EDITOR’S COMMENT One of the things I love most about real estate is its diversity.
“What?” I hear you say. “Aren’t you always whinging at us about our lack of diversity and how we need to have more women, more people from different backgrounds and more people of colour in the industry?” Well, yes, I am. And I won’t stop doing that, FYI.
But the diversity I’m talking about here is the wide range of bits that make up the industry. The elements that matter to the sector and make it tick. All of that stuff is one of the reasons I love this industry – I must do having stuck around for more than two decades, right? And why I love EG. We cover it all here.
The deals, the data, the bricks and mortar, the law, plus the more emotional stuff.
Real estate’s impact is so vast. It is economic. It is emotional. And it is about the ego too. And that is what makes it so fascinating. So worthwhile. So much more than any other industry.
Let’s take an example from a few of the things we have written about this week.
Our rankings show which advisers have proved to be the most active in the final rush to finish out 2023 strong. It is a real opportunity for this industry to showcase what it does; to have a bit of friendly competition as firms (and individuals) race to prove that they are the most successful across the UK.
Those leaderboards also show the volume of work being done by advisers across the UK and this year’s figures – particularly the final quarter – even provide a few reasons to be cheerful. It would be easy to look back on 2023 and think that it was a year of slowed activity. Our figures – contributed by advisers from all over the UK – tell a different story.
Contributed investment deals from our top 10 most active agents show some £2bn of activity in Q4 2023, up by almost a quarter on the same period in 2022. Take up too looks pretty healthy – even offices (who said they were dead? Certainly not Lego, which is building up its footprint).
Across the UK, more than 70m sq ft of space was transacted in 2023, with 27.5m sq ft in the final three months alone. That final quarter saw some 10m sq ft of office space transacted, up by almost 32% on Q4 2023.
These numbers reflect the deals-led side of real estate. Perhaps the stuff that feels a little bit colder. But they also reflect its scale and the constant activity. People need property, regardless of what might be going on politically or economically.
That brings me to the other end of the spectrum in this beautiful business. In this week’s magazine, you will read our interview with designer Thomas Heatherwick on his campaign against “boring” buildings.
It would be really easy to see Heatherwick as a fancy designer with fancy ideals just bashing the industry. But what the interview reveals is his passion for property. His belief that buildings matter. That they have a profound impact on us all. I love that. Because it is true, isn’t it?
All those deals and all that square footage that I’ve listed here and that we’ve got ranked matters.
It is places for people and things. It is space that impacts lives and livelihoods. That space doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, but it does need to be thought about.
We do need to think about what the places and spaces we work in and around, that we live and play in, that we see every day, do to us and for us. And that, surely, makes a career in real estate the most wonderful and most powerful of careers, whichever bit of it you are in.
And it is the fact that the deals and the numbers and the bricks and mortar are so thoroughly intertwined with the emotion and impact of the built environment, that makes me love real estate for its diversity.
That side of it at least.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews
