PropCast

By PropCast: The Property PodcastBusiness

PropCast episodes

November 26, 2024 #205 We must shine a light on the hidden carbon cost of speculative offices, say AHMM experts
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.
32 min
November 07, 2024 #204 Homes England departing CEO Peter Denton reflects on successes of four-year tenure
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.
50 min
October 15, 2024 #203 Colm Lauder and Andrew Teacher on property’s operational future
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.
29 min
October 13, 2024 #202 Successful regeneration needs time, vision, capital, and a little bit of flexibility, says Urban Splash Residential Fund boss
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.
28 min
October 11, 2024 #201 Going for growth means thinking long-term, say Bidwells bosses
Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud.
Hosts: Andrew Teacher
Bidwells 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.

25 min
September 04, 2024 #200 John Lewis Partnership BTR – Rooted in the Community
Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud.
Hosts: Andrew Teacher
In 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.
30 min
August 06, 2024 #199: Being part of ecosystems is crucial for innovation real estate, says Mission Street CEO
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.
41 min
July 30, 2024 #198 London’s low carbon future needs overseas investment, says Opportunity London Boss
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.”
21 min
July 10, 2024 #197 City grandee Gerald Kaye looks back at his career as he retires as CEO from Helical
Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud.
Hosts: Andrew Teacher
Andrew 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.
29 min
June 28, 2024 #196: Lack of power creating obsolescence timebomb – Camion
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.
29 min

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PropCast is a property podcast produced by Lauder Teacher. PropCast covers issues across the whole of the real estate market; from finance and funding through to development and construction.