All Expert comment articles
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InsightSoho Estates’ Steve Norris on Sunak’s chances of winning the next General Election
Over the past few weeks, our new prime minister has rightly won many new admirers, probably most significantly, following his breakthrough on Northern Ireland. Is the outcome perfect? Arguably not. But that old saying that you should never let perfect be the enemy of good was never more appropriate.
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News
Workspace Group’s Sonal Jain on why property must focus on operational performance to reach net zero
Decarbonising any industry requires a strong collective effort and the right policy incentives to ensure that all industry players, big and small, are motivated to act. The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) regulations specifying a minimum Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating have certainly created the right imperative to act, but ...
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Insight
Burges Salmon’s Jack Mitchell on the rise of sustainable finance in the hotel sector
Given the built environment’s contribution both to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, lenders that fund real estate projects have found themselves under pressure from governing bodies to show evidence that they are paving the way to a sustainable way of living.
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News
Real Estate Balance’s Liz Peace on restoring the property industry’s reputation
In a month’s time, I shall be enjoying the singular privilege of delivering the Chapman Barrigan Lecture in memory of two remarkable women in the property industry: Honor Chapman, who died in 2009 after a successful career at JLL; and Trish Barrigan, who was a leading light in the fund ...
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Insight
Leading RE’s Tasos Stavrou on opportunities for savvy investors
Rents and demand for US industrial real estate continued to rise last year, but the sector’s sales boom appears to be slowing. Industrial transactions dropped, with interest rates and economic uncertainty the main reasons for a decrease in activity.
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Insight
Nokkel’s Roland Whyte on cutting through valuation chaos with data clarity
With everything changing so quickly in the property market, it can be tricky for buyers and sellers to feel in control, which is why now is the right time to refocus on the factors that they can influence.
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Insight
Equities analyst and consultant, Alastair Stewart, on the number of architects in the industry
There is a scientifically unreliable but effective way of inversely gauging architects’ workload – and, thus, the outlook for the wider property market: how much time designers spend on social media. It seems to have soared, but they appear more exercised about saving the planet than saving their jobs.
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Insight
Allsop’s Aoife Broderick on why appealing 2017 rateable values means winning in 2026
When it comes to business rates, eyes tend to glaze over. Many property investors take the view that nothing is certain in life but death and taxes; they shrug their shoulders and pass on the bill to their accounts team to pay and file it.
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Insight
Krolls’ John Slade on whether the UK’s real estate market is back on the up
We will hopefully begin to see a level of stability return to the UK this year. Geopolitical tensions, lasting impacts from the pandemic and Brexit, and interest rates, which are still relatively high compared with the record-breaking low rates of years gone by, have all had an impact on consumer ...
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Insight
Knight Frank’s Anthony Duggan on committing to ambitious, measurable and fluid ESG targets
In my nearly 25 years of being part of the real estate sector I have never seen a topic move at such pace and with such impact as ESG.
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Insight
MIPIM Day 3: blog by Susan Freeman
Today was meant to be the warm, sunny day, but I ended up in a woolly bobble hat and coat.
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Insight
MIPIM Day 2: blog by Susan Freeman
Day 2 didn’t start particularly well. In my rush to get to the 8.30am British Property Federation (BPF) Investors breakfast on time, I committed the cardinal error of putting on an empty lanyard without a Mipim pass and had to hotfoot it the 20 minutes back to the hotel to ...
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Insight
MIPIM Day 1: blog by Susan Freeman
It’s good to be back in Cannes for another Mipim, although the city is still undergoing a major facelift, with one side of the Croisette excavated and closed to traffic and barricades preventing direct access to some of the beach restaurant venues.
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Insight
Ascendix’s Wes Snow on which proptech trends will bring returns in 2023
While 2023 does not look like a perfect time to invest in real estate, the volatile macro-economic environment could hold attractive opportunities for proptech investors – if they look in the right direction.
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Insight
Peter Bill on planner gains and competition authority pain
Should planning consultants get overage? An essentially moral question, one which came up when confronted with the slightly shocking news two weeks ago that a few in the profession are so confident in their warm relationship with Local Planning Authority officers that they boast of being able to get more ...
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Insight
Mipim: Avison Young’s Stephen Cowperthwaite on ‘Better places, greater impact, stronger business’.
As the property industry travels en masse to Cannes to attend Mipim, Avison Young’s Stephen Cowperthwaite offers his views on the conference theme ‘Better places, greater impact, stronger business’.
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Insight
Ringley’s Kate Robinson the regulatory maze which could leave leaseholders out of pocket
Section 4 of the Building Safety Act requires an appointed person to ensure fire and structural safety for all buildings deemed high-risk. The government’s consultation proposes that resident management companies (RMCs) and right-to-manage companies (RTMs) appoint building safety directors in place of volunteers, if unable to designate someone that can ...
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Insight
Heart of London Business Alliance’s Ros Morgan gives her 10 reasons to be happy three years on from Covid
Almost three years since Covid-19 shut much of the world down, there are green shoots of hope among the West End’s businesses.
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Insight
Jefferies Mike Prew on how policy is switching to defusing inflation
The REIT index has rebounded 25% from an October low point after the Trussonomics Budget, when we saw 50% discounts to net asset value (NAV) reminiscent of the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC).
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Insight
New York Post’s Steve Cuozzo on the dimming allure of South Florida’s property
The Sunshine State property-buying juggernaut that was powerfully accelerated by the pandemic continues its merry way. The trend applies to both residential and commercial real estate in South Florida, a region that consists of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties – home to 6.7 million people within 6,000 square miles.
