Planet Property

Peter Bill

Description

Planet Property details the inner workings of the UK commercial property, residential development and rental markets. This first major book on the topic for 20 years maps these sectors between 1997 and 2012, during the ten-year boom, the 2008/9 financial crash and its protracted aftermath. Developers and investors made debt-fuelled fortunes during Tony Blair's decade as Prime Minister, during which prices nearly doubled. The 2008 banking crisis led to the sharpest crash in 80 years, under Gordon Brown's tenure, when prices halved. The biggest debt clear-up in history began under David Cameron. Planet Property is the first full guide to the billion sector. The fast-paced book will appeal to insiders as well as outsiders seeking insight. Students in pursuit of knowledge have dedicated chapters explaining the world of property, its history, inhabitants - and how and why so much money can be made and lost. The book provides a plain-English explanation of how Planet Property spins. Author and journalist Peter Bill explains the roles and relationships between those who fund, develop, own, trade, broker, manage and provide professional and legal advice on offices, shops, industrial property as well as new-build homes. Peter's 11-year editorship of property bible Estates Gazette and his City pages column in the London Evening Standard provided access to leading politicians, bankers, investors, agents and the foremost developers of the era. Many major figures have given interviews for Planet Property. This informed and lively tale is filled with insights and sparkles with anecdotes Peter has gathered during his years of high-level access. The 250-page volume ranges wider than the out-of-print standard works: Oliver Marriott's The Property Boom and Alastair Ross Goobey's Bricks and Mortals.

Sujets

• Employabilité, métiers et formations

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783069156
• Langue: English

Extrait

PLANET PROPERTY
BY PETER BILL
After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say, I want to see the manager William S Burroughs
ORDER VIA:
WWW.PLANET-PROPERTY.NET
Copyright 2013 Peter Bill
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
Matador 9 Priory Business Park, Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire. LE8 ORX Tel: [ 44] 116 279 2299 Fax: [ 44] 116 279 2277 Email: [e-mail] Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
ISBN: 9781783069156
Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
Contents
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE PLAY
CHAPTER ONE: BANG
CHAPTER TWO: BOOM
CHAPTER THREE: MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
THE STAGE
CHAPTER FOUR: PLANET PROPERTY
CHAPTER FIVE: MAINLY FOR STUDENTS
CHAPTER SIX: POLITICS, PLANNING AND TAXES
THE PLAYERS
CHAPTER SEVEN: DEVELOPERS WORLD
CHAPTER EIGHT: BIG THINKERS
CHAPTER NINE: AGENTS OF TRADE
CHAPTER TEN: HOMES PLANET
CHAPTER ELEVEN: UNDER THE HAMMER
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE GREAT ESTATES
ENCORE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: AFTERMATH
For
Anna, Emilia, Elsa, Tom, Kinsa Elizabeth
FOREWORD
Between 1997 and 2012, the 385 billion UK commercial property market was remodelled by globalisation and reshaped by the biggest boom and bust in modern history. An eventful fifteen years, and a drama that I watched largely from the editor s chair at Estates Gazette , although latterly from a columnist s soapbox at the London Evening Standard .
Why write a book? The main driver was a desire to provide, from the viewpoint of someone with a front-row seat, a basic script of events, a simple plan of the stage, and a short cast list of some leading players - described in a way that would interest novices and experts alike. A concern for posterity and vanity also played their part, of course.
Two relevant books on the property industry have been previously published, the more recent of these in 1992. That was Alastair Ross Goobey s Bricks and Mortals , a forensic account of the Eighties property boom and bust. The earlier book was Oliver Marriott s authoritative The Property Boom, first published in 1967 and refreshed in 1989. I met Marriott in April 2010; he was encouraging.
A BOOK FELT DUE
Two books, two cycles: a third felt due. The ten-year up-cycle between 1997 and 2007 had been followed in 2007-2009 by the biggest collapse since the Thirties, and the market had just barely recovered by December 2012, when this book draws to a close. The most recent boom and bust cycle - and the scene in which it played out - showed some startling new features, as globalisation changed the market in ways that would have seemed fanciful during previous cycles of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. Cheap and plentiful debt provided the usual fuel for the boom. But an unparalleled influx of foreign equity set the market on fire in a way that had never been seen before.
Planet Property aims to provide a picture of this topsy-turvy world. This is a portrait with three purposes: first, to inform and entertain those working in the market; second, as an educative primer for real estate students; third, as a window on an ill-lit scene to help those who simply want to understand how things operate. The picture s frame is defined by what readers of EG do for a living: in the main, to fund, develop, hold, buy, sell, broker, value, manage, mend and give professional and legal advice on UK offices, shops, industrial property, tenanted homes and new-build apartments.
NEW BOY
I came fresh to the sector in 1997, joining EG after a year in the City and eleven years at Building magazine, the last half-dozen as editor. I wasn t especially charmed at first by the inhabitants of Planet Property. It seemed dominated by clubbable males, bound each to the other by old-school ties and/or mutual self-interest. The market still does not stand up terribly well to an outsider s gaze; it remains a male-dominated and semi-enclosed order, a place where who you know can matter as much as what you know. But editing EG turned out to be the best job ever.
Real estate is peopled with sharp, stimulating and gregarious folk. Those who reach middling-to-senior positions enjoy a better time than is openly admitted. This is a conclusion based on attending roughly three thousand breakfasts, lunches, cocktail parties and dinners between 1997 and 2012, first as editor of EG between May 1998 and February 2009, then as the writer of a weekly column for the magazine since that time and as property columnist for the London Evening Standard from 2007 . To all those Planet Property dwellers I have met over the years: thank you, for being (mostly) approachable, honest (as possible) and (nearly always) friendly.
Peter Bill London, June 2013
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Inspiration for Planet Property has been drawn from reading the late Alastair Ross Goobey s Bricks and Mortals and Oliver Marriott s The Property Boom . Information has been drawn from Michael Brett s Property and Mone y and Richard Barkham s Real Estate and Globalisation, as well as Property Auctions by Clive Carpenter and Susan Harris. Wider intelligence comes from Back from the Brink by Alistair Darling, Anglo Republic: Inside the Bank that Broke Ireland by Simon Carswell; The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine and Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour by Michael Lewis, and Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin, a matchless account of the events in America that triggered global meltdown.
Thank you to all who contributed to this book. First and foremost, to those who gave interviews - your thoughts greatly help illuminate the text: Louis Armstrong, Alan Carter, Ian Coull, Richard Cotton, James Darkins, Jeremy Helsby, Ian Henderson, Alastair Hughes, Sir George Iacobescu, Richard Lay, Sir Stuart Lipton, Ian Marcus, David Marks, Andy Martin, Neil Mitchenall, Martin Moore, Raymond Mould, Liz Peace, Robert Peto, Tony Pidgley, Sir John Ritblat, Gerald Ronson, Francis Salway, Lord (Wilf) Stevenson, Mike Strong, Nick Thomlinson, Patrick Vaughan and Ian Womack.
My thanks to those who have either checked text, provided information or helped with suggestions in the period since the idea for the book was born in 2007. Most contributed knowingly, some unknowingly, typically coming up with an idea worth pinching over lunch or a drink. These include: Lizzie Bill, Roger Bright, Sue Brown, John Burns, Julia Cahill, Christian Candy, Nick Candy, Alan Collett, Stuart Corbyn, Ian Cullen, Richard Donnell, Alistair Elliott, Sara Fox, Susan Freeman, Fenella Gentleman, Alison Henry, Tony Key, Bob Kidby, Roger Madelin, John Martin, Bill Maxted, Gary Murphy, Rupert Nabarro, Phillip Nelson, Greg Nicholson, Mark Preston, David Pretty, John Rigg, Melville Rodrigues, Jackie Sadek, Ian Selby, Irvine Sellar, Toby Shannon, Ken Shuttleworth, Kasia Sielewicz, Mike Slade, Michael Stancombe, Alistair Subba Row and Hans Vrensen.
Thanks to everyone at EG for making it easy for me to spend so much time out and about in the market. I was frequently asked How do you do you manage to fill the pages every week? The answer: I didn t. That was done by a team of forty self-motivated and talented journalists who needed little direction. What direction they took came from a team of four editors: deputy editor Julia Cahill and news editor Samantha McClary, who looked after the front of the book , Stacey Meadwell, in charge of regional coverage, and legal editor Sarah Jackman. Thanks also to EG editor Damian Wild for his support and generous access to the archives.
Final thanks must go to Kate Ahira, the meticulous and matchless editor of Planet Property .
THE PLAY
CHAPTER ONE BANG
Dear God, just let there be one more property boom. I promise I won t piss it all away this time Harvey Soning, property veteran
Let s start with a yarn from John Rigg of Savills, a tale too good to check. Picture the scene: it s January 2007, and an American-born property financier employed by a global bank in London is lazing on a Caribbean beach. Let s call him Hank. His mobile tinkles, and a glance at the screen reveals it s his feckless brother Art calling from California. Hank answers, expecting to be dunned for another handout. Instead the out-of-work actor gives his sibling some great news : he s bought a house. How the hell did you manage to raise the money? asks Hank. Easy, Art explains: The broker got me a hundred percent mortgage.
Passing over the obvious question - how you qualify for a mortgage without having a regular job - the puzzled banker moves on: But you don t have a steady income to make the repayments. Oh, that doesn t matter, answers Art insouciantly, I m not going to pay. The broker said it would take them at least nine months to evict me. Which is great - I get to live rent-free till fall he laughs, adding: All of my friends are doing the same. At this, banker Hank jerks upright on his lounger, alarmed. Why are you telling me this? he asks. Well, I thought you might like to know, says Art. Your bank is providing the loans. The great property bang of 2007-2009 began with whispers such as these.
SUB-PRIME? WHAT S SUB-PRIME?
ALASTAIR HUGHES, THEN CHIEF EXECUTIVE FOR EMEA AT JONES LANG LASALLE:

I did a TV interview with a US-based financial channel at MIPIM in March 2007. I was told the first question was going to invite me to canter round the European property markets, so I didn t feel particularly nervous. Instead the first question was: No doubt you ll have