PROPERTY
CHRONICLE
Serious investment thinking that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Recently, near where I live in South East London, the local retail park has finally closed its doors for its final time. A mix of 2000s nostalgia, Surrey Quays Leisure Park contained a Hollywood Bowl, an Odeon cinema, a Pizza Hut and Frankie & Benny’s. The large...
As a member of “Gen Z” working in Sustainable Finance or Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG), whenever I respond to questions of “What do you do for a living?” particularly from those of an older generation, I am often met with the immediate charge of “wokeness.”...
The push to decarbonise and achieve energy efficiency from real estate is having an ever-increasing impact on all parts of the property sector. Whilst it is accepted that the sector is making big strides in taking action, it is also noted that in some parts the pace...
This is a daunting time to be embarking on a career as a graduate surveyor in the property industry. My cohort, I realise, is not the first to have left university to find an unhelpful economic backdrop subduing the graduate recruitment market. However, I suspect it...
Le Marché International Des Professionnels de L'immobilier, known as MIPIM, has cemented its status as THE premier event in the global real estate industry over the past three decades. Every March, over 20,000 delegates from nearly 100 countries converge in Cannes,...
A bamboozling concept to some and mere stupidity to others, nothing quite garners such a dismissive response as the mentioning of Metaverse real estate in the CRE space. Mark Cuban stated that buying real estate in the metaverse is “the dumbest s*** ever” due to the...
Did you hear that the UK was in recession was a question that popped up at the pub in the last week or so. The resounding replies were “and waters wet.” A generation of young people simultaneously not bothered. If you ask our parents though, the word recession will...
The start of an incredible joke or the subject of Banksy’s 2009 Devolved Parliament. Either way we’re losing patience, across party lines, of the chimpanzees in suits who are running this government. The art of debate was once considered an intellectual battleground...
Ask anyone what a farmer does, and the answer is usually quite simple; we grow food. Filling people’s plates three times a day (or more) is what farmers are famous for. However, as the world faces the looming triple threat of the climate, biodiversity and health...
In this election year in both the USA and the UK the traditional focus on swing constituencies/states is being challenged by the notion of the swing generation. It is becoming increasingly evident that the younger voter potentially holds the key to election results in...
The super-active Knight Frank (KF) LinkedIn team would have been frightfully happy the day they posted a photo of their Senior Partner, William Beardmore-Gray (Ampleforth and KF Lifer), on the steps of Number 10 at a gathering to discuss diversity in real estate. So...
The property papers over the festive period made for interesting reading. Really, they did! There were glad tidings of course and the usual jaunty optimism prevalent amongst Real Estate people; reports of big money acquisitions and disposals, possible company mergers...
I’ve operated as an estate agent for over fifty years and seen a lot of change, not all of it for the better. In this series of articles, I shall explore why technology has largely failed to improve the home selling and buying process which sees sales transactions now...