of the most important square miles to the UK economy, infrastructure must be at the heart of all decisions made.
The City has undergone a revival in recent years, driven largely by the macro and micro trends since the end of COVID. As Chair of the Planning and Transport Committee, Sleigh acknowledges he has got a lot of plates spinning to keep things running smoothly. On transportation, Sleigh believes the Corporation has a responsibility to provide high quality streets that ensure the smooth flow of people, whether that be on foot, bicycle or other forms of transport. It is the planning side that Sleigh says gets him asked far more questions, but this is the element he views as fairly straightforward. He was to continue to offer a predictable, stable, plan-led planning system that investors, developers and everyone else in the chain wanted to come into business with. Sleigh acknowledges that this is different from the perception sometimes given off, with many people seeing it as adversarial and that often people believe Planning Committees view all change as bad.
Sleigh went further to explain how various organisations get a far heavier weighting than others when it comes to planning. These come in many forms, such as statutory bodies, heritage bodies and environmental bodies, although the latter less so in London. This is before you get to the many letters of objection from those ‘who are fully signed up to what seems to be a national pastime of objecting to planning applications.’ The City, Sleigh argues, is different and an outlier. He feels things would be better if people were more like this, with last year acting as their best year for applications in the front door in the last decade – and that’s when they started counting! Last year Sleigh’s Committee approved half a million square metres of new grade A office space, with a 96% approval rate overall. Sleigh says this is how planning should be: not adversarial. But, he notes, it has become more so, and is probably at its worst in the last five to ten years.
The secret to this proactive engagement is a very clear policy document, titled City Plan 2040. It is a few months away from adoption and enforcement, but it already carries a huge amount of weight in Committee decisions. It is extensive, covering how high you can build in the east of the City, through to material reuse and elements on quality design. If compliance is achieved here then the application will move onto stage two, where applicants will engage with case officers and the wider team, whether that be a heritage expert or someone with an engineering background to ensure it can become committee ready. Fundamentally, it is ensuring an application is policy compliant and then ensuring that planning officers have helped work it up to a high standard. Sleigh is proud to say that a lot of people they engage with say the City’s planning officers set a very high bar.
When asked about the lack of resources that planning departments face nationally, something that has steadily increased over the last twenty years, Sleigh acknowledges the problem. Planning teams have seen budgets cuts and headcount reductions, like many government organisations, and Sleigh feels that is reflected in the outcomes. The City is different, with a fantastically qualified and larger team, which matters a lot. The projects they work on can be the difference between a major bank coming to the City or not, with a big push to get HQs back into the City post-pandemic. This all matters, inspiring confidence and stability which will drive more international businesses to join them.
In an area steeped in as much history as the City, construction can often unearth the unexpected, such as recently at 85 Grace Church Street which uncovered an element of a Roman Forst in the basement when excavating, which was part of the largest building north of the Alps at the time of construction! This does slow down the planning process, with a change of application back at committee adding costs and time, but the result is a free to enter museum in the basement which encourages a more lively streetscape and helps differentiate it from competing cities such as Singapore and New York.
The City isn’t just about offices. Sleigh talks passionately about the work his team has done to make it more appealing to people outside of finance, known as Destination City which is an acknowledgement of the desire for a lively, more public City. He references the original designs for the Barbican Centre, which was supposed to be lively for people to enjoy both at ground level and on the pedestrian walkways. The City can often be viewed as just a nine to five, Monday to Friday place and Sleigh is determined that is not the case. He acknowledges this has challenges, just as Soho did when they rolled out al fresco dining during and after COVID. The City suits many different needs and isn’t trying to be ‘gritty and fun’ like Shoreditch or Brick Lane, but also doesn’t face the planning issues that they do. This is largely down to the City’s very small population which is almost entirely focussed in the Barbican. This doesn’t mean they are without their issues. As they are often not the landowner there are few levers of encouragement or coercion that can be used, therefore their use must be strategic. One of these is the City’s cultural use policy, where a building over 10,000 square metres must have some form of cultural use, which developers largely seem to support, states Sleigh. Hotels are another area for expansion in the City, with all the data showing London as a whole has a shortage of hotel beds. This can have an interesting impact in the office space where grade B can be quite difficult to convert to grade A, but is very easy to convert into hotels.
Turning to politics, Sleigh is asked about the current government’s various pledges on planning. Sleigh explains his disbelief at the sheer bureaucracy and levels of paperwork that even modest applications require, expanding to the volume of huge applications appearing at committee which, Sleigh assures, he reads every page of. Does AI have a role to play here? Sleigh is unsure but is under no doubt committees will probably decrease in size as the technology catches up, alongside changes in delegation within planning. But Sleigh thinks, on a personal level, that planning isn’t going far enough. He shares a few ideas, including the reduction of the threshold of decision making as local plans have increased significantly in length and are often out of date before they’re finished! Sleigh feels the City does a good job, with the most evidence based, forward looking and pragmatic local plan.
From banking to building, this week on PropCast we are joined by Homes England’s Innovation Lead Ed Jezeph. With an insight into Homes England’s new bank, modern construction methods what positives there are for the future of housebuilding in England.
Ed starts by saying how excited he is for Homes England to be launching a bank, noting how it is a natural progression for them as an organisation. Whilst the investment directorate within Homes England has existed for over a decade, largely focussed on debt lending and more recently equity investment and guarantees, this has provided Homes England with plenty of experience. Armed with this experience, they’re now launching the National Housing Bank with 16 billion of government funding announced in June 2025 which, Jezeph says “gives us new funding flexibilities.” He acknowledges some in the market may see them as stepping on other people’s toes, but states “we're not here to compete with the market. We're not here to cut the market. We're here to fill in the gaps. We're a lender of last resort. So, when we talk to our customers, as our borrowers on development finance, we want to know why banks won't lend to them.” He continues to concede this does present some challenges, including but not solely ensuring a cash return for the taxpayer of between 6-8%. All of this has impacted on the housing market in a negative way. He goes on to argue, however, that the real return is "to those communities of stuff being built and the impact and the importance of housing and the social value and the wider economic benefit,” and is therefore worth it.
When challenged about Modern Methods of Construction, or MMC, and what went wrong, Jezeph concedes immediately “there'll be people listening to this, possibly rolling their eyes,” and also acknowledges that Homes England were involved throughout, including when L&G put their modular business into administration. Jezeph says the construction skills shortage, which MMC was designed to tackle, was chronic and the government and Homes England responded to the market dynamic to help tackle this. Over a billion pounds was invested into the sector during this period, with plenty of startups full of energy leading the charge. Whilst some will undoubtedly criticise Homes England for investing around £135 million into the sector, alongside £466 million of private capital, Jezeph disagrees. “The smart response should be ‘we should absolutely do it again.’ Because without that sort of funding, innovation isn't going to happen. Fundamentally, the lack of innovation is why we are where we are now, where you've got big listed companies, Taylor Wimpy and others making huge allocations of cash in their annual results to pay for bad buildings.”
This point is further reinforced when considering that the five largest house builders have got about £3.1 billion in building safety issues for legacy buildings. To put into comparison, that is six times the amount of capital that’s been invested into MMC. Jezeph goes on to state that reflection on the failures is needed and that “many of the businesses that closed had business module failure.” There was a huge amount of ambition originally in terms of high-quality homes delivered quickly, more sustainable and more energy efficient, a view not everyone within the sector shares. L&G’s cross-laminated timber approach is often referenced, with planning delays at a handful of sites causing their factory to become unsustainable.
Moving onto more positive topics, Jezeph explains how the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development initiated a research program in 2022 that brought them to the UK, Japan and Sweden to learn about our modular homes. Jezeph particularly focusses on how the English aesthetic plays an important role, stating “you only realise how we’re perceived internationally when you go overseas and you hear those voices of admiration.” Jezeph is then pressed on the next steps, noting multiple schemes that were left empty for extended periods whilst the fire brigade decided whether they were safe or not. He agrees that this was an ongoing challenge with MMC and again highlights some of the problems of innovation: “the London Fire Brigade and the National Fire Council's Chiefs hadn't seen a building of this kind at this height and this scale, particularly post-Grenville before, so understandably they brought a level of scrutiny to that project to build confidence.” Fortunately, developers were often ready for this and provided fantastic digital information to try and smooth this process over. This has been a continued trend, with digital information helping secure gateway progress with the building safety regulator for recent modular student accommodation schemes, a surprise for some within the industry.
Some may ask, why the focus on modular homes? Jezeph argues that this is part of innovation and forward thinking, moving us in new directions. “Fundamentally we've got enough brick capacity, you could build about 170,000 homes a year out of bricks,” he states. “So, if we're going to get to our 1.5 million homes objective over five years, we know we need to build differently. This will either be smaller homes or using less bricks and no one is voting for a smaller house!” Jezeph follows up by arguing we will have to change what we build and how we build it. This includes cross-department work as, whilst their mandate sits within housing, there are other stakeholders involved, such as those with mandates around innovation and engaging new industries who want to make positive changes. Jezeph agrees with the negative views around the current construction labour crisis, arguing that the government announced a £600 million construction skills package in March last year, but this will need supercharging through innovation.
Asked what Jezeph would change about modular housing and innovation, armed with the information he has now. Jezeph said “I’m interested in the project failures, the projects that went wrong, where that interface between the off-site product, the foundations and the traditional groundworks didn't quite work out.” He continued saying “the coordination piece, the technical piece, you know that's the opportunity for us to learn because we know that manufacturing processes deliver quite high-quality products that I think we can take for granted.” He goes on to discuss integration, finding a way to work within the UK’s deeply cyclical housing and construction market.
Jezeph finishes by stating Homes England’s purpose: “We are a housing delivery body. We are here to support as many homes as possible. 40,000 is about what we deliver at the moment, and with our new funding it will be increasing to over 60,000. We will be here to support our partners in the sector and we remain there as a partner to industry and innovation is caught in that.”
Michael Keaveney, Director of Land, Development and Acquisition at Grainger PLC, has spent nearly eight years helping to reshape the country's largest listed landlord into a focused, operationally driven Build-to-Rent specialist. In a wide-ranging conversation for Propcast, he covers the logic behind Grainger's in-house model, the progress of its joint venture with Transport for London and a detailed proposal for how social housing in England might realistically be funded.
Keaveney arrived at Grainger two years after chief executive Helen Gordon, stepping into a business in the process of significant transformation. From a standing start of one delivered scheme in Barking, the business now has 9,874 BTR homes across England and Wales, underpinned by an operational platform built on a deliberate decision to keep operations in-house. "All of the staff in the buildings that we developed are our staff, they're Grainger people," Keaveney explains. "It gives you absolute control over the product that you're delivering and the customer relationship." The result is a business running typically at 96 to 98 per cent occupancy. "If you don't control that relationship in-house, it's very difficult to get to that data," Keaveney says.
He is also clear about what Build-to-Rent actually is. "People misunderstand what Build-to-Rent is. It's not about buildings at all. It never was. It's about service and product," Keaveney says.
The joint venture with Transport for London, operating under the Connected Living London banner, has taken longer to deliver than either party originally envisaged. COVID and the second staircase consultation both intervened. Keaveney is unapologetic about the decision to pause. "A single staircase building is perfectly safe, that's our view, it always will be my view if they're well-built and well-maintained," Keaveney says. He adds, on the question of proceeding with consented single-staircase buildings regardless, that Grainger will always build to the latest regulatory standard, and in the case of recent TfL schemes went back into planning with revised schemes to update them in line with the latest regulations. The revised schemes are now moving through procurement, with contractors on board for several. "We've got 1,500 homes at the moment with planning consents," Keaveney says, adding that the JV has also begun forward funding elements alongside housebuilders such as Barratt Redrow. Keaveney goes on to describe the broader TfL land bank as "untapped," though the binding constraint remains the same.
"The big question really is to what extent, how much grant support do these developments need to make them viable?" That question of viability runs throughout the podcast discussion. On the comparison between Build-to-Rent yields and Gilts - ultimately the question of risk-reward in the sector, he is equally direct. Comparing the two, he says, "is a category error." "A nominal Gilt doesn't grow. It's not indexed. We've got growth inherent in the Build-to-Rent model," Keaveney says. The correct comparable, he argues, is the index-linked Gilt. "We're not in the game of second-guessing that the growth rate is going to be, for some reason, structurally different in the next 10 or 20 years," Keaveney adds.
The political backdrop is, Keaveney acknowledges, genuinely difficult. He accepts it is "a difficult political sell" to be seen granting concessions to the private sector, tracing the problem back to a narrative that successive governments helped create. "The original narrative was entirely wrong," Keaveney says. "They've boxed themselves into a position whereby developers and private equity and private capital investing in housing is an inherent 'evil'."
When regulation and cost make the baseline hurdle rate unachievable, he notes, development simply stops. "The private sector goes, 'Well, by the way, it's no longer viable. And so we won't be building,'" Keaveney says. He is equally frustrated by the failure to interrogate the scale of bad practice with any rigour. "No one asks what percentage. How much of the market acts like that?" Keaveney says. "I'm absolutely convinced that if we were building 200,000 homes a year in the private sector, you would never hear, 'Well, what percentage of those homes are defective?' At the moment you just hear about the defective ones," he adds.
It is on finding sustainable financing solutions that Keaveney's thinking has recently been focused. The report, "Homes for People We Need," published in the latter part of last year and to which Keaveney led on, was written out of a growing concern that the debate around social housebuilding was proceeding without any serious engagement with what it would actually cost. "I was getting really concerned over a period of a year and a half of hearing people call for 90,000 social homes and then making the statement, 'And we've got the money, we just need the will,' and thinking, 'I don't think you understand how much money that is,'" Keaveney says.
"If you understand the cost and value of rental housing, which obviously Grainger does, you understand fundamentally the lower the rent, the lower the value of the home. And therefore the lower the rent you want in terms of affordable homes, the bigger the gap you're creating for viability," Keaveney explains. Low rent, in other words, requires a larger subsidy. That basic relationship was the impetus for the report.
The numbers it produces are considerable. Modelling across all 295 local authority areas in England, covering one-, two- and three-bedroom flats as well as houses, and assuming a 50-50 split between suburban and urban development, "the ask is, in practice, £18.84 billion of grant per year to achieve 90,000 homes," Keaveney says, equating to roughly £209,000 per home. Beyond the grant requirement, "if you want to build 90,000 social homes, you also have to find nine to ten billion pounds of capital willing to invest in the income," Keaveney adds.
He is also blunt about a widely held misconception: the idea that social homes will pay for themselves over time is, he says, simply wrong. "They will not justify the capital cost," Keaveney says. The registered provider sector, meanwhile, needs attention in its own right. "RPs need to be recapitalised to deal with today’s challenges and to add to housing supply," Keaveney says, pointing to the combination of net-zero obligations, Awaab's Law requirements and withdrawn retrofit funding as leaving many providers caught between competing pressures.
As for where the money comes from, conventional routes are, in his view, largely exhausted. "We are tapped out of the bond market and we've taxed everyone to the top of the Laffer curve. So you don't have the ability to use tax or borrowing, which would be cheaper money, so you need to find a way. Tax credits are the way," Keaveney says.
The mechanism he proposes draws on the American Low-Income Housing Tax Credit model. Corporations would be able to purchase future tax credits at a discount, generating immediate capital for the Treasury while locking in a lower long-term tax liability for the buyer. The implied return for a purchasing corporation is around seven per cent. In effect, the Treasury gets more money at the start, because companies pay part of their future corporation tax early. But over the next ten years it then collects less tax than it otherwise would have done, because those tax credits are used up. The question is whether the savings generated by the programme outweigh that shortfall.
Keaveney's answer lies in the cost of temporary accommodation, currently running at around £2.3 billion a year and rising. Rather than comparing that saving against a conventional Gilt, he argues it should be treated as an index-linked liability. Were this to be capitalised at the index-linked Gilt rate prevailing at the time of the analysis, approximately 1.25 per cent per annum, the figure would have come to around £180 billion. "Enough to build, by my numbers, a million homes in social rent for just getting rid of the temporary accommodation bill," Keaveney says. Add the reduction in housing benefit and the tax revenues generated by construction activity, and the fiscal case becomes, he believes, credible.
The remaining question is whether the Office for Budget Responsibility would treat the mechanism as off-balance sheet, in the manner of PFI. "What we're trying to get at the moment is an acknowledgment from the Treasury and OBR that this would be off-balance sheet," Keaveney says. "And if it's off-balance sheet, then you have effectively... someone said this to me the other day, they said, 'This would be the Holy Grail.'"
Plans of this scale, Keaveney notes, run over ten to fifteen years, outstripping any single political cycle, and will only succeed if they attract genuine cross-party support. The commercial and political case, as he sets it out, is carefully constructed. Whether the will exists to match it is, as of yet, an open question and one that Westminster has been reluctant to answer so far.
Keaveney closes on something more personal. The son of Irish parents who came to London in the 1960s, his father a carpenter, his mother having left school at fourteen, Keaveney grew up watching his parents build a life through hard work and good fortune.
Members of his own extended family grew up in council housing and went on to build successful careers. "Good quality homes may not help the parents immediately, but it definitely helps the kids," Keaveney says. It is a reminder that behind the subsidy calculations and the balance sheet arguments lies a straightforward conviction: that housing is not just an asset class, and that where people live shapes what becomes possible for them.
Across England’s south coast, a quiet experiment in coastal regeneration is under way. Partnering with local authorities across Torbay, Weymouth and Dover, a JV between Milligan and Willmott Dixon is proving how some of the country’s forgotten towns can be revitalised for new generations. Milligan’s Stuart Harris and Willmott Dixon’s David Atkinson speak to Andrew Teacher alongside David Carter from Torbay Council.
In this week’s episode of PropCast, José María Pons, joins Andrew Teacher, co-founder at Lauder Teacher, the global strategic communications agency, to discuss the founding of SQUARE – a discrete Ibiza-based event for a select number of industry leaders in Ibiza.
In this week’s Propcast in partnership with Property Week, Andrew Teacher discusses with Peter George from Ealing Council about urban development. As Strategic Director for Economy and Sustainability, he oversees six departments spanning planning, housing delivery, economic growth, schools, leisure facilities and building control. He argues that the emphasis on economy is no accident.
In this week’s Propcast in partnership with Property Week, Andrew Teacher discusses with Adrian D’Enrico of Atrato how Social Housing REIT has rebuilt confidence in specialised supported housing. The episode explores the sector’s turnaround, its measurable social impact, and how private capital can help address a 27,000-home shortfall if supported by clearer regulation and policy backing.
Speaking on this week’s PropCast, in partnership with Property Week, Davies explains how Bloom was formed, why ultra-urban warehousing is fundamentally different from traditional last-mile logistics and why specialism matters more than ever in today’s higher-for-longer interest rate environment.
In the latest PropCast in association with Property Week, Lee Coward, Head of European Investments at Oxford Properties, joins Andrew Teacher to discuss the redevelopment of the London Stock Exchange building, Oxford’s expansion across Europe and Australia, and what today’s capital markets really mean for real estate investors.
In the latest episode of PropCast Harry Glatman, Head of Alternative Capital Markets at DTRE and Matt Smith, Head of Science and Technology, join Lauder Teacher co-founder Andrew Teacher for a conversation on the direction of travel across real estate sub-sectors and the integral role of data in providing value-add advisory services.
In this week's PropCast, in partnership with Property Week, Andrew Wishart, senior UK economist at Berenberg, talked through where the UK economy really stands, what the next 12–24 months might look like, and what all of this means for real estate investors, developers and occupiers.
A tighter fundraising environment, stickier inflation and higher interest rates continue to muffle capital flows but against that backdrop, higher performing companies are those able to attract and retain the best talent, Nick Hammond tells Andrew Teacher.
On this week’s PropCast in partnership with Property Week, Bill Wilson, head of applied artificial intelligence at NTT Data, joins Lauder Teacher’s founding partner Andrew Teacher to explore how AI can help businesses scale by unlocking the untapped value in the real estate sector’s vast datasets.
In the latest episode of PropCast in partnership with Property Week, hosted by Lauder Teacher co-founder Andrew Teacher, dealmaking veteran John Slade – who has witnessed the London market’s many booms and busts – speaks candidly about timing, client relationships, and why the capital remains the world’s foremost real estate destination.
On this week’s PropCast, Octopus Capital’s head of real estate, Ed Clough, joins Lauder Teacher’s founding partner Andrew Teacher to discuss how Octopus is harnessing its cross-sector investment strategy to scale living, care and renewable energy assets across the UK and Europe, while using its strong track record to build trusted partnerships with global investors.
In this week’s PropCast, in partnership with Property Week, Andrew Teacher speaks with Melissa Murphy KC about her unconventional journey from prosecuting pirate radio DJs to becoming one of the UK’s leading planning barristers. Murphy shares insights on affordable housing, compulsory purchase powers, and heritage protection — all while reflecting on how curiosity, conviction and balance have shaped her remarkable career.
This week on The PropCast, in partnership with Property Week, Andrew Teacher, Founder of Lauder Teacher, sits down with Halima Aziz of Criterion Capital. Halima’s journey into hotel real estate has been anything but conventional. Growing up under the watchful eye of Criterion Capital’s founder — and renowned property entrepreneur — Asif Aziz, she gained a first-hand education in the world of real estate long before entering it professionally.
On the latest episode of PropCast, our co-founder Andrew Teacher is joined by John Lewis Partnership’s Katherine Russell and Anne Breen of Aberdeen Investments to discuss how their partnership to deliver rental homes is creating long-term value for investors and communities alike.
The latest PropCast, hosted by Andrew Teacher and in partnership with Property Week, features Ben Lee, Head of Data and AI at Bidwells, who explains how generative AI is already changing what ‘knowledge work’ is and what successfully integrating tech looks like in the property industry.
This week’s PropCast, hosted by Andrew Teacher, brings one of Irish real estate’s most forward-thinking and innovative executives, Colin MacDonald. MacDonald, having followed an unconventional path into property, puts forward a compelling investment thesis as well as offering sage wisdom on the dos and don’ts of commercial real estate in an increasingly complex market.
In this week’s PropCast, Marshall, the current chair of the investment committee for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) – offers a robust, clear-eyed assessment of how pension money should be managed, what’s wrong with government pooling proposals, and why most investors are paying too much in fees. The conversation, led by Andrew Teacher, was direct, illuminating, and refreshingly free from the usual fog of institutional platitudes.
Where does ESG find itself within real estate today, and does it have a future? This type of grand strategy within the sector is what Jon Lovell, co-founder of Hillbreak, is best placed to guide, given his role as one of the first movers and shakers in the industry to recognise the need for bridging the gap between financiers and the narrative-driving sustainability types.
This week’s PropCast, with Andrew Teacher and in partnership with Property Week, seeks to engage with the big questions, ranging from the huge risk and opportunity of stranded assets, the looming deadline for 2030 net zero targets, the skills deficit on both sides of the ESG fence and, perhaps most importantly, the profound implications of the Paris Accord’s 1.5°C goal being effectively dead in the water.
Data fuels every aspect of investment, and one company pioneered this change more than any other: IPD. This week’s PropCast, with Andrew Teacher, charts the incredible story of how Rupert Nabarro and the late Ian Cullen laid the groundwork for decades of institutional investment growth when they founded IPD in 1985.
Could a smarter, data-led retrofit strategy unlock billions of pounds in value for investors and governments, boosting energy efficiency and stamping out fuel poverty? These are the big questions Anna Moore, founder at Domna, believes she has the answers to on this week’s episode of PropCast.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder at Lauder Teacher, is joined by Russell Harris KC, one of the UK’s most successful planning barristers. Known for successfully battling appeals for Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street and Renzo Piano’s Shard, Harris chats warmly about his working class roots in a Welsh mining town and about his journey from defending criminals to listening to classical piano at 3am with Rafael Vinoly . He warmly narrates some of the planning sagas he’s battled through, gaining consent from some of London’s most controversial and high-profile projects.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder at Lauder Teacher, is joined by Paul May, Director and Head of Real Estate Equity Research at Barclays Investment Bank. With years of experience in the real estate sector, Paul offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of real estate investment, asset classes, and the challenges facing the market today.
In this week’s episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder of Lauder Teacher, is joined by Lynda Shillaw, the Chief Executive of Harworth Group, a leading regeneration and development company. Lynda’s career is a remarkable story of evolution—one that began with humble roots in South Yorkshire and led her to become the CEO of a FTSE 250 company. In this candid conversation, Lynda discusses her upbringing, pivotal career moments, and her journey in reshaping Harworth into a powerful player in the UK real estate market.
Fresh from delivering a sector-leading set of results and winning the RESI Award for Large BTR Operator of the Year, Rob Hudson, CFO of Grainger, joins Andrew Teacher on this week’s PropCast. Hudson reflects on his career journey, Grainger’s impressive growth, and – as one of the City’s only openly gay CFOs – the important role diversity plays in the corporate world.
In this week’s PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder of Lauder Teacher, is joined by Simon Ricketts, one of the founding partners of Town Legal and a leading expert in planning law. Ricketts, who has spent over 25 years shaping the UK’s legal landscape, talks about his career journey, the evolution of Town Legal, and some of the key challenges facing businesses in the planning and development sector today.
In this episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder of Lauder Teacher, is joined by Zsolt Kohalmi, Global Head of Real Estate and co-CEO of Pictet Alternative Advisors. They discuss Pictet’s unique approach to alternatives, the shift in real estate investment strategies, and how cultural differences across Europe influence investment decisions. Zsolt offers insights into the evolving demand for private assets, the impact of macroeconomic trends, and the growing focus on sustainability in real estate.
In this week’s episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder of Lauder Teacher, is joined by DJ Dhananjai, CIO for Edmond de Rothschild’s UK Real Estate Investment Management business, and James Whidborne, Head of Residential Fund Management UK. They discuss the platform’s conviction-driven investment strategy, which focuses on delivering much-needed rental housing across the UK.
In this week’s episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder at Lauder Teacher, sits down with Simon Betty, Head of Europe for Northwest Healthcare, to discuss his career, the evolving healthcare real estate market, and how the landscape of operational real estate is shifting. Simon’s journey spans various sectors, including retail, hospitality, and healthcare, with roles at Hammerson, Adina, and now Northwest Healthcare. Over a candid conversation, Simon shares insights into his career, the state of healthcare real estate, and emerging trends within the sector.
Dan Batterton has been a key figure in the UK’s real estate sector for over a decade, leading Build to Rent (BTR) investments at L&G’s Asset Management. He has helped establish BTR as a vital part of the housing market, contributing to L&G’s broader residential platform, which spans various housing strategies. Through his innovative approach, he has played a crucial role in transforming residential real estate.
In a recent episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, founding partner of Lauder Teacher, sat down with Paddy Allen, CEO of Kinetic Capital. With a longstanding career in real estate and leadership roles at GSA Group and Colliers, Allen now leads Kinetic Capital, a specialist lender in the purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector. Their discussion covered the role of Kinetic Capital, the challenges of PBSA lending, and the evolving real estate landscape.
After nearly 23 years at the British Property Federation, Ian Fletcher is stepping down as Director of Policy, leaving behind a remarkable legacy of leadership, advocacy, and transformation in the UK property sector. In a candid conversation with Andrew Teacher, co-founder of Lauder Teacher, Fletcher reflects on his career, the evolution of the property industry, and the challenges that lie ahead for his successor.
In this episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder at Lauder Teacher, sits down with Ben Green, co-founder of Atrato, to discuss the evolution of real estate investment, the role of resilient income, and how Atrato is positioning itself across multiple asset classes, from supermarkets to social housing and energy transition.
The student housing market has rapidly evolved into one of the most dynamic and resilient sectors within global real estate. With demand for high-quality student accommodation surging, international capital is increasingly recognising the sector’s potential as a stable and lucrative asset class.
At the forefront of this transformation is Global Student Accommodation, GSA. As part of the leadership team, John Jacobs, Global Head of Capital Markets has played an integral role in guiding the business to become a global leader in the student housing industry, managing a portfolio spanning 80 cities across 11 countries and assets exceeding $7 billion.
GSA’s impressive growth and steadfast commitment to delivering exceptional student accommodation have cemented its position as a trailblazer in the sector. In this exclusive discussion, we delve into John’s insights on the evolving student housing market, the challenges it faces, and the opportunities that lie ahead.
Global Expansion and DiversificationJohn Jacobs’ professional journey has taken him around the globe, and GSA reflects his global perspective. Recently, the company expanded its European footprint, by acquiring significant student housing assets, including entering Italy with a 515-bed development site in Milan, and forming a new joint venture to enter into the French market with Nuveen Real Estate through an impressive €540 million deal. This portfolio includes 18 operational assets and four development sites across five leading educational cities.
John explains, “We’ve become one of the most globally diversified investment managers in the student housing market. Our international portfolio now includes markets from the US to Australia, and Europe in between, and we’re proud to be a leader in this space.” He emphasises that GSA’s impressive growth stems from a commitment to being a long-term player, combining operational excellence and a strategic vision.
The Rise of Institutional Capital in Student HousingThe student housing sector has witnessed a marked shift in how institutional investors view it. Once considered an alternative asset class, student housing is now firmly embedded within the global investment landscape. “Five years ago, student housing was still a niche sector, but today it has become a mainstream investment,” says John. “Private equity giants like Blackstone, GIC, and Brookfield are now making large-scale investments in this space.” He notes that the sector’s proven resilience—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—has made it an attractive asset class for investors seeking stability and strong returns.
This growing investor interest is not surprising given the sector’s long-term growth potential. John highlights that the student housing market remains robust due to its close ties with universities in some of the world’s most prestigious cities. “When you combine the academic reputation of top-tier universities with the attractiveness of global cities like London, Paris, or New York, you have a very compelling investment proposition,” he says. This model of investing in student accommodation near world-renowned universities has provided GSA with a unique opportunity to deliver attractive returns, even during challenging times.
The Importance of Data and Location-Driven StrategiesA critical component of GSA’s success is its data-driven approach to location selection. John is adamant that GSA’s global reach is driven by meticulous research and analytics that pinpoint the best locations for student housing investments. “It’s not just about picking a city and building there,” John explains. “We look at the strength of universities, the academic programs they offer, and the student demand in specific areas. It’s a hyper-location driven strategy.”
For GSA, understanding the nuances of each city’s housing market is key to making informed decisions. “In London, for example, proximity to key universities like King’s College and LSE is crucial, but that’s different in Madrid or Dublin. Every city has its own dynamics,” John notes. This granular approach ensures that GSA is always targeting areas with a proven demand for student housing while also anticipating where future demand will emerge.
International Students: A Key Market DriverOne of the driving forces behind the global demand for student housing is the rise of international students. GSA’s focus on catering to this demographic is a key part of its strategy. “International students are a critical market segment for us,” John says. “They represent a large portion of our customer base, and they are willing to pay for the security, convenience, and community that purpose-built student accommodation provides.”
John’s personal experience as a parent has helped shape his understanding of what international students—and their families—seek in accommodation. “When my son went to study overseas, I wanted him to have a safe and secure environment. That’s what we offer—safe, well-located, and community-oriented student housing. It’s not about luxury but about providing a reliable and supportive living experience.”
Adapting to Changing Student Needs John acknowledges that the needs of students today are vastly different from those of previous generations. “Today’s students are incredibly mobile, tech-savvy, and focused on experiences,” he says. “They expect more than just a place to sleep. They want an experience, and that’s what we’re trying to provide.” GSA’s approach to student accommodation includes creating vibrant, social communities where students can connect with others from around the world.
This shift in student expectations is driving innovation within the sector. “We’re constantly thinking about how to improve the student experience,” John explains. “We work closely with our operating partner, Yugo, to deliver a high-quality living experience. This includes offering facilities that go beyond just a bed and a desk—things like gyms, social spaces, study areas, and even career support.”
Navigating Regulatory Changes John’s perspective on regulatory changes is shaped by his global experience. “The regulatory environment for student housing varies greatly from one market to another,” he says. “What works in one country doesn’t necessarily work in another. We need to be adaptable and flexible, while also engaging with policymakers to ensure that the regulations don’t stifle innovation or investment.”
For example, there has been a lot of noise recently in Ireland, where regulatory changes have created challenges for the sector. However, Jacobs remains optimistic about the future. “I believe we can overcome these issues, but it will require meaningful collaboration between the government and the private sector,” he asserts. The need for a unified approach to Ireland’s student housing crisis is urgent. With clear policies and open communication, he believes the country has the potential to become a leader in accommodating its growing student population, ensuring both domestic and international students have access to safe, high-quality housing.
This engagement with governments is something that GSA is committed to, but John emphasises the importance of data in these discussions. “We are a data-driven business,” he explains. “We have the numbers, whether it’s about demand, occupancy, or rental growth. This data is essential in shaping conversations with regulators and ensuring that we are building the right product in the right places.”
A Personal Journey in Student HousingJohn Jacobs’ path to leading GSA’s global capital markets division is an interesting one. Growing up in Dublin and studying economics at University College Dublin, John’s career has taken him all over the world, working in a variety of industries, including hospitality airlines in the U.S and Barbados, and most recently 15 years in corporate banking back in Ireland. However, his deep connection with the student housing sector has personal roots. “My family always hosted international students in our home growing up, so I’ve always had a connection to student housing,” he says.
“At the end of the day, we’re providing a service for students,” John concludes. “We’re creating communities, offering security, and ensuring that students have a positive experience during their studies.”
ConclusionAs GSA continues to grow and expand its global presence, the company remains committed to meeting the evolving needs of students and investors alike. The student housing sector has proven to be resilient, and with its focus on quality, security, and community, GSA is well-positioned to lead the way in this dynamic and growing market. Despite regulatory challenges and market fluctuations, GSA’s data-driven approach, international reach, and commitment to innovation will ensure its continued success in the years ahead.
Rebuilding Ecosystems: Octopus natural capital head chats with Lauder Teacher founder
Alex Godfrey, Head of Natural Capital at Octopus Investments joins Andrew Teacher to discuss how to best use land to build in climate resilience from the ground up. This is genuinely one of our most interesting and unique discussions, so please share with contacts.
Godfrey’s unlikely career trajectory has given him a unique perspective on the issues - and solutions - we need to consider. His ability to explain the finer points of natural capital, focusing on restoring ecosystems while generating commercial value through initiatives like reforestation and biodiversity enhancement, is gripping and will leave you to reconsider a lot of what you may think you know.
The discussion also explores the built environment’s role, emphasising biodiversity net gain policies and sustainable practices for developers. Godfrey outlines Octopus Investments' scalable fund model, which restores degraded land to generate carbon credits that meet rigorous standards like the UK’s Woodland Carbon Code. Stressing urgency, Godfrey calls for policy support to scale natural capital projects and align financial incentives with environmental goals. This approach, he argues, is essential for achieving net-zero targets.
In this week's podcast, Andrew Teacher, co-founder of Lauder Teacher speaks to CogNovum founder Roelof Opperman about how data centres are evolving to meet the technical demands of developing and implementing artificial intelligence, and how this is informing the design and location of the next generation of data centres.
Andrew Teacher is joined by industry experts Ella Smith, building performance analyst, and Craig Robertson, head of sustainability at Alfred Hall Monaghan Morris, regarding their research on sustainable construction practices in speculative offices. They are joined by British Land development director, Hannah Farahar and Stephen Adams, founding director from Storey Projects. Together, they discuss how to break the cycle of ripout and refurbish that accompanies the practice of Category A in speculative office fitout, and what that would mean for meeting the industry’s carbon targets.
As Peter Denton and chair Peter Freeman step down from their roles, Denton talks exclusively to Andrew Teacher about the success of the last four years.
PropCast host Andrew Teacher grills his former IPD colleague and renowned market analyst Colm Lauder on the future for listed property stocks and private investors. Lauder, formerly an investment banker at Goodbody, debates how real estate’s “operation game” is becoming an increasingly vital part of the mix and the duo explain why investors need to stop being so obsessed with NAV.
Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud.Hosts: Andrew Teacher In this episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher speaks to Akeel Malik, co-architect behind the Urban Splash Residential Fund, on connecting capital and the regeneration of regional cities, how technology can keep communities connected, and why real estate must grow closer to its customers. Akeel Malik operates at the intersection of brands, technology and institutional investment, not just as a partner at SURE Capital – a new investment management business with a focus on sustainable urban real estate in the UK, and a partnership with Urban Splash Group on its residential strategy – but also as a technology entrepreneur and co-founder of a residential investment fund.Malik’s relationship with residential property was catalysed at an early age. Malik, of Pakistani and Irish heritage, grew up in Wilmslow on the outskirts of Manchester’s city centre within a family with some experience of residential development, mainly in “private rented sector and senior living.” Even as far back as school, this familial connection to property and the transformational effects that Urban Splash was having on his local neighbourhood “were definitely on the radar.”After studying Economics and Management at the University of Oxford, Malik worked in London for UBS in its Real Estate, Lodging and Leisure Team, advising on M&A and capital markets. It wasn’t long before he was drawn back to Manchester. Seeking to find quality rental accommodation post-university, Malik and his friends found that many regional city centres lacked decent properties. These personal, familial and professional experiences would converge around Malik’s vision for “using the physical landscape and creating branded, well-designed properties at affordable prices.”Malik found his ideal partner in Urban Splash and its founder Tom Bloxham, launching the Urban Splash Residential Fund together, along with Paul Gough from STAR Capital. The Fund now owns and operates 500 homes across the UK, with first look access over the £1.2bn pipeline of Urban Splash as well as working with other developer partners. It seeks to provide investors with the opportunity to co-invest in a branded, institutional quality portfolio of residential properties for rent.Malik attributes much of Urban Splash’s success to the close match between commitment and delivery. In his words: “Knowing what a company does and what sort of product they’re going to deliver over an extended period of time across different scenarios is what’s made Urban Splash what it is today.” This track record, for Malik, has fostered “trust between the public and private sector.”Because of its 20-year regeneration of inner-city district New Islington, Urban Splash is primarily associated with Manchester. But its next generation of schemes also include Campbell Park, where 1500 homes will be delivered in partnership with the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, while Port Loop in Birmingham is being delivered in a joint venture with Places for People. Malik says: “It’s an island site, 15-20 minutes’ walk from Brindley Place but it is a great opportunity to create an island community. The land was previously industrial, and we got to engage with the community at an early stage.” For Malik, the scale and type of these projects are more akin to major regeneration schemes, unlike “transforming unused mill and warehouse buildings in Northern cities” for which Urban Splash was originally known. Malik now sees Urban Splash as working on the kind of schemes that will act as prototypes for the Government’s proposed New Towns.A focus on larger regeneration schemes means that Urban Splash is not confined to residential development. It has “two million square feet of flexible workspace across regional cities, concentrated in Manchester, Liverpool and also extending to Royal William Yard in Plymouth.”Tailwinds supporting these investments include “high university retention rates, a focus on a particular cluster or industry and investment which confer a halo effect on other capital flows.” Where these elements are not present, “it can be challenging to look toward regeneration and placemaking from a pure private markets perspective.” Malik recalls that the regeneration of Manchester required “a forward thinking, pragmatic and proactive leadership of the council. Partnership between public and private sectors is really the only way to make things work at the scale the UK housing needs.”For Malik, that still creates challenges in making investment stack up. “The choice is to look at existing assets where there has been some form of repricing and value can be found, or in the delivery of new stock.” The risk remains that traditional and complex supply chains with “many mouths to feed from developer to contractor to subcontractor to ultimate funder” are unlikely to yield viability in such circumstances. The preferable alternative is to involve “long-term patient capital with a 30-year view, and with a willingness to see rental residential housing as an inflation-linked income stream, for which the benchmark is more like 1 percent than the 5 percent base rate. The developer and others could then participate in the upside as and when things stabilise, and have a long-term, reliable capital partner.”Malik’s hope for the new Government is for a stable policy environment that provides long-term clarity for business planning: “I think over the last three to five years there have been plenty of reasons to press pause on things. There’ll be external factors to balance but a measure of stability from Government is helpful.”A further feather in Malik’s hat is technology platform Ark. In Malik’s words, Ark is “a digital noticeboard and communication tool to cultivate community in residential blocks.” Residents in 40,000 homes across the UK have the ability “to speak with each other, find out what’s going on around them, and to communicate with managers and landlords.” In Malik’s view, communication tools such as this can assist regulatory duties such as those under the Building Safety Act. For Malik: “Regulatory change without a support infrastructure that helps people to adjust runs the risk of failure.”In his view, the property industry has not historically been good at adapting and changing on the hoof. “That’s where technology becomes super important, and regulatory change might now be assisted further by artificial intelligence.”Beyond regulatory compliance, Malik says that communication tools like Ark represent an opportunity for a supplier (the building owner/operator) to get closer to the customer. The byproduct is keeping “customer satisfaction and customer experience as a KPI and metric for business success.”Asked about the future, Malik says the Urban Splash Residential Fund will continue to work with investors to build its platform on the reputation the company has built for delivery, hard-earned over the last 30 years. The aim: to work with institutional investors and delivery partners to create a 3000-home strong rental brand such that “people can know when they are moving place-to-place that they can get good quality, mid-market, affordable, design-led rental homes with a frictionless experience.”You can listen to this podcast via {Apple}, {Amazon}, {Spotify}, or {SoundCloud} (and many other platforms) or just use the player above.
Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud.Hosts: Andrew TeacherBidwells is one of the UK’s oldest property businesses, well-known for its focus on life sciences, energy and natural assets. Yet far from resting on its laurels, the firm has made recent moves to amplify its existing capabilities, including advising on the growing market interest in operational real estate. Andrew Teacher speaks to chief operating officer, Kelly Bream, and Iain Murray, head of operational living. Few businesses are able to celebrate their 185th anniversary, and still fewer make plans for their next 185 years, but real estate consultancy Bidwells is doing just that. To this end, it has launched a growth strategy designed to double the firm in size over the next five years.Steering this ambitious plan is chief operating officer Kelly Bream. Bream studied property estate management at university and brings to her role experience at Berkeley Homes and a third party build to rent operator, as well as from co-founding a number of startup businesses.Bidwells is perhaps best known for its work as the lynchpin of the science and technology clusters in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. Bream says: “We created Cambridge Science Park back in the 1970s with Trinity College, so our experience in innovation real estate is certainly part of Bidwells’ DNA.” Since 2021, Bream estimates that Bidwells has advised on “probably 80% of the life sciences deals across the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.”Bidwells’ hire of Iain Murray and his Cortland Consultancy team earlier this year boosted its capabilities further, with Murray joining as partner and head of operational living. Murray brings with him a decade of experience in the sector having advised on over £6.2bn in assets, alongside a wider 30-year pedigree across asset classes, including advising on £8bn worth of schools and hospitals while a Partner at G&T. The move comes as part of a wider firm focus on services relating to operational real estate.Reflecting on the outlook for the living sectors, Murray says: “Of particular interest has been the sector’s adoption of whole life modelling and costing, with the industry gaining a longer view of procurement than it has traditionally had. Residential has been short termist, but we are now building a product that lasts.”Murray believes that the key distinction between the build for sale and the build to rent markets lies in the latter’s “focus on the income side” and on “quality, environmental sustainability and safety.” He sees the benefit of Bidwells’ integrated expertise meaning it is able to transcend some of the siloed disciplines, avoiding friction between, for example, parts of businesses that focus on customer experience, cost management and sustainability.He cautions against living sector operators focusing too much on the capital expenditure associated with meeting legislative requirements, such as the inclusion of second staircases: “What we are trying to do is make sure that people don’t focus too much on the capital side when really it is the revenue that generates the value in build to rent projects.” Beyond build to rent, Murray sees opportunity in specialist living sectors such as co-living and senior living. “They represent less than one percent of the private rented sector, but they have further to go in terms of their professionalisation, and the demand will increase owing to demographic tailwinds.”Murray also considers housing a supportive sector for other asset classes, drawing on the example of work Bidwells completed for a large housebuilder. “The client had several sites around technology parks, including an automotive research park. Having interviewed the occupiers there, to get a sense of what was needed, we discovered that many employees transitioned in and out of the businesses over periods of 6 months to 3 years.” As a result, the co-location of single-family housing was supportive to the type of occupier within the science park and mutually supportive to the overall investment case. For Bream, Bidwells’ 180-year relationship with the areas around Oxford and Cambridge have given it an appreciation of the relationship between housing delivery, infrastructure and employment, delivered in a way that accommodates local sensitivities.Alongside the living sectors and science and technology, Bream sees many other sectors that provide a growth opportunity for Bidwells, which has nine offices across the country including a major energy and renewable business in Scotland. Given the market and legislative imperatives to transition to net zero, advising on solar and wind projects will form a substantial part of Bidwells’ future.Bream also points to natural capital as an area where Bidwells has already given itself a competitive edge, reflected in its recent achievement of B-Corp status. The introduction of biodiversity net gain and the establishment of natural capital as an asset class in its own right are driving expansion in advisory in this area. “It’s not just about scatter gunning, but following trends and market demand,” Bream says.Bream acknowledges that delivering Bidwells’ ambitious growth plans will need the right people. For a firm that has a breadth of services, Bream considers it important that Bidwells attracts those who have “an entrepreneurial spirit and who are able to think a little bit outside the box”.Why launch such a growth plan now? Bream responds: “At a time when other agencies are cutting back, we’ve spent a lot of time understanding our market and clients to identify where their needs and the demand are located.” By way of example, Bream says: “We have a significant client in Cambridge and we are supporting their major development in Leeds. We’ll be replicating there our service lines and support base for our clients.”Accordingly, the growth plan leverages the agility Bidwells has shown in adapting to emergent opportunities such as the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. As Bream puts it: “This is not a deviation away from what we’re known for and what we offer. This is about adding complementary services and extending the geographic reach of existing services.”“We are 185 years old; we want to be here in another 185 years. We want to build a hugely resilient business.”You can listen to this podcast via {Apple}, {Amazon}, {Spotify}, or {SoundCloud} (and many other platforms) or just use the player above.
Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud.Hosts: Andrew TeacherIn a future-gazing episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher speaks to Sophie Hine, the John Lewis Partnership’s head of operations for build-to-rent, biophilic design pioneer Oliver Heath, and fellow architect Tim Tolcher from CJCT about leveraging nature into build-to-rent.
Mission Street founder Artem Korolev discusses how he has quietly built one of the UK’s market leaders in innovation real estate. He tells Andrew Teacher why navigating tech transfer and underwriting for emerging science is key to succeeding in a nascent market.
Andrew Teacher speaks to Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of Opportunity London, on his role attracting £100bn in capital investment for low-carbon real estate, infrastructure and transport, and his rich background in aligning public and private sectors in major cities worldwide over the last 25 years.Jace Tyrrell has spent the last two decades promoting London as an attractive investment destination. Perhaps best known for his time as Chief Executive of New West End Company, the business improvement district (BID) for London’s West End, this expertise informed his next role exporting the BID model to Australia across Sydney’s Western Harbour, the New Sydney Waterfront Co.Tyrrell estimates that there are now around 2,000 business improvement districts worldwide, each established by local democracy and funded by a levy on local taxation.Jace Tyrrell is British by birth but sees himself as very much a ‘Boomerang Brit’, having grown up in Singapore and Canberra thanks to his father’s career in the Foreign Office. On his parents’ retirement, he enjoyed a very remote, rural stint in Queensland that he likens to “living in an episode of the Flying Doctors”. Tyrrell believes his diverse experiences during a globe-trotting upbringing has helped him in “dealing with lots of different cultures, different people around the world.”More recently, Tyrrell was recruited to lead Opportunity London, a new partnership between the City of London Corporation, London Councils and the Mayor of London alongside public and private partners. Opportunity London is co-chaired by London and Partners and NLA. Its mission is to attract the next £100bn in capital investment into London’s low carbon real estate, energy and infrastructure. Opportunity London has identified the first nine investment zone opportunities in London, seeking £9.5bn of immediate investment at locations as diverse as Old Oak, Brent Cross Town, Crystal Palace and Earl’s Court.To that end, Tyrrell has spent the last six months or so travelling and speaking to investors globally about their preferences and attitudes towards the British capital.Citing research by JLL for Opportunity London, Tyrrell argues that London remains “the most globally traded city for real estate in the world, stretching back over the last five years.” Nevertheless, while the value of that investment was £22bn pre-2019, the value in 2024 is £11bn. Tyrrell says that some of the loss can be attributed to “macro trends on the cost of capital and pressure on sovereign wealth and pension funds to invest domestically within their own jurisdictions, resulting in lower outward capital flows.” Yet, as Tyrrell also cautions, “some of the reason why is the pace of getting decisions made, and unlocking the deals, has slowed which is putting off some global investment committees.”In the year ahead, and with a new Government, Tyrrell hopes “to get some of that friction out of the decision-making process to unlock more investment deals.” A primary challenge for a Labour government focused on productivity and growth will be courting third party capital, given the state of public finances. To do that, in Tyrrell’s view, will require being “very clear with metro mayors and local councils about what they wish to achieve through planning, in turn unlocking investors for housing, infrastructure and transport. These investors will need to be reassured that the goalposts will not be moved.” This will also involve acclimatising local authorities to “being more comfortable talking to institutional and private capital.”Outside of Opportunity London, Tyrrell has been advising in Singapore on a consultancy basis, and points to an example there of what can be achieved where decision-makers agree to a common vision. Tyrrell says: “I think their commitment to net zero and the green economy, and translating that into changes to the public realm, are striking. I don’t know any other city in the world that’s moved at pace and been able to deliver that.” The net result so far has been benefits including net zero energy supply. For Tyrrell, one of the key things holding back London from achieving similar results is “more consistency in the levels of planning between the three levels (national, regional, local) of government in terms of shared investment, shared outcomes and quicker decision-making.”Tyrrell is also currently involved in an Urban Land Institute pilot, one of seven worldwide, in Melbourne, Australia, where 3,500 property owners and occupiers are collaborating on one of the “first sustainability improvement districts in the world”. This will “bring forward projects that will help the businesses get to net zero faster.”Tyrrell believes the sustainable improvement district pilots will be instructive to other districts worldwide, but caveats that it must be done at scale.” I know the business improvement districts in London and we have been spending some time thinking about how to scale net zero efforts. There are good programmes locally – supplier switching and improving infrastructure for electric vehicles are some examples – but some of this is quite low level and not very impactful.” Tyrrell believes that there is “an opportunity for all the business improvement districts to come together or perhaps to form a sustainability improvement district pilot.”For Tyrrell, the benefits of collaboration between public and private also extends to the future of Oxford Street, a district he was responsible for while at the New West End Company. Tyrrell believes that, with the appropriate funds and a shared vision, now stewarded by the New West End Company and Westminster City Council, the area can be effectively repositioned. He predicts: “Come back in a couple of years’ time, and we’re going to be really proud of the nation’s high street.”
Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud.Hosts: Andrew TeacherAndrew Teacher talks to the outgoing CEO of Helical, Gerald Kaye, on a life spent in property, the challenges facing the London real estate market, and what he plans to do post-Helical. Gerald Kaye has devoted his life to the real estate sector. In March of this year, Gerald Kaye celebrated 30 years with Helical, but he admits that he had not imagined at the start of his career becoming one of real estate’s leading authorities on offices.Kaye says his early choice of career was instead influenced by familial ties in land agency and a childhood connection to the countryside. Kaye envisaged being the custodian of a country estate: “I went to Reading University to study Estate Management but I realised soon into the course that I wasn’t going to make much money as a land agent.” Hence, Kaye took a specialism in commercial property and then cut his teeth as a graduate surveyor with Knight Frank and Rutley which remains, for Kaye: “one of the top firms.” Kaye specialised in the office market outside of Central London.It was early work with property developers Peter and John Beckwith via Second London Wall that sparked Kaye’s interest in commercial development. Kaye says: “They would always react when you contacted them and look at a site you recommended.” Kaye enjoyed working with them so much so that he gave notice at Knight Frank and joined London & Edinburgh Trust, the newly rechristened Second London Wall, shortly then to IPO. Looking back, Kaye reflects that he was given remarkable independence and latitude to act from inception to completion on projects from the start: “it really was a case of going in at the deep end and after about a week I had to start to swim or sink.”The 1980s represented a fascinating time for Kaye to be involved in real estate amid the Big Bang and deregulatory agenda under Thatcher, which caused a strong demand for new offices for merged investment banks, and the advent of large-scale development projects such as Broadgate and Canary Wharf. Kaye considers Canary Wharf fulfilled a useful function at the time by providing: “the very large offices for the mega investment banks who wanted a base in Europe and who could get the space they wanted at Canary Wharf without planning constraints.” For Kaye, the trade-off was that while City rents did not rise as fast as they might have done, Canary Wharf was additive and well-timed to cementing London’s role as a financial centre.Changes in planning rules under Peter Wynne Rees as Chief Planning Officer in the late 1980s expanded the amount of space that could be built on sites in the City of London. As Kaye puts it: “Until that point, you could only build five times the amount of space on the site.” From that point on, Kaye considers, the quality of architecture improved as architects and developers were given greater freedom.Kaye saw an expanded remit with London and Edinburgh Trust after it was taken over by a Swedish pension trust in April 1990. Kaye assumed the reins as CEO of a new head office in Brussels in March 1992, overseeing developments across France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. After 18 months he had begun to feel the need for a change.It was an introduction to Mike Slade in 1994 that led to Kaye’s beginnings with Helical. Kaye was brought into Helical with a brief to, “do more development”. The timing was auspicious, since the beginnings of economic recovery in the early 1990s saw recovery in demand for City offices. Helical was well positioned to serve that demand since: “It was a much smaller business then and in those days we could forward-fund developments.” Within two weeks of starting, Kaye was working on 33 Old Broad Street with Barclays Bank and Scottish Amicable, building out 190,000 square feet of development, topping out in 1997. By the time the Halifax Building Society occupied the space, the project was delivered under budget and the rents had risen over the course of the development. Kaye went on to complete with Foster and Partners their first development in the square mile at 100 Wood Street.Kaye’s pedigree makes him uniquely well-placed to observe on the current state of the office market. Kaye says: “It’s become a hackneyed phrase, but we are seeing good demand for best-in-class developments and major refurbishments. The market is weaker for poor quality space that, understandably, people do not want to occupy.” Yet Kaye observes there is also room at the smaller end since, “sub 10,000 square feet a lot of occupiers want fitted space because it saves them aggravation in having to fit it out themselves.” For Kaye, there is the appearance of established landlords behaving like flex providers and flex providers seeing to provide “enterprise offerings” to large corporates.Kaye considers that the UK REIT regime has fared well in the 20 years since its introduction, but as he puts it: “What we haven’t seen is scale.” Whereas the likes of Landsec and British Land were among the larger REITs across the world at the time of the inception of the regime, they have largely been overtaken. Without commensurate scale, Kaye fears that the UK REIT sector might not seem so appealing to international investors.Kaye considers, too, that the UK may need to become accustomed once more to a higher interest rates environment, compared to the, “extraordinary period from 2009 – 2022 when interest rates were below 1 per cent.” Kaye considers that interest rates will likely nudge down before the end of the year, stimulating the investment market, alongside rental growth, but that rates of 4 – 5 per cent are the new normal.Kaye points to a further and significant challenge that faces real estate: the capital expenditure required to meet climate resilience in Central London buildings. Kaye says: “Around 80 per cent of buildings in Central London are rated C or below on the energy performance certificate, which represents a lot of money to spend on the building stock and a challenge to decant occupiers while works are completed.” For Kaye, the direction of travel may be correct but, “the Government has been trying to force the pace too quickly and it will take longer to achieve.”In mid-July 2024, Kaye will step down from his role as CEO and board member, but he will not be leaving real estate totally behind him; he will retain a consultancy arrangement with Helical. His ongoing role will primarily concern: “projects which are on-site, and which are due to be finished in March 2026.” The new role will leave him free to bring his considerable experience to bear in the wider real estate market. As the market gets to grips with some of the challenges and opportunities he has pointed to, his expertise is sure to be in demand.You can listen to this podcast via {Apple}, {Amazon}, {Spotify}, or {SoundCloud} (and many other platforms) or just use the player above.
Former Tesla exec Jacob Monroe is a man on a mission to help deploy EV charging and get property ready for the electrification revolution. But the big story here is that many real estate investors will battle obsolescence risk over coming years due to a lack of power.
Whether it’s data centres, labs or even plain old housing – which now comes with requirements for EV charging, accessing power is proving trickier than ever. Crumbling infrastructure and a desire to rebuild Britain as a green energy hub are a backdrop for major change, but many are unsure about the opportunities or risks.
Camion Energy, launched last year, helps map power, enabling investors to deploy EV charging infrastructure efficiently and also understand what assets may be at risk. In a highly-charged conversation, Andrew Teacher quizzes Jacob on how the convergence of electrification, net zero, emerging technologies, and a new property cycle will create winners and losers.
Andrew Teacher meets Martyn Evans, one of the property industry’s best-known creative forces, to discuss his remarkable journey from The Body Shop to Landsec U+I. In a hard-hitting interview, he opens up about overcoming his own personal challenges and how he channels the spirit of Dame Anita Roddick into each and every day.
This year, Landsec celebrates its 80th birthday. Martyn Evans, creative director at Landsec U+I, who joined the business when the FTSE 100 firm acquired U+I in 2021, is playing a central role in some of the game-changing regeneration schemes that the REIT, reinvigorated under the leadership of Mark Allan, is undertaking.
In Evans’s words, Landsec is: “A business that has a huge portfolio that impacts on 100 million people every year. A business that does today what it did in 1944… to seek opportunity to regenerate places that were in trouble.” For Evans, the purpose of Landsec remains the same now as it was then, “just at a different scale and in a different world and with different levers to pull.”
The Landsec U+I creative director has an enviable pedigree in real estate and is best known for his élan in creative approaches to regeneration projects, deployed on schemes including the Deptford Project Café, a converted train carriage, and the MVMT Café in Greenwich.
In his early career, Evans established a nous for being customer-centric. Working closely with Anita and Gordon Roddick in the Body Shop’s US expansion in the 1990s was “an immense privilege.” For Evans, it cemented his ethos of “wanting to work for a company that cared about what it did very much”, including customers, the planet and its suppliers, while also turning over a profit.
Evans’s first opportunity to apply his experiences to real estate came through meeting Ofer Zeloof, owner of the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. Close to the commercial hive of Broadgate, and a rundown district in the East End, the area was hardly considered a potential retail hub at the time. Financial constraints in redeveloping the 11-acre site meant the team there were unable to “just pull the whole thing down and do a master plan… and rebuild it.” Instead, they worked with the constraints, deploying strategies that are now much more commonplace today: meanwhile use for retailers, turnover rents, and activation through event spaces, art galleries and hospitality.
Perhaps the reason this approach surfaced is because, by Evans’s own admission, he has always brought his whole self to work. Evans’s outlook is informed by influences as eclectic as The Smiths, Jane Jacobs, Bauhaus, the Pet Shop Boys and his long-time colleague Richard Upton. As Evans puts it, “everything I have had the pleasure to learn as I’ve grown, mostly from culture, has impacted on the way I do my job.”
U+I was formed through the merger of Development Securities and Cathedral Group in 2014. Real estate giant Landsec acquired U+I in 2021 to combine its development expertise with the major regeneration and placemaking chops of U+I in London and core cities like Manchester. Apart from a sojourn as Development Director at the 1,200-acre Dartington Hall in Devon, close to where he spent childhood years, Martyn Evans has been with Cathedral/U+I for more than two decades. Originally intended as a sabbatical, Evans could not resist the challenge to join a team charged with saving the financially-troubled Devon estate, once home to an art centre established by philanthropist Dorothy Whitney.
For Evans, Landsec U+I’s formation was a response to the need for successful real estate development to take into account how “messy” modern life is for many people as they navigate their roles of carer, parent, professional, student and otherwise. As Evans puts it, gone are the days where a real estate developer solely needs to “understand how very well to put one brick on top of another and some glass and steel in between and keep the roof from leaking and the heating on and the lights on and collect the rents and see yourself as a successful business.”
Instead, the challenge facing developers now is making the urban make sense. “Peoples’ lives are difficult and complex” as “all of life happens in or around property”, says Evans, and to him that means “if you’re going to succeed in our business, you have to understand the people for whom we do our job.”
Evans’s journey into the corporate machinery of listed real estate is as unlikely as it is remarkable. The stereotype of the real estate professional at the inception of Evans’s career was not that of a young gay man originally from a village in South Wales. Evans’ early life informs his conviction that considering people’s needs extends beyond the development process toward company culture and inclusivity. For Evans, “what’s important is that everybody who comes together in a workplace has a very different experience of life than you.”
Now, Evans and colleagues are turning their heads to large-scale regeneration schemes of the likes of Mayfield in Manchester and the future of Media City, a joint venture with Peel in Salford. Mayfield will, over the next 10 years, deliver 2,000 homes, and 2m sq ft of commercial space across 24 acres. In Salford there is an opportunity to revitalise the UK’s most successful media quarter, currently home to creative, tech and digital companies including ITV and BBC, and bring a new living hub for culture, retail and leisure. Landsec U+I has further plans at the 120-acre site at Hartree in North West Cambridge and the revitalisation of existing Landsec retail assets at Lewisham Town Centre and Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow.
Andrew Teacher debates offices, labs and the revival of the Docklands great estate with John Mulqueen, Chief Investment Officer at Canary Wharf Group. Leave your cynicism at the door and be prepared to visit the Wharf with an open mind.
Hosts: COPY PASTE AND CHANGEAdd imageHosts: COPY PASTE AND CHANGEIn a novel format on PropCast, Senior Advisor to Montfort, Andrew Teacher, facilitates a debate between Dr. Anna Minton, reader in architecture at the University of East London, Honorary Professor at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, and author of ‘Big Capital: Who Is London For?’, and Ryan Prince, vice chairman of Realstar Group and founder of build-to-rent brand UNCLE. The trio discuss the causes of, and possible solutions to, the housing crisis.
The John Lewis Partnership’s director of Build to Rent (BtR), Katherine Russell, joins Andrew Teacher to explain the reasoning behind the retail giant’s move into housing. The Partnership’s strategy to develop rental homes on its land and above some of its Waitrose stores could deliver thousands of additional homes in the future.
In an impassioned interview, leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, Darren Rodwell, speaks about the borough’s recent triumphs, its chequered past, and why public-private partnerships are delivering the housing, jobs, and infrastructure that will see the area continue to flourish.
Cadogan’s CEO Hugh Seaborn speaks to Andrew Teacher about the historic estate’s approach to stewardship, placemaking, and generating social value across its portfolio – which includes The Gaumont, a recently completed cultural destination on the King’s Road.
Richard Moffitt, CEO of Urban Logistics REIT, a FTSE 250-listed investment trust specialising in logistics real estate, speaks to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about the long-term positive outlook for sheds, why the REIT structure has worked for his business, and why real estate professionals can’t always manage complex operations sitting at a desk.
The third and final episode of Property Week’s Get Set for Net Zero podcast series centres on the theme of the energy revolution. PW legal and professional editor Tim Clark is joined by Scott Murray, director and head of mechanical, electrical and public health (MEP) projects at independent real estate consultancy Hollis; and Tom Wigg, senior advisor in advancing net zero at the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), to discuss how the property industry can meet the country’s changing energy requirements on the path to 2050.
Almost every effort to reach net zero will require teamwork both inside and outside the organisation, whether it’s through sustainability-linked financing, landlord-tenant collaboration, or supply-chain action to address Scope 3 emissions. This podcast focuses on the opportunities and difficulties presented by the need to work together to reach shared environmental goals, including practical steps, proven initiatives, contractual approaches and missteps to avoid.
The first episode in Property Week's Get Set for Net Zero podcast series discusses how the industry can make retrofitting more rewarding.
Honor Barratt, chief executive of assisted living developer Birchgrove, and Caryn Donahue, head of the senior living and healthcare team at Savills, speak to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about the state of the later living sector.
James Saunders, chief executive officer of developer and asset manager Quintain is in the interview seat in PropCast this week, discussing the firm’s flagship Wembley Park development, the importance of branding in real estate, and why listed real estate firms can struggle to complete large redevelopment schemes on time.
Louis-Simon Ferland, founder and CEO of pan-European real estate investment manager Boreal IM, speaks to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher to discuss the opportunities in logistics, the challenges of starting a business, and why ESG isn’t just a nice-to-have but plain business sense.
Lisette van Doorn, chief executive of the Urban Land Institute – the oldest and largest network of real estate and land use experts in the world – speaks to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about how real estate has become increasingly globalised, the importance of taking an interdisciplinary approach, and the organisation’s pioneering work supporting career development in schools.
BioMed Realty’s Colleen O’Connor, Babraham Research Campus’ Derek Jones, and JLL’s Chris Walters join Montfort’s Andrew Teacher to discuss the outlook for life sciences, the challenges of creating high-spec lab space, and why the success of the industry should be cause for optimism in the UK.
Graeme Craig, Director and Chief Executive Officer of Places for London – Transport for London’s wholly-owned property company – speaks to Andrew Teacher about delivering affordable homes, the importance of building sustainably, and its multiple joint ventures across the capital.
Harry Hyman, founder and CEO of FTSE-250 listed Primary Health Properties (PHP) speaks to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about the challenges facing not only the healthcare sector, but British politics and indeed opera.
In one of the highest-profile interviews to date, Peter Freeman, chairman of Homes England joins Montfort’s Andrew Teacher on PropCast to talk building more social housing, his ambition to supercharge Cambridge into the UK’s Silicon Valley, and why property development is a little bit like filmmaking.
Elisabeth Montgomerie, building design sustainability lead at global design and engineering firm AtkinsRéalis, and Martina Concordia, senior project manager at Buro Four, talk sustainability, climate risk, leadership and change within the built environment sector.
Andrew Teacher sits down with Rachel Miller from Housing Growth Partnership (HGP), a subsidiary of Lloyds funded by both the bank and Homes England, and John Tatham from PfP Capital, Places for People’s fund management arm, to discuss how their joint venture is leading the charge for higher-quality housing.
Mark Bourgeois, founder of Velement Real Estate Advisory, former interim director of city develoment at Liverpool City Council and former managing director of Hammerson in the UK and Ireland, speaks to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about retail, regeneration, and how the city of Liverpool is once again open for business.
Joining Montfort’s Andrew Teacher, three hospitality experts – Jackie Newstead, real estate partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, Derek Griffin, FTSE 100-listed Whitbread’s head of acquisitions, and Richard Servidei, co-founder of alternative property consultancy firm AREA – offer their perspectives on the challenges facing the sector, and where some of the best opportunities currently lie.
On the latest episode of PropCast, Montfort’s Andrew Teacher is joined by BGO’s Nick Cassaro, for an insightful discussion focused on the life sciences industry. It touches on the formula for a flourishing sector, how to best cater to tenants using real estate, the lessons the UK life sciences industry can learn from the US – and more.
Shaun Simons, co-founder of Compton – a punchy commercial property agency specialising in the City Fringe – speaks to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about the evolution of Tech City, why agents should act more like marketing firms, and the ever-increasing operationalisation of the office sector.
Grosvenor Property UK’s chief executive James Raynor is in the interview seat this week, discussing how the historic estate balances innovation and stewardship, the importance of diversity in creating strong teams, and its role in fostering economic growth – not just in London’s West End, but across the UK and indeed the globe.
Andrew Teacher sits down with data science firm Outra’s Peter Jackson and the Vulnerability Registration Service’s (VRS) Helen Lord to discuss a new partnership from the two organisations which suggests that nearly 2.5 million British households are at high risk of vulnerability.
As the challenges of 2023 impact on real estate investment, Montfort’s Andrew Teacher and Alexander Peace have surveyed the real estate landscape and identified 10 core trends in Hitting Reset: Real Estate Themes for the Next Cycle. Download the report here: https://lnkd.in/eayPfpCu.In the second of a trilogy of propcasts, the pair discuss chapters four to six which focus on where investors are looking outside of the traditional sectors as 2023 continues to challenge investment strategies.
Andrew Teacher speaks to Anna Strongman, CEO of Oxford University Development (OUD), a joint venture between Legal & General and Oxford University. OUD is bringing forward seven research and residential development sites in Oxford, a city at the beating heart of Britain’s knowledge economy. Strongman discusses the challenges and opportunities that come with bringing so many different development sites to Oxford, navigating the push and pull of the city’s different needs and demands.
2023 is set to become one of the most turbulent years for real estate since the global financial crisis. To help you understand the changing industry context, Montfort’s Andrew Teacher and Alexander Peace have surveyed the real estate landscape and identified 10 core trends in Hitting Reset: Real Estate Themes for the Next Cycle. Download the report here: https://lnkd.in/eayPfpCu.In this first of three propcasts they discuss chapters one to three, covering the financial aspects of how values, sectors and strategies are evolving.
Assura’s CEO Jonathan Murphy returns to PropCast for a second time. The CEO of the FTSE 250-listed REIT, which develops, invests in, and manages a portfolio of primary healthcare facilities across the UK, discusses the role of the private sector in supporting the NHS, the inflation-hedging nature of healthcare property, and the importance of retrofitting in keeping buildings sustainable.
Doug Jamieson, senior managing director at Savills in New York – and co-product manager of the firm’s portfolio analytics and visualisation platform Knowledge Cubed – joins Montfort’s Andrew Teacher to discuss the changing nature of the office market in the Big Apple and beyond, the greater need for data in the changing world of work, and why the real estate industry shouldn’t fear AI.
Leeds City Council’s chief executive Tom Riordan speaks to Andrew Teacher about his 13-year tenure working to harness investment, unlocking thousands of new homes, and reversing regional brain drain. Railing against the “debating society” culture of national politics and the failure to invest in regional transport, he hails Leeds’ success attracting major new occupiers and its future as the country’s health-tech capital. Just don’t mention the football.
Colin Godfrey, chief executive of FTSE 250 Tritax Big Box REIT and chief executive of fund management at Tritax Group discusses how the company’s focus on people, platform, pipeline and performance has propelled returns for investors as it nears the ten-year anniversary since Big Box was listed. Speaking with Montfort Real Estate’s managing director Andrew Teacher, Godfrey heralded a new age of logistics that is prioritising decarbonisation and ensuring that occupiers benefit from intelligent buildings that help them retain staff and drive productivity in a climate where the war for talent is raging harder than ever.
Clustering, co-locations and a laser-like focus on customers are some of the things that British Land’s boss believes will drive value as it broadens its campus strategy to include life sciences, logistics and housing.Chief executive Simon Carter speaks to Andrew Teacher, formerly the founder of Blackstock Consulting and now managing director at Montfort Real Estate after its merger last year, in an unscripted, hard-hitting and wide-ranging conversation. The pair cover everything from British Land’s 40-year tenure at Regent’s Place, the renaissance of retail parks and the rise of life sciences; through to its campaigning work improving child literacy.
Ibrahim Ibrahim of Portland Design, Radius Tech’s Burak Capli, and The Good Economy’s Vivienne King join Andrew Teacher to discuss the future of retail shopping. All three guests have contributed to Ibrahim’s new book, Future-Ready Retail, which explains how to make retail spaces smarter going into the future.
Aviva Investors’ real assets boss Ben Sanderson sits down with Andrew Teacher from Montfort Real Estate to discuss where the sector is headed amidst a challenging economic climate.
Geeta Nanda OBE, chief executive of Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH), one of the country’s largest housing associations, speaks to Andrew Teacher about how a greater focus on housing can be a vote winner, help ease pressure on public services, and support some of the country’s most vulnerable people during an ongoing cost of living crisis.
Group director of development and sales at one of the UK’s largest housing associations, L&Q’s Vicky Savage, tells Andrew Teacher about the non-profit's role beyond delivering housing and how the industry can improve to better serve its employees and customers.
Global head of ESG at Fiera Real Estate, Jessica Pilz, sits down with Andrew Teacher for a wide-ranging discussion on the responsibilities for investors, asset managers, owners and operators, and the government in creating the conditions for net zero in the built environment.
Jessica Hardman, head of European real estate portfolio management and UK real estate group at DWS, speaks to Montfort Real Estate’s Andrew Teacher about the asset manager’s confidence in UK living sectors as an investment class, reflects on lessons from the Great Financial Crisis, and adds nuance to the refurb versus rebuild debate.
Socius director Olaide Oboh and Savills Earth’s new director of social value Wesley Ankrah tell Montfort Real Estate’s Andrew Teacher that developers could play a critical role in supporting culture and youth development.
Russell Pedley, co-founder and director of Assael Architecture; Mark Davy, who founded the culture and placemaking consultancy Futurecity; and Marcus Foley, the founder of the international advertising consultancy Tommy, join Andrew Teacher to discuss the role and potential impact of culture in build-to-rent (BTR) developments.
Troy Harvey, CEO of software firm PassiveLogic discusses how building automation can help the architectural and construction industries design and engineer next-generation buildings.
The head of proptech for JLL in the Asia-Pacific region, Jordan Kostelac, speaks to Andrew Teacher about the area’s unique lessons for real estate and why we’re aiming at the wrong targets when it comes to moderninising the sector.
Toby Courtauld chats with Andrew Teacher, reflecting on 20 years at the helm of one of London’s largest office landlords, GPE, and what the next decade might bring for the real estate sector.
Andrew Teacher is joined by David Green-Morgan, global head of real assets research at MSCI, to discuss the similarities and differences between real estate markets in the UK and Asia-Pacific – and the importance of data in understanding them.
Having acquired Harwell in 2020 and Arlington in 2021, Brookfield is building a Europe-wide network of innovation clusters catering to emerging technologies in life sciences, energy, quantum computing and space. With decades of experience leading Blackstone’s global expansion, ARC boss Stuart Grant joins Andrew Teacher with Dr Barbara Ghinelli, chief scientific advisor at ARC and director of innovation at UKRI-STFC to explain why there’s no limit to the group’s ambitions.
In this special 150th edition of PropCast, Montfort’s Andrew Teacher talks current market uncertainties with real estate industry heavyweights Lorna Brown, formerly of RBS, Blackstone and Delancey and now founder at Birchwood Real Estate Capital, Bill Hughes, Global Head of Real Assets at L&G and Property Industry Alliance Chairman, and Ian Marcus OBE, senior advisor at Eastdil, former British Property Federation president, board advisor to multiple listed firms and former trustee of the Prince’s Foundation.
Steven Medway, retail veteran and chief executive of the Knightsbridge and King’s Road Partnerships – two Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in the capital – discusses the importance of businesses working together to build a prosperous future for high streets in London and beyond.
Founder and CEO of Pacaso, Austin Allison, discusses how co-ownership has become the smart and responsible model of purchasing a second home, and could help ease the affordability problem in in-demand areas.
In the latest episode of PropCast, steward and custodian of rural Bradford Estates, Alexander Newport, discusses the unique role of a landed estate as both a business and a custodian of the English countryside and its communities.
AustralianSuper’s Head of European Property, Paul Clark, spoke to Blackstock Consulting’s founder, Andrew Teacher about establishing the Fund’s real estate presence in London and why working for organisations with purpose lends itself to long-term investment.
In an uplifting episode of PropCast, Richard Threlfall sets out the pressures that will force businesses to act on the climate crisis, as well as the opportunities and challenges created by the infrastructure of the future.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Craig Hughes, CEO of partnerships and John Williams, global CMO at The Instant Group join Blackstock Consulting’s founder Andrew Teacher to discuss the changing market for workspaces and the importance of choice and flexibility in the future of offices.
In the latest episode of BossCast, Andy Hulme, CEO of Hyde Housing, talks to Blackstock Consulting’s founder Andrew Teacher about the housing association’s recent legal victory over a construction contractor, and how the property industry can do better on equality and diversity.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Kate Nottidge, director of social impact at Grosvenor, and Dr Eime Tobari, social value strategist and founder of COCREATIF, join Blackstock’s founder Andrew Teacher to discuss the challenges in defining and delivering social impact in real estate.
The property industry has come a long way to create a more diverse environment, but there is still much more to do to ensure its inclusive nature in the long term. In the latest episode of PropCast, Martin Prince-Parrott, Founder of SUB\URBAN WORKSHOP and Muyiwa Oki, Architectural Manager at Mace and a 2023 RIBA Presidential candidate discuss barriers, corporate social responsibility and how the built environment can be more diverse.
In the latest episode of BossCast, Canary Wharf Group’s managing director of people, culture and customer experience Jane Hollinshead speaks about the areas where real estate has been successful in championing equality, diversity and inclusion, and the lengths it still has to go.
IMMO’s co-founder Samantha Kempe explains how tech is helping institutional investors access single-family rental (SFR) and in the latest episode of BossCast with Andrew Teacher, she sets out her stall for why the most sustainable buildings are the ones already built.
In the latest ESG episode of PropCast, Christopher Wright, Norges Bank Investment Management’s head of ESG risk monitoring, explains how the sovereign wealth fund uses its size and influence to guide its investments towards better ESG outcomes.
In the latest BossCast, Nick Sanderson, CEO of Audley Group, discusses the pressing need for better retirement housing, the scale of the investment opportunity in the later living sector, and why we need to rethink how we treat the country’s older population.
After more than a decade at the helm of BOXPARK, a company that has enjoyed unparalleled success in demonstrating the power of experiential retail, Roger Wade announced this week that he is stepping down as CEO. Shortly before the news went public, Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher sat down with the enigmatic entrepreneur for a particularly spirited interview.
In the latest episode of BossCast, Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher sits down with Marcus Meijer, CEO of MARK, the pan-European real estate investment manager formerly known as Meyer Bergman. Starting off with his love of art, cities and architecture, which can be seen in the regeneration of Borough Yards and the Whiteley in London, Marcus then discusses the company’s multi-platform approach to investment and why aggregating granular assets underpins its European ‘beds and sheds’ strategy.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Asif Din, Anna Harper, and Patrick Brown speak to Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher about the recent row that has erupted around the planned demolition of Marks & Spencer’s flagship Oxford Street store and the Mayor of London, why it matters, and what the real estate industry can do to better engage on embodied carbon.
In the latest episode of PropCast, two of the largest and most experienced real estate providers in life sciences real estate discuss their landmark new joint report, the regional growth in UK start-ups, and the flexibility of space that they need with founder and managing director of Blackstock Consulting, Andrew Teacher.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Gabriela Hersham, David Hutton, and Alistair Subba Row speak to Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher about how the events of the last two years have caused a shift in priorities in the office sector.
Satellite Vu boss Anthony Baker and Jessica Williamson, proptech strategist at DLUHC, spoke to Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher on the latest episode of PropCast about how technology is solving the built environment’s toughest ESG challenges.
Jonathan Seal, Regal London’s CEO, discusses the company’s unique approach to mixed-use development in the latest episode of BossCast, where the leading figures in global real estate share insight from their time at the top table with Blackstock Consulting founder Andrew Teacher.
In this latest edition of our Bosscast series, Blackstock Consulting founder Andrew Teacher catches up with Jonathon Ivory, Packaged Living’s managing director of single family homes to discuss the company’s recent partnership with Aviva Investors and emerging trends in BTR (build-to-rent).
Giles Mackay has a strong claim to being the forefather of proptech in the UK. Following a triumphant track record in structured finance, performance marketing and founding the housing analytics company he sold to Zoopla, the serial entrepreneur has raised £50 million to launch an ‘iBuyer’ called Upstix and is on track to raise a further £200m in the coming weeks. As he discusses on this property podcast, UPSTIX could do for housing what Cazoo has done for second-hand cars.
In one of the most energetic and varied BossCast episodes to date, Orion Capital Managers co-founder Van Stults discusses redeveloping BT’s headquarters, a constant desire to evolve into new markets, and why all companies should be backing ULI’s UrbanPlan charity.
In the latest BossCast, Blackstock Consulting's Andrew Teacher talks to Richard Croft, executive chairman of M7, a pan-european real estate investment firm. The pair discuss changing patterns of work, lessons learned in the global financial crisis and uncharted waters in tech.
Changing consumer demands and a renewed focus on sustainable tourism has forced designers and developers to adapt their approach, according to global design experts from Perkins&Will and Accor. Neil Andrew and Federico Toresi joined Blackstock’s Andrew Teacher and Tamar van der Hoek to discuss where the hotel industry goes from here.
In the latest of Blackstock Consulting’s PropCast series, Pocket Living’s Marc Vlessing and Nick Cuff join Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher to discuss their approach to providing affordable modular homes to middle-income earners, or “city makers”, in London.
In a jam-packed episode of PropCast, Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher discussed turnover rent, location decision-making with AI, the office market, and the environment with two experts in property: Malcolm Frodsham and Andy Martin.
In the latest episode of BossCast, Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher talks to alstria’s Olivier Elamine about the REIT’s thinking behind its ‘green dividend’ and lessons learned from Germany’s office market.
On the popular BossCast series, Gonzalo Galindo, Head of the Corporate Venture Capital arm of CEMEX, argued that investing in green technology is key to reducing the environmental impact of one of the world’s most polluting industries: cement manufacturing.
Ryan Prince, founder of Realstar Group’s build-to-rent arm UNCLE, sits down with Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher for the latest episode of BossCast. They discuss the role technology can play within BTR and what the sector can learn from the world of hotels.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Samsung Electronics’ Murtaza Bukhari and Etopia Group’s Joseph Daniels sat down with Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher to discuss what net zero really means for consumers and how the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) will revolutionise our homes.
In the first of a series of PropCast episodes dedicated to the life sciences, Kaleigh Haeg from Source Bioscience and Science Kode, and Syncona’s Alex Hamilton discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the UK’s burgeoning life sciences sector in an episode recorded at the end of 2021.
In an explosive episode of PropCast, former Conservative cabinet minister Steven Norris slams Boris Johnson’s leadership, praises Michael Gove’s handling of the cladding crisis and calls for overhaul of how the West End is governed.
In this episode of BossCast, Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher sat down with Alecta's Frans Heijbel, head of international real assets, to discuss the Swedish pension fund’s strategy in real estate.
Darren Gardner and Dr Tara Quinn-Cirillo explain how Nido Student is helping to support its residents and solve some of the problems they are facing through its mental health program.
In the latest episode of BossCast, Geeta Nanda OBE, chief executive of Metropolitan Thames Valley and chair of the G15 of London’s largest housing associations, and Harry Downes, managing director of Fizzy Living, sat down with Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher to reflect on their ‘fabulous’ ten year build-to-rent partnership following the news that Metropolitan has divested its remaining stake in Fizzy Living to Greystar.
Following BossCasts with Landsec, Shaftesbury, Argent and Grainger, Assura boss Jonathan Murphy sat down with Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher in the latest episode of BossCast, the property podcast putting senior executives through their paces on some of the industry’s biggest issues. Murphy discusses the changing face of high street health centres and considers their role in replacing retail as the anchor of many town centres.
Mark Farmer, chief executive of Cast and Chris Bone, co-founder of digital ConTech firm Modulous, sat down with Andrew Teacher from Blackstock Consulting in the latest episode of BossCast to discuss how construction is getting on five years after the Farmer Review warned the sector must “modernise or die”.
In the latest episode of PropCast, Anthea Harries, head of assets for Argent’s King’s Cross development, Ibrahim Ibrahim, managing director of Portland Design and Alex McCulloch, director at CACI discuss high street regeneration with Blackstock Consulting’s Anna Beketov.
Charlie Green, co-founder of The Office Group sat down with Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher in the latest episode of our BossCast series to discuss the future of the work, why sustainability is at the core of its strategy and why he wants to be everyone’s flexible friend.
Daniel Daggers - better known to some as #MrSuperPrime - is a major player in the London super prime industry. As founder of Daniel Daggers Real Estate, his focus on digital services and social media has made him a real estate legend to his 70,000 followers. He sat down with Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher to talk about how the market is changing.
Janine Cole, sustainability and social impact director at Great Portland Estates plc, and Sarah Ratcliffe, chief executive of Better Buildings Partnership, sat down with Andrew Teacher from Blackstock Consulting to discuss how the commercial real estate sector can champion sustainability ahead of COP26 in the latest episode of PropCast.
Helen Evans, CEO of Network Homes, and Jamie Ratcliff, the housing association's executive director of people and partnerships, sat down with Andrew Teacher of Blackstock Consulting to discuss building safety, four years on from the Grenfell Tower fire.
Public-private partnerships are enjoying a resurgence with the co-location of housing alongside offices and last-mile logistics becoming an emerging solution for urban regeneration, Be First chief planning director Caroline Harper, Enfield Council’s executive director of place Sarah Cary, and Emily Newton, associate director at Assael Architecture told PropCast.
Paul Buddin and Matt Evans from TopHat, alongside Jo Cowen, founder of Jo Cowen Architects, sat down with Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher in the latest episode of PropCast to discuss the future of the UK’s housing, particularly the growing contribution of modern methods of construction (MMC).
Sophie White, director of the Infrastructure Grant at Homes England and Sarah Horden, co-founder and COO of Modulous, a digital construction firm, sat down with Andrew Teacher from Blackstock Consulting to discuss the contributions that the public and private sectors can make to the future of housing.
Nick Searl and Robert Evans, Argent’s joint managing partners and Partners of Argent Related spoke to Blackstock Consulting’s founder Andrew Teacher in the latest episode of BossCast, where the leading figures in global real estate and proptech come to be grilled and share insight from their time at the top table.
In our latest podcast, Harriet Walker-Arnot, head of spaces at FlowSpace and Yohance Harper, associate partner at Quadrant Estates, joined Anna Beketov to discuss the ULI’s mentorship scheme and the transformative impact it can have on the career development of young people in real estate.
The resilience of Britain’s build-to-rent sector has been most clearly demonstrated in the regions, says Grainger’s chief executive in the latest episode of our BossCast series, where we go toe-to-toe with the biggest names in real estate.
Soho Estates’ John James told Blackstock Consulting’s Andrew Teacher about his pride in collaborating closely with West End independents and why Warner’s new West End hub is a boost for London’s film industry.
Shamez Alibhai and Patrick Bergin discuss how modern methods of construction (MMC) are on track to be the dominant form of construction in the sector.
In this all-female PropCast episode, three of the industry’s big hitters discussed the wide ranging challenges faced by the real estate sector in overcoming a lack of gender, ethnic and social diversity. Former BPF boss and board advisor Liz Peace CBE, government advisor and architect Sadie Morgan OBE and founder of drMM and British Land executive director Emma Cariaga told Blackstock Consulting’s Anna Beketov that the sector can become more inclusive without being patronising.
Chris Oglesby goes into detail about his company’s values and strategy, particularly how collaboration and partnerships lie at the heart of the organisation. Oglesby speaks about regenerating town centres, building innovation districts, his thoughts on the future of the office sector, and much more.
Simon Durkin joins our real estate podcast to share insights on the future for logistics and offices.BlackRock's head of real estate research discusses the need to be cautious on evaluating risk in hot sectors like logistics and the opportunities for a new strata of offices to emerge as occupiers reassess their workspace demands.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola were joined by Jason Patterson, an experienced property investor who specialises in buying short leases and making huge profits from it. This episode is packed with lots of inspiration and nuggets as Jason shared his journey and how he transitioned from teaching into full time property after replacing and quadrupling his salary in the process. Jason is passionate about teaching and brings that into the property space with his Reach one, Teach one philosophy. Jason is an active member of the Property Investing 101 group on clubhouse teaching others how to profit in property. He can be contacted on instagram @j_p_p_21 and on Clubouse as well For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola were joined by Toby White, a young and successful property sourcer who started his property journey watching YouTube videos and then when the penny dropped, he took this further and invested in his education! Toby started in November 2020 and has well over 50 property deals to date. What a fantastic result! Listening to Toby's dedication to property and his achievements to date is very inspiring and hopefully others can learn and be inspired by him. Toby is currently working towards 5 income streams - Deal sourcing, dIgital currency, digital marketing, property investing and one other. Toby can be contacted via email toby@white.properties.co.uk and on social media For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest Mr Sodiq Suleman aka Mr Generational Wealth. Sodiq is an estate planner, insurance director and financial coach. Sodiq is very passionate about creating wealth to the next 2 generations so they have the freedom of choice in terms of time and life pursuit. This podcast episode is very informative with regards building a wealth mindset, protecting one's assets and providing financially for one's family. Mr Sodiq can be reached via instagram @mrgenerationalwealth. Book some time with him for a free consultation to discuss your specific family wealth plan. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every other Thursday between 12noon- 1pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest Emmanuel Asuquo, Financial Adviser, TV Personality and Speaker. Emmanuel has been on ITV, BBC ONE and Channel 4 adding value everywhere he goes. Emmanuel is passionate about teaching people how to make their money work very hard for them. He believes we all need to have a VISION and a WHY. This was what fuelled his success and made him the youngest financial adviser at the age of 22. Check out his page on instagram @theemaneffectuk for gems which he shares with a lot of humour and banter! For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every other Thursday between 12noon- 1pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola were joined by David Giraldo, a successful property sourcer who within the last 18months has grown his business to a 6 figure income and made such an impact through a lot of grafting and hardwork. David is definitely an inspiration and one to watch out for. We were so privileged to hear his journey as he dropped so much nuggets. Tune in for more and let it inspire you to success. David's contact details: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgiraldopropertyexpert Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.a.giraldo.33 For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest Noah Ibrahim Property Developer and CEO of Novarick Homes & Properties Limited, a premium solar powered lifestyle apartments in Lagos, Nigeria. Noah recently featured in The Entrepreneur Africa magazine as the Future of Real Estate and 3D Housing. Noah believes his money is in the hands of other people and he has to work to get it back by providing value. Lots of nuggets and investment opportunities shared on today's podcast. Tune in to get the full gist. Noah can be reached on instagram @novarickhomes. Check out www.novarickhomes.com for full details of the development For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every other Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola had fun speaking to Stephanie Taylor from Rent To Rent Success and had a fascinating conversation on her property journey. Stephanie transitioned from corporate life to property entrepreneur in order to have the lifestyle of her choosing. She owns a successful Rent to Rent company and also does property developments as well. We uncover the challenges and success along the way. Stephanie has kindly agreed to providing a free copy of her Rent 2 Rent Success book, just follow the instructions below.
If you'd like a free copy of Stephanie's book Rent 2 Rent Success: Your Ethical 6-Step System to Get You Started in Property without Buying It. 1. Leave a review for the Propcast Podcast in your podcast app 2. Screenshot the review and email it to Angelica at support@rent2rentsuccess.com with your postal address. 3. We'll post a paperback copy to you if you're in the UK and email the electronic version to anywhere else in the world For more information or to get in touch with Stephanie please check; HMO Heaven website https://hmoheaven.co.uk Rent 2 Rent Success website https://rent2rentsuccess.com Join the Rent 2 Rent Success Secrets facebook group https://rent2rentsuccess.com/group
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola had fun spending an imaginary £100k on Property and it was well spent on amazing deals using different strategies. Tune in for some tips What would you do with £100k if given the opportunity? For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest Anne Houlton Property Investor, Trainer, Ex-dentist and Mentor. Anne and her husband both replaced their individual 6 figure salaries and are now full time property investors. Anne has been in properties for 20 years and currently has 84 properties which net about £20k per month. She is the queen of the BRRR strategy which was how she exponentially grew her portfolio. BRRR strategy is Buy, Refurbish, Refinance, Rent strategy. Anne believes the most important thing about property investment is the mindset. Tune in to get the full gist. So much value shared on this podcast. Anne can be reached on instagram @annehoulton and via the progressive property site - www.progressiveproperty.co.uk For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest TJ Atkinson, Property Investor, Author, Mentor and Coach. TJ is very successful in the Serviced Accommodation strategy and has coached and helped 100s of BAME group get into property through his property mentoring program. TJ shared his property journey with us. TJ is brutality honest, very outspoken and has a real passion to help others succeed. TJ's property journey is inspirational and he didn't hesitate to share his secret to success with us. TJ is the author of a book called 'Untangling Success'. He also recommends the book 'What to say when you talk to yourself'. Tj can be contacted via Instagram @tjalife. Untangling Success - https://amzn.to/38CxyOT (https://amzn.to/38CxyOT) (Kindle) Untangling Success - https://amzn.to/38A4A1W (https://amzn.to/38A4A1W)(Normal) What to say when you talk to yourself - https://amzn.to/3bKeb8E (https://amzn.to/3bKeb8E) (Kindle) What to say when you talk to yourself - https://amzn.to/3tdwdWH (https://amzn.to/3tdwdWH)(Normal) For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our room PROPCHAT with various guests and answering property related questions.
Today's podcast is focused on first-time buyers. This is a term used to describe a potential house buyer who has not previously owned a property. In the UK, there are several government schemes that can help a first time buyer buy a home. These include Help to Buy, Right to Buy and Shared Ownership schemes. Right to Buy is for tenants who rent their home from their local council, Help to Buy is available to those with a small deposit and Shared ownership is where you buy a share of a home from the landlord, who is usually the council or a housing association, and rent the remaining share. In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest Topsy-Taiwo, a property investor, presenter & content creator who is very passionate about helping first time buyers get on the property ladder. Topsy-Taiwo can be contacted via Instagram @topsytaiwo and @propertypurchaser. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our show called PROPCHAT with various guests and q&a sessions.
Social Housing landlords are currently struggling to keep up the demand for housing and are now looking to private landlords to help. However most private landlords are not as interested because the LHA (Local Housing Allowance) offered rarely match the market rates. With the number of claims increasing due to the pandemic, private landlords might find themselves in situations where a once paying tenant is now reliant on the government for help. With not enough social housing, private landlords will need to step up & with the government helping by boosting rates - the strategy is a win/win scenario. The social housing market is worth billions in the UK. It's time for private landlords to get a slice of the pie. In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest Mike Frisby, full time property developer, investor, mentor and strategist who works with those that wish to create long term wealth and security through property investment. Mike is the number 1 trainer on Social Housing Strategy in the UK. Mike can be contacted by email: pa@mikefrisby.co.uk, by telephone on 01483 516 299 or via linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikefrisby/ For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our show called PROPCHAT with various guests and q&a sessions.
Getting finance is the lifeline of every property investor as being able to leverage with a mortgage or a bridge loan is one of the major advantages of investing in properties. The role of a mortgage broker is quite key to this and every investor needs to have a great broker within their power team. In today's podcast, Dami & Bimbola interviewed their guest Geeta Patel, a mortgage broker from Lemon Tree Financial, an award winning brokerage firm in the UK. Geeta talked about the current status of the mortgage market and also shared her personal journey as a property investor If you would like to discuss your personal situation with Geeta and want to understand what your finance options are, we will be happy to put you in touch with her. Geeta Patel can also be found on her website www.lemontreefinancial.com. Telephone number is 02087237517 For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our show called PROPCHAT with various guests and q&a sessions.
What is a SSAS Pension? SSAS stands for Small Self Administered Scheme. It is a type of pension available to business owners, and allows access to private pension funds before the age of 55. Dami & Bimbola speak with Paul Barry from SSAS Consultants to understand further what a SSAS is and how you can benefit from it in your business. If you would like to discuss your personal situation with Paul and want to understand if a SSAS is right for you then fill in this form at tiny.cc/ssaspropcast and we will put you in touch with Paul. Paul can also be found on his website https://ssas-consultant.co.uk/ For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast. We are on Clubhouse every Thursday between 6pm-7pm hosting our show called PROPCHAT with various guests and q&a sessions.
Education is a foundation needed in every aspect of life and property investing is no different. Investing in property is probably one of the most expensive purchases one will make, so it’s important to get educated and know everything there is to know before committing. Without the right knowledge, one can easily make mistakes and mistakes in property could be very costly! Tune in this week as Bimbola & Dami discuss how property education has helped pushed them along in their journey and continues to. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has had a massive impact on the economy and the property sector is not exempt. This has caused a lot of uncertainties around what will happen after the lockdown restriction and stamp duty holiday in the UK. Behind the scenes however, there are other forces at work in the property sector which has affected the whole buying process Tune in this week as Bimbola & Dami discuss the effect COVID has had on the whole buying and selling process in the pandemic For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
R2R (Rent to Rent) is a low cost entry into Property Management. This works by renting a property, usually for a few years from a landlord and pay them a guaranteed rent. This property will then be rented for a higher rent than you’re paying the landlord. The difference between the rent you receive from your tenants and the rent you pay the landlord less expenses is the profit for you and your business Tune in this week as Bimbola & Dami share their experience of R2R as well as the pros and cons of this strategy For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
We've heard the saying Time is Money but most of us don't actually know how much our time is really worth. Knowing this will help us evaluate carefully the value of our time, how we spend our time and what we exchange our time for. In the property business, a lot of time goes into sourcing deals, researching, getting finance, refurbishment, refinancing etc. All of these takes time and knowing how to delegate or outsource this is key to saving you money once you know the value of your time. Tune in this week as Bimbola & Dami share their thoughts on this topic and how sometimes trying to save money by doing work yourself could end up being quite an expensive venture. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
Brexit, COVID, Section 24 Tax Changes, Bounce Bank Loans, Furlough, Stamp Duty Holiday, these are all the different factors that could affect the housing market in 2021 and beyond. There are rumours of recession, price crash and all sorts. So this week, Bimbola & Dami share their own prediction of the 2021 housing market. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
Happy New Year All. The New Year is always a season of setting goals, making plans and taking stock of the previous year. Lots happened in 2020 and it was indeed a year not to be forgotten! Bimbola & Dami on this podcast episode share with the listeners how they celebrated their Christmas break and discussed plans for the new year. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
Traditionally, investment in Properties has provided a lucrative income stream for investors however just like life is full of challenges, Property is no different. There are a number of property investment challenges which are often overlooked by new investors and today’s podcast covers the challenges you need to consider and overcome for success in your property investment journey. (Re) Valuation Voids Challenging Tenants Inability to sell in the current market Expensive Finance Bad Builders Low Capital Groth Interest Rates
This is not an exhaustive list so if you require more information or training/coaching please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
In this week's episode we explore the things to watch out for during the viewing of a property. Properties are usually one of the largest purchases you will make and you usually have a 15 minute window to complete the vieiwing. It is therefore good to know the type of things you should look out for to maximise the time you have. Some of the points discussed in this episode; Damp Windows Building Relationships Double Checking everything the agents tell you
We also provide a ninja tip which can ultimately help you with your property purchase. If you are interested in creating wealth from properties for passive income, please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
In this week's episode we explore "The Three E's" you may encounter in your property journey. Entry Cost Education Experience
If you are interested in creating wealth from properties for passive income, please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
So you've found a great deal now its time to finance it, what next? In this week's episode we explore different creative finance options you could use to fund your property purchase. We run through the following creative finance options Bank of Mum, Dad, Family and Friends Credit Cards Lease Options Underwriting Bridging Finance Joint Ventures Vendor Finance Equity Release First Time Buyer Scheme
If you are interested in creating wealth from properties for passive income, please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
Have you ever felt there was a stumbling block to starting your property journey? Have you ever felt lack of money is a reason you are not able to purchase property? In this week's episode we explore how looking for and finding deals allows your mind to creatively find the funds necessary to complete the deal. What has your experience been? Have you been able to creatively fund a good deal when not having the money initially? If you are interested in creating wealth from properties for passive income, please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
Entering the world of property can be confusing and your hosts Dami and Bimbola talk about different strategies within property explaining what each one is. Property Strategies discussed in this episode. Single Lets Houses Of Multiple Occupation (HMO) Commercial Conversions Buy Refurbish Refinance Land Development Title Split
If you are interested in creating wealth from properties for passive income, please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
Financial Freedom is very appealing to a lot of people and is a great financial goal. Most people think it's either you have enough or you don't without realising there are various levels to wealth. Knowing and breaking it down into these five escalating levels make them feel a lot more achievable; once you reach one level, it becomes a lot easier to reach for the next level If you are interested in creating wealth from properties for passive income, please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
Traditionally, investment in Properties has provided a lucrative income stream for investors however just like life is full of challenges, Property is no different. There are a number of property investment challenges which are often overlooked by new investors and today’s podcast covers the challenges you need to consider and overcome for success in your property investment journey This is not an exhaustive list so if you require more information or training/coaching please do feel free to reach the hosts Bimbola Osagie and Dami Siyanbola For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
The death of Chadwick Boseman really really hit us and got us thinking of the legacy that he left behind, not just for his family but across the world. Although Boseman was diagnosed with cancer and was faced with death every single day but his tenacity, work ethic, passion and strength was so inspirational and one can see how he gave his very best up until his dying moment. The topic of today’s podcast is Legacy. This is dedicated to Chadwick and to all his achievement and impact on this generation. Tune in as Bimbola and Dami discuss lessons learnt from his life and death and they delved a little more into legacy creation. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
2020 is surely a year that will not be forgotten so quickly. The year started with the death of Kobe Bryant and whilst still mourning that, the COVID Pandemic stopped the whole world on its tracks with everyone forced into lockdown. As if that was not enough, the killing of a Black Man in America and the Black Lives Matter movement sent many into a state. Recession then kicked off afterwards and on its heels came the death of a giant, Chadwick Boseman the lead actor of the movie Black Panther. All these and it's not even the end of the year! No one could have predicted 2020. Tune in as Bimbola and Dami discuss all the events of 2020 and what has been their personal experience as property investors, blacks and as parents. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com or engage us on Instagram @prop_cast
In this episode of Propcast, Bimbola and Dami have a chat about the "R" word. On the 12th August after figures were released it became official that the UK had entered into Recession. What does this mean for property investors? What does this mean for you who wants to get into property? Is this a good time to buy? Are examples of the questions we unpick during this podcast. If you enjoy the content of this podcast please share with another person who you think may benefit from it.
In this episode of PropCast, Bimbola and Dami interviewed guest speaker Toyin Ayandare, the CEO of Icon Range Property and Apartments discussing her journey from being a full time city worker to a Portfolio Property Investor, Developer and Mentor. Toyin began her journey 8 years ago after refurbishing their second home and after getting it revalued realised the added value and immediately sent in her resignation to enable her focus on her young children and do more of these property deals. Toyin and husband are now not just investors but employer of people through their company Icon Range. This episode was very inspiring. Tune in now for lots of nuggets and advice on how to do the same. You can get in touch with Toyin Ayandare through her company www.iconrange.co.uk or via instagram @iconrange
In this episode of Propcast, Bimbola and Dami alongside their guest Valter Pontes discuss how he got started with property and built a business from nothing to being valued at £7.5 Million. Valter started as a University student and after reading a book a day during his summer break, he never looked back. He is a public speaker, award winner and has been interviewed by Vogue Magazine. Some of his awards include Property Business of the year, PIN Mastermind winner and nominee at the Property Investors Award. You can get in touch with Valter through his website - https://www.valterpontes.com/ (https://www.valterpontes.com/)
Homeownership plays a vital role in helping build strong, stable communities. It boosts the economy and is beneficial to accumulating wealth. According to today's figures based on rental and deposit payments, it is better to own than to rent. The latest home ownership stats published in Feb 2020 in the UK shows that 63% of households in England owned their own home. Highest by ethnic groups were Indians with 74% Indian households, 68% White British households and shockingly 20% Black African households. In today's podcast, Bimbola and Dami discussed the possible reasons why only 20% of Black African households own their homes in the UK. Tune in for the full episode. Stay connected with PropCast on Instagram @prop_cast and email us on propcast5@gmail.com
Your Hosts Bimbola and Dami talk about the highs and lows of being a Landlord. While there are many upsides to being a landlord such as passive income, asset owner, home provider, there are also many regulations that need to be upheld. Tune in as we dive into the ins and outs of what life is like as a Landlord. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com
The George Floyd killing was the catalyst for the global protests (Black Lives Matter) taking place across the world right now. With many campaigning on the streets and on social media we are finally starting to see recognition that people of color have been oppressed and treated unlawfully for hundreds of years. Your hosts Bimbola & Dami give their views on how Investing in Property can help to build wealth and help to empower a nation economically. We hope you enjoy our views, please share, like, comment if you enjoyed the content. To get in touch with your hosts please reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com
Buy, Refurbish and Refinance Strategy is one of the key strategies that enables an investor to grow their property portfolio very quickly. This strategy allows you buy a property, get your money out and you still get to keep the asset. You can then repeat the process again and again. Many have become financially free with this strategy and become property millionaires just by recycling their initial investment. What is great about this is; people with equity in their properties can release the equity in their home and use the funds released to employ this same strategy. For more information, please do reach out by email at propcast5@gmail.com
In this episode of Propcast, Bimbola and Dami talk about their reason for getting into properties, what drives them and what motivates them. Each of our co hosts share what drives them on and what inspires them to continue going despite the challenges faced with being property investors. Challenge: What is your why? Send us a message and tell us what your why is?
In this episode of Propcast, Bimbola and Dami alongside their guest Emmanuel Opeodu discussed the effect of the pandemic and lockdown on the Serviced Accommodation Business. Emmanuel Opeodu is a successful Serviced Accommodation host with a sizeable portfolio of properties in the UK. When the pandemic hit and the lockdown was introduced, all his future and present bookings got cancelled. This was a very difficult time for Emmanuel and he was quite open about the effect it had on him. Contact details of guest speaker below instagram @_citydreamz
In this episode of PropCast, Bimbola and Dami discuss with their guest Mo Al-Hakim (Independent Mortgage Broker & Property Investor) lending options during COVID-19 and what type of products are available in the market.. We also got into the discussion of Mortgage Payment Holidays and what you should know if you are considering taking a mortgage payment holiday. Mo Al Hakim is an independent Mortgage Adviser and invests in property himself. He has access to the whole market meaning he can help you get the best products for your properties regardless of the scenario. Linked In: Mo Al-Hakim Instagram: @mo_richmond_premier Company: https://www.richmondpremier.co.uk/ (Richmond Premiere)
In this first ever episode of PropCast, Bimbola and Dami discuss; Their property journey How They Met COVID-19 Affects On The Property Market
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