Send us a Text Message. I chatted with Elizabeth Froude, Group Chief Executive of Platform Housing Group, one of the largest Housing Associations in the Midlands with 49,000 homes as part of a collaboration with UKREiiF (The UK’s Real Estate and Infrastructure Forum). We talked about topics including: How to attract institutional capital to decarbonise existing social housing stock when the substantial upfront capital required doesn’t always result in higher rents (e.g. where rents are capped) What is the benefit to the exchequer of spending on social housing How is Social Housing being used ..read more

Send us a Text Message. I spoke to Gemma Bourne, Managing Director at Better Society Capital (formerly Big Society Capital) as part of a collaboration with UKREiiF (The UK’s Real Estate and Infrastructure Forum). We talked about topics including: Where the UK’s leading social impact investor gets its capital from, including dormant bank accounts  What other organisations can learn from 10 years of impact investing, including how to avoid ‘impact blinkers’ that distract from thorough due diligence What a career in impact investing involves, career pathways and advice on how to shift into ..read more

I chatted to Richard Donnell, Executive Director at Houseful which is the Business to Business part of Zoopla.  We covered: Rent growth - at its lowest for 30 months The supply-demand imbalance - which is still over 2 x pre-pandemic levels  What investor opportunities exist in the current market - notably existing homes  What the election means for the housing and rental markets Guest website: https://houseful.co.uk/ Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-donnell/  Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/ Host website: https://www.greenresi ..read more

I chatted to Jamie Broderick, Deputy Chair of the non-profit Impact Investing Institute about place-based impact investing - as part of a collaboration with UKREiiF (The UK’s Real Estate and Infrastructure Forum). We covered: What actually is impact investing, and what is place-based impact investing? Who is still investing in an environment of higher interest rates, and what do they want? Blended finance and the use of public funding to crowd in private capital Net Zero Neighbourhoods and the importance of community for both commercial viability and practical success of retrofit. Guest webs ..read more

I caught up with my friend Jon Daley, who I (not very) jokingly refer to as ‘the Martin Lewis of social and sustainable housing’ because he knows so much about these socially critical topics. He’s also Head of Sustainability at Asset Manager G2M. For context, Jon and I agree on a lot of things, including that the value of ideas shared increases exponentially, and that collective effort beyond building design is essential for achieving the environmental and social outcomes needed in UK housing pre-2050. Topics we covered on the pod included: What is needed in order to upgrade the huge proport ..read more

If you work in sustainable investing, you probably already know the ‘Bridges Spectrum of Capital’.  I discovered and loved it when I was researching my book on Sustainable Residential Investing, so I was especially excited to chat with Michele Giddens OBE, Co-CEO of Bridges Fund Management, which she Co-Founded alongside Philip Newborough and Sir Ronald Cohen - who gets described as "the father of British venture capital". Michele has 30 years experience in sustainable investing and international development finance, from chairing the Community Development Finance Association, the UK Na ..read more

Deepa Deb is Head of International Real Estate Investment at law firm Watson Farley & Williams, with accolades including regularly being ranked in Chambers & Partners as a leading lawyer in real estate and being rated as one of the Hot 100 most influential lawyers (The Lawyer). We chatted on the podcast about: What innovations (in particular the use of AI) can improve efficiency and reliability of legal work in transactions What UK residential can learn from other parts of real estate and from other countries about transactions Career advice for aspiring lawyers Guest website ..read more

I had the chance to chat with Katherine Russell, Director of Build to Rent at the John Lewis Partnership about retail, real estate and Build to Rent. Topics included: The journey that the John Lewis Partnership - better known for homewares than housing - has been on with real estate generally, and residential property specifically, from owning ‘tops above shops’ to Build to Rent Lessons learned through John Lewis’s Real Estate Portfolio, the New West End Company’s (a partnership of 600 West End-based businesses) Advisory Board and Dolphin Living (an independent charity with an endowment o ..read more

My good friend Andrew Teacher grilled me in my capacity as CEO of GreenResi on unlocking responsible UK residential investment at scale. Topics include: The residential market opportunity: scale, growing income and resilience underpinned by demographics How to deploy rapidly at scale: acquiring granular existing rentals for faster, less risky, less carbon intensive access to residential vs Build to Rent How processes can be optimised to improve efficiency and reliability throughout the deal lifecycle  Anna Clare Harper LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/ Anna ..read more

I chatted to Simon Scott, Lead Director, Living Capital Markets UK at the second largest global property advisor, JLL, about the future of ‘living capital’ (which is essentially the institutionally-funded segment of the real estate market which people live in). Topics include: What we can learn from 2023 around the resilience of residential investment Factors influencing investment valuations, from fire safety to operating companies Will 2024 be the worst year yet for new housing developments? Guest website: https://www.jll.co.uk/ Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-sco ..read more