We survived until 2025, now it is time to thrive

EDITOR’S COMMENT This first week back in January is always about setting resolutions. It’s about reflecting on the year gone by and about setting ourselves up, positively, for the year ahead. So, what should the real estate industry’s resolutions be this year. The sector has, mostly, survived until 2025. But what does it need to do now to make sure it thrives throughout 2025? The indicators are that it is not going to be entirely plain sailing out there this year, but when is it really? And if we know anything about this industry, we know that it is resilient and that it can adapt. The deals will continue to happen. They always do. The volumes go up and down, of course. Sometimes the deals are easy, sometimes they are not, but they happen. And perhaps this year really is the year when that wall of capital comes flooding into the UK built environment. But what I hope for real estate this year is that its understanding of the wider impact that it can have on our country’s people, places and economy grows. I hope that 2025 is the year when real estate’s voice gets heard more and that it is a voice that shows how the built environment can be a solution to so many of the issues we face. This week’s extreme weather is a very real example of the damage that has been done to our planet and that collectively we all have a lot of work to do to fix it. We have not yet done enough to reduce our negative impact on the planet, and we know that our sector can play a huge part in delivering the solution. We have to put the environment, and our impact on it, at the centre of all decisions. We can’t – for the sake of our assets and their value, as well as the planet – let anything get in the way of that. Margins for development continue to get tighter, with viability under immense pressure, but this industry must stand firm on delivering the best products and doing it right. And together, hopefully – with a bigger collective voice as the BPF, AREF and IPF merge, and other bodies collaborate on behalf of our whole industry – this year we will finally get our government and our policymakers to understand that this industry can help, but that it needs help too. What I am most excited to see this year in our sector, however, is a new understanding of how real estate can improve people’s lives. We have taken a look at a new report, Building Health Equity: The Role of the Property Sector in Improving Health, published at the end of 2024, which asks government to place health and wellbeing at the centre of housing strategy. With our health system under immense pressure, and with an ageing and ailing population, imagine the power of real estate if it could help ease this burden. What a purpose that could be. And a purpose that comes with profit. If people feel well and happy in your properties – working or living – they are likely to stay there longer. And if people live longer, healthier lives, that means your income is going to last longer too. Pete Gladwell, group social impact and investment director at Legal & General, says it best. “Even if, morally, you don’t care about this in terms of doing the right thing,” he tells us, “if you care about the British economy growing or not paying too much tax or getting more planning permissions or being a partner of choice to local authorities, then care about it for those reasons instead, because there are lots of really strong commercial reasons that this is an imperative.” So, while 2024 may have been the year to survive, let’s make 2025 the year that we – this brilliant sector – and this nation’s people and economy thrive. The power is in your hands.