Get Living chief executive Neil Young has three new year’s resolutions for 2019: get bigger, get simpler and get known.
Young joined Get Living in 2014, after a decade of PRS consultancy and former roles at British Airways and Thomson Holidays. Since then, he has overseen the growth of one of London’s largest PRS operators.
From the launch of the Athlete’s Village and expansion into the regions, Get Living has certainly been getting bigger.
The highly-anticipated Manchester launch, revealed by EG this week, fills an obvious gap in the operator’s portfolio. And Young says this year the platform will be focused on scale in the regions as well as growing its London hub.
Here he talks to EG about the platform’s evolution, challenges in London and regional expansion plans.
How did Get Living start out?
East Village was our first location under our original name Get Living London. That name really showed our limitations, it was geographically limiting, and we dropped the ‘London’.
In some ways we tested it out at East Village. We were happy with what was being delivered and the returns. Then Elephant and Castle came along. On the back of that the decision was made to take it nationwide.
We set out the areas we wanted: London, commuter areas into London, and then we wanted to be in the main regional cities.
What makes Get Living different to other BTR operators?
We go for scale. We want a minimum of 500 homes, because we want to be able to create a neighbourhood. We’re keen on good public realm and good retail offering.
East Village is 67 acres, ultimately there will be about 5,000 homes and that is unique in the sector. If you look at Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester they are all over 700-800 homes. We always want to create a community, we’ve got more than 50 events coming up in the next year, and that really is our thing for our residents.
We are hearing more operators talking about being a lifestyle business. We’ve always talked about not being in the property business, but in the experience business.
How does the BTR market differ outside London?
Some of the regional cities from a planning perspective are pretty good to engage with. To be able to commit to a council or a city at the kind of scale we are doing, that’s attractive to them and we are in this for the long-term.
More widely in the sector people are seeing BTR investors making long-term commitments. You’re not just building and selling and leaving it to somebody else. We continue to invest and that doesn’t happen in the same way in for-sale development.
What changes are you seeing as the sector matures?
I’ve always compared us to the student sector and I think it will become an investment class in the way that student is.
We’re still quite early in its formation and you’ve got those pioneers who are pushing it through. Particularly at this point in the cycle where sales seem to be slowing and some of the for-sale developers are looking at more BTR as well. Whether that is through partnering with operators or selling or doing it themselves. I think we’ll start to see that more.
Investors are increasing the size of schemes. Early on it was a minimum of around 75 units, which you can see from the government definition of BTR a few years ago. You are now seeing people realise the advantages of scale in terms of what you can offer the customer and operational efficiencies. We’ll see that more and at some point we’ll start seeing some consolidation in the sector.
What are the biggest challenges you face?
The margins are still quite fine. From a financial perspective that’s always going to be a challenge. It’s not a silver bullet, but you have to use experience to run it in the right way that works for the customer and the investor. From a construction point of view you’ve always got pressures on build costs.
What do you have coming up this year?
We have our scheme up in Glasgow that we got planning for last year, I’d hope to get that under construction later this year.
We are finalising the design on Leeds and that will go to planning over the next few months and then there is Manchester, with the first phase coming to the market in late spring and the second phase about two years later.
There are currently 1,500 operational homes at East Village and we are just about to complete another 500 coming to market this spring and we’re spending several million to enhance our public realm.
This year we are growing from about 2,000 operational homes to 3,000. We talked about wanting to hit 12,500 homes within five years. We want to do more in London and there are places like Birmingham that we want to invest in. It will be all about those big regional cities, London and then commuting into London.
To send feedback, e-mail emma.rosser@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmmaARosser or @estatesgazette
