The Guest Essay
One-off features from property experts
Latest Article
3rd June 2021
What do you mean, which boat race? There is only one: the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race on the Thames.
The Boat Race experience is binary. Seven months of training alongside academic work, six days a week, several hours a day and in the end you’re a winner – or you’re a loser. All of those gruelling morning starts, soul crushing sessions on the water and body shattering ergo tests distilled into 4¼ miles, every agony endured justified several times over for those who get to Mortlake first and... Read More >
Recent Articles:
17th May 2021
In the early 2000s, before the financial crisis, a debate dominated central banking: whether central bankers should try to reign in financial bubbles in what was called ‘lean against the wind’. That is, over and above their macroeconomic Read More >
6th May 2021
In their desperation to find a reason for why bitcoin is terrible-bad-destructive-awful and morally reprehensible, the crypto-obsessed authors of the Financial Times blog Alphaville – Jemima Kelly, Jamie Powell, Izabella Kaminska – are Read More >
12th April 2021
This article was originally published in June 2020.
If there might be a “successor ideology” to liberalism and the main principles of the enlightenment in the offing, as the American essayist Wesley Yang forecasts, it is likely to pose a Read More >
16th March 2021
This article was originally published in December 2017.
Excited to start their new jobs in real estate private equity and experience the life of glamour and money in finance, Jordan and Patrick are hit by the sobering reality that is London Read More >
16th March 2021
This article was originally published in December 2017.
We all know the first and most basic lesson of economics: incentives matter. This is surely why, as a new investigation by The Guardian has revealed, fires in the favelas of Sao Paulo are Read More >
15th March 2021
This article was originally published in March 2018.
Fall armyworm infestations in large portions of southern and sub-Saharan Africa are threatening the food supply of over 200 million people. While indigenous to North and south America, in Read More >
3rd March 2021
David Baddiel’s polemic Jews Don’t Count has proved surprisingly controversial. He seems to have gone out of his way to rile political opponents – mostly antisemites, and their enablers and apologists.
Rightly so. There will never Read More >
18th February 2021
In a year of ‘special advisers’ falling on swords, the tale of Thomas Becket, martyred on 29 December 1170, can read like an overdramatized telling of Dominic Cummings’ resignation – sacrificing himself for his colleague, though Read More >
11th February 2021
A novelist in our post-God world where ideology has so often replaced faith, and where the very value of truth and what constitutes betrayal (that most Christian of themes) becomes a moral battlefield.
My favourite novel of le Carré’s is A Read More >
1st February 2021
We have been inundated. Well, that is perhaps an exaggeration, but there has been a very noticeable acceleration in the number of new young and youngish families buying property in our village since the pandemic began; and it has continued Read More >
27th October 2020
In this very special series of exclusive articles for the Property Chronicle, Australian property legend Norman Harker reflects on his extraordinary 50-year life in real estate. He will pull no punches partly because, as he freely admits, Norman Read More >
15th October 2020
In this very special series of exclusive articles for the Property Chronicle, Australian property legend Norman Harker reflects on his extraordinary 50-year life in real estate. He will pull no punches partly because, as he freely admits, Norman Read More >
8th October 2020
This article was originally published in October 2019.
Saying I favour a no-deal Brexit in order to buy property cheaply after a resulting crash was wrong – and illogical.
Newsnight is a programme I have watched for years, with a great Read More >
18th September 2020
Hoteliers from Venice to Malaysia are paying a heavy price as their guest rooms languish emptily, but the locals can at least enjoy the return of some serenity.
‘What news on the Rialto?’ asks a character in The Merchant of Venice. As Read More >
3rd July 2020
As a former infantry officer, then international businessman, Parish Priest, and Chaplain to both metropolitan and county Police Forces, I have seen much of what works and what does not in corporate and institutional life. Today, the Read More >
21st May 2020
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 10th MAY 2019
European commercial property has changed a lot in the last 30 years, and this building had a front-row seat for it all
A recent ride up in the lift of Cœur Défense in Paris shouldn’t have been Read More >
25th September 2019
With British Land and Landsec both reputedly ripe for new leadership, how do the legacies of chiefs Chris Grigg and Rob Noel compare? And what’s next?
Ignore gallery chatter that Landsec will either bloom or wilt when 55-year-old chief Read More >
22nd July 2019
Populism is in the ascendancy in today’s political environment. Loosely defined as any ideology that separates ‘the people’ from a ‘corrupt elite’, populism has existed in various forms over the last century. While it’s often Read More >
17th July 2019
New research shows that lending at the end of a cycle always leads to disaster. The industry just can't seem to help itself
The CRE property lending industry seems to be magnetically attracted to accelerating its lending activity towards the Read More >
12th July 2019
Most large funds hate development risk – but there are real success stories out there. You just have to avoid the more spurious schemes…
Monday morning’s first call is from an old market chum asking if I’ll meet his latest client. He Read More >
24th December 2018
SUMMARY
‘There is always an easy solution to every problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.’ HL Menken
Act one: Amend Compulsory Purchase Order law to allow authorities to buy land at existing use value on sites zoned for homes to Read More >
17th December 2018
Summary
Free market ideals should not be limited to esoteric debates about what could be achieved in theory. Indeed, competition, decentralisation, accountability and choice can solve the biggest challenges of our time. The cost and Read More >
15th November 2018
In October, on International Day of the Girl, women’s and children’s charities took to the media and social media channels to highlight the ongoing challenges that girls face across the world.
Among these were Plan International, whom Read More >
21st May 2018
A couple of weeks ago I found myself deep in the Cotswolds. Two middle-aged neighbouring couples on a very pleasant estate of modernish detached houses had fallen out over the exact position of the legal boundary. There were the usual allegations Read More >
21st March 2018
Why mediate? Won’t a settlement meeting be just as effective? A recent case got me thinking...
At the end of last year, I mediated a case between a bank and a married couple who were property developers. It was a sadly all too familiar story Read More >
9th February 2018
Collaboration: a central factor in many property construction projects. But what price collaboration, when a project's smooth running threatens to hit the buffers?
Picture the scene
It is two months out from the projected practical completion Read More >
9th January 2018
Recently Chancellor Philip Hammond announced a £31 billion fund to increase capital expenditure in the field of housing, research and development, and economic infrastructure including transport and digital communications. This fund has been Read More >
8th January 2018
I mediated a dispute a few weeks ago between a building owner and a building contractor. The contractor was a medium-sized company which had a reputation for carrying out high quality work. Not the cheapest but they always had satisfied Read More >
5th January 2018
In our previous two articles (1) (2) we set down the history of golf course development in the British Isles as being in two distinct phases: with a big difference between early 20th century locations of golf and the second wave, a hundred years Read More >
14th December 2017
Rob Bould, past chairman of the Investment Property Forum and NED of IPSX, which will be the first fully regulated stock exchange globally to specialise in trading the securities of single commercial real estate (CRE) assets, sets out below the Read More >
28th November 2017
The stamp duty — a tax to be paid on the transfer of certain legal documents — has a long history in England. It was first introduced in 1694 to help finance the war against France. Although initially thought as a temporary solution, the tax Read More >
24th November 2017
This is the first of what we intend to be a regular offering of problem solving scenarios from our panel of mediators.
When I first started out as a full time mediator in 1995, my previous career as a Chartered Surveyor stood me in good Read More >
24th October 2017
Placemaking has long been the buzzword of the real estate world, but aside from the anecdotal benefits it has often been hard to measure the tangible advantages, that is, until now.
Looking at 11 global placemaking initiatives in the UK, Read More >
24th October 2017
For some 30 years, since the implicit defeat of socialism in the UK, there has been a relatively fine differentiating line between the policies of the Tory blues and the Labour reds, both encircling the capitalist centre ground. When one of the Read More >
23rd October 2017
If there is one thing (apart from Brexit) that politicians in the UK acknowledge the need to do something about, it is housing. The average house price is now almost eight times the average salary, meaning even the smallest starter homes are well Read More >
11th October 2017
From the very early days over 30 years ago, Derwent has had an affinity with industrial buildings that could be converted into generous and characterful office space. The principle was actually very simple; it was about three words, 'Volume And Read More >
3rd October 2017
With the season behind us, now is a good a time to consider what we gleaned from this year’s political party conferences in Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester, and the implications for residential property investors.
Aside from the usual Read More >
21st September 2017
The findings of yesterday’s National Audit Office (NAO) report on homelessness in the UK were alarming. The problem has worsened significantly in recent years. The number of rough sleepers stood at more than 4,000 in the autumn of 2016, having Read More >
13th September 2017
UK house prices have recovered from the slump that followed the financial crisis. According to the Office of National Statistics, UK house prices have risen 45 per cent since their trough in March 2009.
Over the same period earnings have risen Read More >
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