Let’s begin with a rant about Nine Elms, urban disaster zone in the making. Take a walk down Nine Elms Lane, SW8. Gaze around in awe, or anger. The delusion that the planning system has the strength to force the delivery of homes fit for habitation by locals is exploded.
Don’t blame the developers. They plan homes they think will sell for the most money. Why wouldn’t they? They care who is going to pay the highest price, not who is going to live in them. Blindingly obvious, in both senses of the word. In Nine Elms this has obviously meant tailoring flats for foreign investors.
Why so few affordable homes? In 2009 a 361-page planning framework was published. One of nine overarching objectives was to “promote social inclusion and tackle deprivation and discrimination”. Ha! Helped “by including the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing on a scheme-by-scheme basis.” Ha! A get-out clause with one central aim: to support land values.
The result is 10-15% affordable units, if you’re lucky. This week even Berkeley boss Tony Pidgley called for a minimum of 30% affordable on every site.
Phew, that’s better.
Now, to the “factoids”, as Norman Mailer called printed rumours without proof. Even the shoe-shine man in Burlington Arcade knows prices are weakening. That’s a factoid. But keep this quiet: flats are still selling. That’s a fact, says our man in the marketing suite at Ballymore’s Embassy Gardens, SW8.
Serviced flats: get a brand
JLL is clearly keen to expand its global serviced apartment business.
This week it hired hospitality consultant Max Thorne to head the team. He is a man of 30 years’ experience who will need no advice on the topic.
But for those looking for clues on how to make money out of selling serviced apartments, here is advice gleaned from chairing an event on the topic last week: do all you can to lure a brand name.
Persuading the Four Seasons or the Ritz Carlton hotel groups to put their name over the door will cost at least 4-5% of the gross development value, according to Chris Graham, an ex-Hamptons expert who has produced a report on the topic. A nicely tanned audience was told that the comfort factor a brand can produce equates to a 25% premium. Or more.
Damac is attracting a 100% premium for Versace-branded flats in a 47-storey tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is using the same formula in a more unlikely spot: Nine Elms.
Last summer the Dubai-based Damac began marketing 360 Versace-branded flats in the 50-storey AYKON block in the area.
Two-bedroom flats start at £1.5m. The service charge is £5.25 per sq ft. The developer promises a 2019 opening.
It is an experiment that will likely test the power of branding to its limits.
A Coull farewell in Marlow
All Saints Church Marlow sits beside the Thames across the river from the 18th-century hotel The Compleat Angler. There is no more English a spot on a cold and sunny day in early spring.
It was a spot where the fiercely Scottish former chief executive of SEGRO, Ian Coull, who died at the end of January, aged 65, was remembered at a memorial service.
Thank You for the Music by Abba and Unforgettable by Nat King Cole were two tunes chosen for the prelude by Coull’s son Ross from his father’s “most listened to” list. The service was very English, led by the Reverend David Campbell, the senior chaplain of Marlborough College.
He is a vicar with a voice that could command armies in the field. I Vow to Thee My Country and Jerusalem exercised the lungs and lachrymal glands of the 400-strong congregation. By this point some in the packed pews were wondering if a man who sided with Romania in a rugby match against England was having a last joke. But no. The congregation, which included the doorman at SEGRO’s offices, were serenaded out into the sunshine by a kilted piper playing a lament.
