Commercial property blog

By Richard Heap

I’ve finished my training. Now I just have to wait. It’s only two days away, or enough time for Jack Bauer to save the world from terrorists twice.

I couldn’t usually call the back-to-back gigs I did this weekend ‘training’ but I’ll make an exception given that the Property Comic for Land Aid (http://www.pmguk.com/comic/) is this week. I was down in Brighton on Friday at a night called Rabbit In The Headlights and in Hove on Saturday at The Comedy Station. I was happy with how both of them went.

Okay, it’s not like I’m training for the King Sturge and Property Week triathlon on Friday (http://www.propertytriathlon.com/) for The Children’s Trust and Orchid. Stand-up does involve sweating, but it’s more through nerves than physical exertion.

Yes, the ‘n’ word: nerves. I find that there are a few things people say when I reveal that I tell jokes in my spare time. Some say I’m brave, although I’m hardly saving people from burning buildings. Some say they’ll turn up and heckle: I could fill a small football stadium with them, if I wanted to. And some ask if I get nervous.

That’s probably the toughest question, but I’ll try to answer it now.

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By Lydia Stockdale

‘So, what do you do?’: the most dreaded question for anyone who is unemployed.

It’s a question that must regularly knock you off guard. Whenever you are introduced to someone new, it’s going to be one of the first things you’re asked.

But does what you do – or not do – for a living equal who you are?

It’s a dangerous game to define yourself by your career, because as so many people in property – and indeed, across most professions – have found out, as an employee you’re never truly in control. Essentially, you’re putting your identity in the hands of others.

But we all judge people by their career decisions. When you meet an architect, a lawyer, a fund manager, you make assumptions about who they are as individuals: their backgrounds, their intelligence, their motivations, the money they earn, their lifestyle…

In April last year, just as the redundancies started to happen, psychotherapist Phillip Hodson, head of media for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, was quoted in the Guardian saying that Continue reading »

By edjones

Edward Jones is a YEP committee member and solicitor who specialises in advising the Property industry.
Find out more about the 1st Friday Club

Looking back in history there is an 18 yr cycle of boom and bust, with a less severe “dip” at 9 years.
In June 2009 we are probably 2 yrs/18 months into a 4 year “bust”.
I have not been through this before, so do I believe the older guys who say the good times will return?
Or is it different somehow this time around and are we in for decades of gloom and financial hardship in the property world.

But what should we do? We can’t just sit at our desks and wait for the years to pass. How do we make the best of the current situation – how do we identify and seize the opportunities that recession will bring.

And how do we position ourselves ready for the upswing. That is if we can see when we have turned the corner, as we are only likely to be able to pinpoint the start of the recovery sometime after it has happened with the benefit of hindsight.

Hard times often brings about innovation, so how do we catch a ride on the next big thing in our fields of work. Or just maybe should we look for something totally new.

In years gone by many young professionals enjoyed increasing salaries and expected to be promoted if we worked hard enough. But choices made are more important now, with some projects, departments and companies struggling or closing while others are thriving.

It seems we have to be smarter in our decisions, as just doing a good job is not enough to ensure success anymore. For many of my friends, as well as balancing their busy work and social lives, the last few months have been a time to look up and evaluate where they are now, and where they want to be.

Quite a few are concentrating on keeping their jobs, some are looking for new jobs, but others are looking where the opportunities lie – within their existing workplaces and beyond.

In the coming weeks Young Entrepreneurs in Property will write a series of blogs addressing the issues that face young professionals in the property and construction world.
If you have any burning issues why not respond to this blog and get the debate started.

Edward Jones is a YEP committee member and solicitor who specialises in advising the Property industry.
He is a consultant at Rawlison Butler LLP www.rawlisonbutler.com and can be contacted at ejones@rawlisonbutler.com or 07876 255 398.

By Richard Heap

It turns out that property people have better comedy connections than I do. I met two of them at drinks with King Sturge last Thursday. I’ll come to that.

My best comedy connection is rubbish, but I’ll share it anyway. In January, I performed at the Comedy Cafe in Shoreditch on the same bill as former Sun editor Kelvin McKenzie. He was filming a ‘Kelvin tries stand up’ show for obscure digital TV channel Blighty and it didn’t go well. Here’s a review: http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2009/01/29/8194/

See? It’s a rubbish story. If it was judged the same way as a Property Week news story it’d be a news in brief, at the bottom of page 11, and news editor Laura Chesters would probably axe it before it went to press. It’s a rubbish comedy connection too. Kelvin McKenzie isn’t a comic.

Two people at King Sturge did much better.

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By Richard Heap

I had my first nightmare about it last Tuesday.

In two weeks I’m taking to the stage in a bid to entertain the property industry at the first night of The Property Comic, the comedy event by the Property Merchant Group and Property Week for Land Aid (http://www.pmguk.com/comic/).

I’m due to perform on both nights. I can’t promise that I’ll drag property out of its gloom. If I wanted to do that I’d need more than jokes: I’d need to be onstage giving away large amounts of money and, as I’m a journalist who moonlights as a comic, I’m not exactly being lined up for The Secret Millionaire. But I’ll do my best.

It’s a long time since the idea surfaced on 3 March in The Goring Hotel. I was having breakfast with the Property Merchant Group chief executive James Bowdidge, sustainability director Richard Burge, and their PR man Nigel Henson. I mentioned my strange hobby, telling jokes to people in small rooms above pubs in London and Brighton (www.myspace.com/richheap).

I’ve been doing it as a hobby for about ten months. James liked the idea of running a comedy night for property, where laughs have dried up along with bank finance. I headed back to the office and didn’t think much more about it.

I found out more on 6.22pm on Thursday 23 April. Continue reading »

By Tori Turner

“Have you ever met Alison Carnwath?”

Doing my socialite rounds of the property industry over the last fortnight, nearly every woman I have hob-nobbed with has popped this question. Why? Well, for those of you who have been hiding under a rock, Ms Carnwath is the fearsome new chairman of Land Securities. Over the bank holiday weekend, the Sunday Times famously reported she has given Land Secs’ chief executive Frances Salway six months to turn the company around – or face the sack. Oooh! The nasty lady!

Here’s the non-sensational version: in the wake of Land Secs reporting a £4.8bn loss at its full year results, the chairman orders the chief executive to carry out a strategic review and deliver a new business plan. So far, so dull. But the fact that the chairman is a woman gives this story legs.

That she is a successful woman with a number of influential non-exec roles in the City makes the story even better. We are told that Ms Carnwath is a “former investment banker” (surely equivalent to a first degree in ball-breaking) with newspaper reports describing her as “tough”, “powerful”, “formidable”, “unsentimentally tough” and having a reputation that is universally described as – you guessed it  – “tough”.

The picture caption accompanying one web story simply reads; “Alison Carnwath: Tough”.

You almost expect her corporate portrait to growl like a Rottweiler when you run your cursor over it. There are many Google images that show her smiling, but predictably the papers all used the ones of her looking steely-eyed and serious. It’s amazing they didn’t Photoshop in an Continue reading »

By Christine Eade

As the MPs’ expenses scandal reaches the fifth of – only the Telegraph knows – how many weeks, I reflect on parliamentarians’ living arrangements when I began reporting Parliament 40 years ago.
They either lived like the haute bourgeoisie or like students.
In the last year of the Labour government, Cabinet ministers were intimidatingly grand, and seldom lived in their constituencies. 
I would never have dared ask Anthony Crosland why he didn’t live in Grimsby; Roy Jenkins why he didn’t live in Birmingham; Barbara Castle why she didn’t live in Blackburn or Jim Callaghan why he had no home in Cardiff.
They generally had second homes, but these were country cottages or, in Callaghan’s case, a farm in Sussex.
Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal leader, used to joke about the grandee who said Continue reading »