The Return: Property & Investment Podcast Anna Clare Harper

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: https://www.wfw.com/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepa-deb/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: https://www.greenresi.com/

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 of £120m to provide affordable homes for Londoners)


What next for Build to Rent and the UK Private Rental Sector



Guest website: https://www.jlpjobs.com/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-russell-simmonds-73206933/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: https://www.greenresi.com/

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 Clare Harper website: https://www.greenresi.com/

Andrew Teacher website: ⁠https://montfort.london/⁠

Andrew Teacher LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewteacher/⁠

I loved chatting to Cath Webster, CEO of Thriving Investments, the fund manager with a social conscience backed by Places for People, the UK's leading Social Enterprise which owns or manages over 240,000 homes for 500,000 Customers across the UK.



We covered:


The different segments in residential such as Affordable Rented, Social Rented and Private Rented


How Build to Rent has evolved, from ‘Gen1’ to today, including the rise and fall of amenities


Investment yield valuations, why liquidity is so low in Build to Rent and what this means for BtR players.



Guest website: https://www.thrivinginvestments.co.uk/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/526783/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: https://www.greenresi.com/

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-scott-151a2669/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: GreenResi.com

It’s been a while since I didn’t have a high powered guest on the podcast, and a lot has been happening in the market and in my world. 

So this week, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share some of that (read: talk to myself!), answering some of the questions I get asked frequently about the market and my business.

Topics include:


Key social, environmental and investor trends in the UK Private Rental Sector


Developing tools to scale, including acquisition pipeline management and portfolio monitoring


The difference between Build to Rent, seen as ‘good’ and buy-to-let, seen as ‘bad’ in terms of management infrastructure (processes, systems, budgets, externalities etc)



Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: www.GreenResi.com