What is it with vampire films and real estate? Diary has watched two in the past fortnight, and each had a property firm central to its plot.
Day Shift on Netflix features Jamie Foxx as a blue-collar vampire hunter taking on an über-vamp… who just happens to be a realtor looking to sink her teeth into the San Fernando Valley. Meanwhile, The Invitation (in cinemas now) stars Nathalie Emmanuel as a very special guest at a rather unholy wedding, uniting the bloodlines of some powerful British families – one of which runs Alexander Realty. And, not so long ago, one of the last examples we watched, Vampires vs. the Bronx (also on Netflix) involved New York teens battling to save the neighbourhood from particularly creepy gentrifiers. We suppose we can trace it all the way back to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, where Jonathan Harker handled the titular count’s property affairs. But, 125 years on, why does Hollywood look at real estate professionals and think bloodsuckers?
Just another brick
EG has several Lego fanatics on the team, so an article in the Wall Street Journal exploring the benefits of the colourful bricks in the workplace grabbed our attention. Apparently, a training course known as Lego Serious Play has taken off in companies including Google, Ernst & Young and Microsoft. Employees address concerns or aspirations by building a Lego model and then talking about what they built and why. Surely real estate professionals, practically master builders by definition, would excel at this? Imagine the feedback: “I built a vacant shop with a poor EPC rating and little scope for conversion to illustrate my growing sense of dread regarding the economic outlook. But that little Ninjago figure made me smile.”
Big Yellow, little yellow, cardboard box
Big Yellow’s next scheme is going far beyond the FTSE 250 company’s traditional self-storage offering. The scheme in Wapping, east London, will include 114 homes, flexible offices and – checks notes – a nightclub. The group has agreed with Tower Hamlets Council that its redevelopment of a site on Pennington Street and The Highway will include a replacement home for E1, a club currently operating from space that Big Yellow owns in a building eyed for demolition. We suppose the good news is that, if the queue is too long for the cloakroom, revellers can always rent a unit in the self-storage facility to stash their belongings until the end of the night.
Don’t be Logan Roy
As viewers of TV’s Succession will be all too aware, it’s important to have a plan for when one generation of leadership is coming to an end… even if that plan is seemingly to cling to the reins while saying “f*** off” a lot, especially at the end of any conversations with your power-hungry children. But, according to local relationship bank Handelsbanken, it isn’t just Logan Roy who is unsure who should take over when the time comes – most professional landlords with large portfolios (of more than 10 properties) have “no succession plan in place, risking the future sustainability of their business for the next generation”. Apparently, half of professional landlords aged 45 or above lack any long-term management plans, which sounds like a recipe for disaster, if not an award-winning TV show.
Domo arigato, Mr Roboto
With the cost-of-living crisis becoming a major concern for employers and employees alike, and property firms beginning to join the list of corporations offering financial aid to their staff to help them pay their bills this winter, proptech company Search Acumen’s most indefatigable employee will be needing no such hand-out… though we suppose his running costs might be on the rise. We are talking about a key member of the team, Robbie the Robot. Not only is Robbie listed on the employee page of the company’s website, he even has a LinkedIn profile, with an impressive 43 connections. He has been the mailbox co-ordinator at Search Acumen for two years and is now proving particularly valuable in helping clear the current conveyancing backlog caused by the imminent digitalisation of AP1 forms. Good job that, according to his profile, he has “infinite capacity and will absorb as much information as being given”. But it’s not all work and no play for Robbie, who adds: “Outside of work I love listening to music, particularly techno. I also like playing computer games and watching movies, some of my favourite include sci-fi films like I, Robot, WALL-E and The Matrix.”
