ON-DEMAND WEBINAR
Finding success through customer-centric property development
As we embark on a new year, it's clear that there will be many opportunities in the property industry. However, to achieve success in this competitive market, it's essential to focus on your customers - the buyers of your completed schemes. While it can be challenging to prioritize the needs and preferences of your customers in property development, getting it right can lead to faster sales and higher prices.
SPEAKERS
Stuart Ducker: Strategic Solutions Director, TwentyCi
Paul Davis: Co-Founder, Nimbus Maps
About the webinar
Join us as we explore the importance of customer-centricity in property development and discuss strategies for making your schemes more successful. Paul Davis, Founder of Nimbus, and Stuart Ducker, Strategic Solutions Director of TwentyCi, share insights on how to design your schemes with your customer and eventual buyers at the centre of everything you do.
During the webinar they discussed:
- The current market conditions and why customer-focused development is essential in today's market
- Strategies for designing your schemes to sell quickly and at a high price
- Tips for finding the right opportunities
- The importance of being laser-focused on your end buyer and customer
By the end of this webinar you will better understand how to approach property development in a customer-centric way and how to succeed in today's market.
Listen, on the go 🎵
![Stuart Ducker (4)](https://www.nimbusmaps.co.uk/hubfs/Stuart%20Ducker%20(4).png)
STUART DUCKER
Strategic Solutions Director | TwentyCi
A founder member of TwentyCi, Stuart is the Strategy Director, Principal Consultant and Data Scientist with over 30 years of commercial experience in providing customer-focused data and integrated communications solutions to a wide range of industry sectors. Throughout, his career has required a dynamic mix of commercial and technical acumen, with the overriding aim of delivering exceptional return on investment for employers and clients
![Paul Davis Nimbus Maps](https://www.nimbusmaps.co.uk/hubfs/Paul%20Davis%20Nimbus%20Maps.png)
PAUL DAVIES
Co-Founder | Nimbus Maps
In 2015, Paul founded Nimbus Maps - a platform that supports the property industry with acquisition strategies, enabling the market to buy better and value quicker using technology and data.
Prior to Nimbus, Paul ran the family property business with his brother Simon, before setting up a consultancy business supporting the redevelopment of the property estates of some largest corporations in the UK. Using a unique combination of data points from multiple sources, they unlocked millions of pounds of developments, including finding an extra £100 Million in one customer’s estate alone. This was when Paul realised that data was the key to having that critical edge in property development and that this data could be used to make any property strategy more effective, which lead to Nimbus Maps to enable anyone in the property market to benefit from it.
Along with the data, Paul enjoys providing cutting-edge education to the market in his weekly webinars with industry experts.
Nimbus Maps: Hello! And welcome to today's Webinar, where today we're looking at customer-centric property development. We'll be looking to understand what's going on at the sharp end of a recession, trying to understand pricing, trying to understand what's happening with the speed of sale, and then understanding as developers how that might impact our choice of housing mix and understand what those schemes might look like, and to help me answer that question today I've invited none other than Stuart Ducker.
Stuart Ducker: Hello Paul
Nimbus Maps: I'm very, very excited. Looking forward to today's session. I guess the key stuff to look at today is really the kind of market, to understand what customer-centricity means, understand this with the various small parts of the market, and how we might leverage how we look at the market space with a particular lens. It's going to be quite exciting to view this through the lens of data, technology, and through TwentyCi
Can you perhaps just give us a brief understanding of TwentyCi, kind of what it is you do, and how you guys are well placed to address our topic today?
Stuart Ducker: Yeah. Sure, no problem at all. So TwentyCi is a small company, with roughly about 100 employees based in Milton Keynes and what we effectively are, are property market experts. So we understand pretty much a whole lot of market positions - what's going on within the property market and have lots of data assets that support that.
Nimbus Maps: Fabulous, and what we're going to do is poke around those data assets and understand how we might use that as part of our property development, so should we kick off and go for it?
Stuart Ducker: Sure.
Nimbus Maps: Fabulous, so hopefully, you've got all the consent you need to be able to share your screen and all that kind of good stuff.
Stuart Ducker: Okay. So we're going to begin by looking at some brief TwentyCi credentials, even though we've just spoken about that. Then we're going to move on to look at the residential sale market. What's it looking like at the minute, particularly in the last quarter? What's the lettings market look like some predictions from us, even though we don't tend to make them for the long term we do have enough data to get reasonably, you know, accurate about 2023, and then finally look at some use cases for developers and investors who are looking to build properties.
So very briefly, TwentyCi credentials who are, we as I said, we have the largest, most granular most accurate source of homeowner data and property data in the UK.
We do have a whole of market coverage of advertised properties. Some of our clients exist in a State agency retail some new house builders, as well as telecommunications, utilities, and financial services. Basically, Anybody who is looking to talk to home movers. In fact, we trade with about 15 of the top 20 estate agent brands.
Stuart Ducker: People use us for all marketing purposes. If you're in retail for example, you might be trying to attract people who buy a new sofa for their new home. Also insight purposes - what's going on in the marketplace, which is a bit of what we're gonna talk about today, financial services, particularly in risk to manage their risk and on an increasing basis. We're also dealing with people who are looking to purchase companies in terms of mergers and acquisitions, and seeing whether that's a good idea or not, so a brief overview.
That's who we are. So ultimately the business starts off with property. So it's it's sort of the things that are displayed on Rightmove, Zoopla or on the market. All those kinds of places, and then adding more and more data sets into them to understand and sort of dig information out there.
Stuart Ducker: Our data is split down into 4 different buckets if you like, and the third of those, as you can see on the screen now is the whole of market coverage, where we track 99. Point 5 of the whole of the UK marketplace.
There are also 3 other features. So, firstly, just very briefly, that contains about 330 variables on every single one of the 31 million residential properties in the UK, our Avm or automated valuation model. So we know the value of their properties, both now and in the past.
And finally, on the far right-hand side. We have a quite successful likely-to-instruct model which predicts people who are likely to come to the market in the next 2 months, and we'll be talking more about that a little bit later on.
And so you will hear of us. We're all across the broadsheet Tuesday as well as appearing on some TV channels, some for news, did something on rentals in Manchester a month ago, and we were featured in that. So with our data is trusted effectively by publications as well as by the government and industry commentators.
Okay. So if we look at the residential sale market here, we have picked sort of a look at supply and demands. Now, just to explain these, both of these are current measures, and that's quite important, because it means when there are government developments and government changes and the cost of living prices. Both those supply and demand measures are influenced by that almost straight away. If that makes sense.
A supply of new properties into supply has been a big problem within the industry. It was 4% down on my last normal year of 2,019, although the first 7 days since Boxing Day, and you may have read this in the Industry Press.
there's been quite a huge hike in supply so 33% increase compared to 2029. So some of that supply is now starting to come back demand which is quite key. So these are the number of sales agreed on properties, with 3% down on the whole of 2,019. However, if you look at December, 22 demand was down 10%. Now, that sounds like it's a disaster.
But actually what you've got to remember is the mini-budget which took place on the twenyth of September affected October, which was 18 sent down then November, which is 17% down on December, 22. So sorry 10% down so actually, we are moving back to what's more like a normal situation, if you like, more like 2,019.
Okay, if we look at the demand and supply across price brackets. So the first thing to say from this comparing 2022 is 29 means that all different price brackets now are much more likely to sell than they were before.
If you look at the lower price properties, so those that are under £200,000, they're the most likely to sell, where effectively, of 100 properties that come into the marketplace 92% of those sold in 2,022, and you'll see from the graphic to 2019 is 84%. So even in the highest price properties that are only 52% likely to sell. It's still stronger than the less normal year of 2,019 and 2,018
Nimbus Maps: And so that's what we're saying is that that kind of take up. You take a property on the market. Actually. Now, it's actually quite big. It's sort of 8% difference doesn't look like a lot, except that it's on 80%. So it's it's quite a big jump up by I mean you need to multiply that by one and a half 1 million new instructions. And you're getting to a view of how many properties we're talking about is quite a few.
Stuart Ducker: In terms of site prices we have to in those reduce, although they didn't rise throughout the whole of 22 by about 8.5% or £32,000, the current UK average price asking price. This is £404,000, and did whilst December sort of fall we kind of have a feeling that there might be some further falls to come in 2023, but certainly not of the order of the kind of 2025% that we've seen, and it it will still lead property prices and both sort of pre pandemic levels. If that makes sense.
Okay, this is quite interesting. So if we look at the time to sell a property, so how long does it take from you listing that property to get a sale agreed on it and December half of all properties. So that's the immediate measure for those of you. The statistical. It was 35 days, so half of all properties had a sale agreed on them within 35 days. and you know, whilst that was different from november where it was 29 days more importantly, it's still a significant reduction on the amount of time Property took to sell in 2,019, which was 48 days. So property at the minute is taking about 30% or less time to sell, and it used to pre pandemic.
if we move on to a lettings, so let's look at the private letting sector. The biggest issue with respect to the sector is stock, of course, and you know everybody will be talking about this. But from our data, we saw the number of stock of properties. So, in other words, those properties that are on the portals, if you like, and available to rent, was under 200,000 properties for the first time since our data began, way back in in 2,009 effectively in the last 3 years. So it well, since 2,019 is fallen by 39%.
So there are a lot of people, a lot of landlords, if you like, divesting from the marketplace, and also a lot of issues with respect to letting stop not being advertised and those kind of things. But the biggest issue is really that there is not that many places around people to rent or looking for rental properties at the minute.
Nimbus Maps: so I correlate into the price that looked at earlier, so I didn't sort of see that same trend as I know all of kind of. So we're talking about, You know, when the investors start selling their that buildings because of all the things that have to pretty pressure on residential investors. We're gonna see a crash in property prices, but I didn't see the same corresponding. So there's quite a clear drop in there on that previous slide. I didn't see the same on the pricing is that I missed. That was that was that there?
Stuart Ducker: Well, it isn't. Well, the the pricing is on the next slide. No, i'll find in a minute in terms of the to let pricing. The biggest issue is, I've already said it's supplies down so new property coming up for rent. It is down 8% on the prior year 25% down compared to 2019, and demand is not very relevant with respect to this subject, because literally, you can only rent what's available to rent. So because supplies gone down demands from them, but underlying demand is still strong.
If you take a look at prices to address your question pull, I mean, let's agree. Prices have just been going up and and in the medium term, and you know, Government legislation looks like the stock issues in the private rental sector will continue and it looks like we should expect, for further rises in less agreed prices. If that makes sense, I mean. You can see from the chart there that we're, you know, over £1,300 now per kind of month for the average in the UK. Which is a substantial increases 22% up since 2,019, and that will continue to rise. Now, the assumption that is, it incomes rise at the same time, because obviously there's affordability issues.
But we expect less agreed prices to rise further and continue to rise, because supply is short, effectively.
Nimbus Maps: So, my one of the so the question that I was really ending up was, do we see that correlating to a change in the capital value of those properties. So because there's sort of volume of houses being put on the market. But actually the chief price for those is then falling it falling down because it's sort of an oversupply of how it's on
Stuart Ducker: Not really is the answer to that question, because of the fact that it's relatively small in the grand scheme of things. If you take a look at the hold of the UK. There's 31 million residential properties, and 21 million. Those are owner occupied little bit more than that. Actually. So the you know, the 5 million private rental properties there are, even though you know, some of the landlords of divested of some of those properties it doesn't mean they all have, and it's really not large enough to have a huge impact on sale prices as it stands at the minute.
Nimbus Maps: That makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah, Absolutely.
Stuart Ducker: Okay. So let's have a look at 2,023 predictions. So Firstly, you know how many new instructions for sale are we expecting? And I've given you the history as far back as 2,016 here on the slide and we believe that the seminar instructions will probably still remain sluggish, despite what I said about the increase in since Boxing Day. What you gotta remember here is that we're still recovering, if you like, from the effects of the Mini budget and the economy the way that it is at the minute, but i'd expect about one and a half 1 million sound and instructions for 2023 this year.
We think sscc will fall further than that. You know fuel by cost of living crisis. The war in Ukraine and Brexit as well and we're expecting to say about 1.0. 1 million sales agreed. But the most important thing, I guess, is transactions, because that's what drives revenue.
Our view of transactions is is boy, if you like, or or or by the amount of in flight transactions that there are at the minute. So we're currently sitting in a space where 380,000 properties for sale, or effectively had a sale agreed on them, and are in that journey as it stands at the minute they're marked as Ss. In stock on the chart, and nearly all of those will complete as it stands at the minute. The average sale time, from salary to completion is about 4 and a half months.
So we expect to see that boy up, if you like, or or make better some of the transactional volume this year in 2,023. We could take a look at the Rearview Mirror for those of you that Don't know there's 2 governments organizations that track property transactions in the UK. One of those is his Majesty's Revenue Customs, Hmrc. Which tracks stamp duty, declarations, if you like, and the second one of those is a collaboration formed by the Bank of England, a UK. Hpi, or House Price Index, which effectively includes Hml. R. For England and Wales and their equivalence for Scotland. Northern Ireland. What we're tending to find with the latter data is that it's, you know. Hmr. Is so far out of date, but still expecting transactions from 2021. So my view is that we should probably look at Hmrc, because the numbers are much more stable. If that makes sense.
However, looking at the property market as a whole. I think there are far more positives than there are negatives, and you Don't, always see this in the media, because you know many of the people who ask us for data. They're looking to create a story, obviously, and you know, even the broad sheets have been slightly guilty of making that story negative. The difference between the broad sheets and the tabloids, of course, is that they usually qualify it in the text to the articles that you know, from a positive perspective for those of you that remember the global financial crisis, or the credit for which it was turned in 2,007, 8, and 9. I guess we're in a completely different situation than we were then when House prices last took a major major dip. So when employment is low, you know the standard duty changes in the many budget is still there. That's about the only thing that has survived, but it's still there.
You know, typical more. These interest rates are still lower than long-term averages. So it's one rates that drive that have fallen since the mini-budget is still going down. Okay, now, where they were in September of last year. But they're heading in that direction. Yeah, and people have got larger mortgage terms. So it used to be the case that we could have a 25 year mortgage. And now there are 35 year mortgages available repayment. Mortgage is a much more common. So Gcf. Was around with most people, finance that properties for and down on mortgages or interests only mortgages even as completely different situation. The level of equity is higher. Now that people have in properties prior to.
Stuart Ducker: Whilst prices are expected to fall in 2023, that's a good thing, because it kind of makes properties more affordable. And what's the alternative? You know the private rental sector, As I said in December, the average rental prices of a 1,300 job pounds per calendar month which means buying a lot more affordable option for many. If you have the deposit there, and on the negative side. We've got low consumer confidence. We understand that there is a cost of living crisis, especially at the no end. There's high inflation in the minute, and they will undoubtedly be further interest rate rises. So if we take all of those things into account. Our view is that we're expecting transactions this year to be about 1.1 million, which is not too far away and slightly higher than what we saw in 2,019 effectively. So a return to normality is definitely our view of what's on the cards in terms of lettings.
Stuart Ducker: So a slightly different picture here, of course, and I've said before that stock is the major issue. So it's new properties coming onto the marketplace for rent. We're expecting a further 5% fall on 2022 this year. So expect about 1.1, 2 million new instructions for rent. Basically. So what does all this mean? And let's have a look at if you use cases using our data, and what we do is we pick 2 areas. That's slightly contrasting, if you like. One of those is Harlow and the other one is onesworth in London and we're gonna demonstrate. That was in a second. But we scratched our hands and said, right? Well, what kind of information is useful to developers, and we think that the you know the housing market needs of the location. The mix, if you like, is quite important.
What does it look like in terms of the property types? How many numbers of beds are there? What is the time to sell as well. And you should you be listing these properties with estate agents, and if you do, which one should you pick in particular areas, and which ones are performing best. There is a huge difference between a good agent and a bad agent these days, so it's quite important that you pick the good one who's most likely to sell your provinces. Perhaps comparison with the area as well, and also the number of new built in the area is quite important. Important. How much competition have you got?
So, taking a look at those areas in a little more detail? So let's have a look at Harlow first of all, and what I've done is I've broken this down by property type, and we've looked at all of the instructions in Harlow over the course of the last year, and as you can see from that third column there 37% of the properties that come out for sale in harlow are Terrace.
The next call of a long conversion is much more important, because what this says is, if you list the detached property in all that it's 57% likely to sell. But if you're listing a terrace properties, 82% likely to sell, and that's quite important. As to the mix of properties that you are building effectively to go on on on Resell.
We've given you some average instruction prices there, and we've also produced a column which we refer to as Pippa, which is a short for the percentage of initial asking price achieved. So actually, if those detached properties do sell, we're achieving above the original asking price or have been in 2,022. But, as you can see, they're all about 99 point something percent quite important column Next is the average time to sell in days. So those detached properties are taking 193 days from instructing them for sale to somebody actually moving through the front door in that property, and, as you can see, terrace houses are relatively low in terms of the 170 days. So we've also calculated the finance cost as well at 10%. And you know the people who are listening to this Webinar will don't have to do that much better than me, and know what that rate so, but it just kind of gives you a comparison, for if you're building 10 units, this is how much it's gonna cost you in order to go for those 170 days. It will go through those 170 days. This is what you're gonna be paying on from finance perspective.
Stuart Ducker: So our view is that all of the things being equal and simply, you know, in Harlow, if you're building 10 units, you should basically build terrace houses because they're most likely to sell as quite a lot of them as a market for them. You're achieving 99.8% to the asking price, and they sell fastest, 170 days to contrast that the bottom table then looks at once with right completely different situation. First of all, a much bigger marketplace. So you know, with here we see 18,000 properties that have been instructed in the last year as opposed to the 2,000 in Harlow and of those you can tell by the next column 66% of them are flats. So the vast majority of them, which is you'd expect it. An area in South London right?
However, if you look at the conversion stats on that next, your perhaps your intelligence or your could feel, would tell you that you perhaps needed to develop flats in that area because of the fact that that's what most of the market is. But actually that conversion column is pretty crucial, and there are several reasons that I don't want to go into it the minute why is so low. But there are only 37% likely to sell. Which is, you know, you're gonna have to discount some of those if you are building them to to sell them on effectively. So same Hipaa slightly that were averages. The average time to sell in in ones with this is much higher than it is in Harlow, or 7 days higher. If you're looking at terrace houses and again, you know, in ones with but for different reasons. If you were building 10 units, you might decide to build terrace houses, as they far more likely to sell, and they're going to sell faster.
However that's not necessarily the case. If you're building them to rent, it's a completely different picture which we're going to move on to look at next.
Stuart Ducker: So in Harlow, first of all, on the rental side, what we've done here is, we've calculated the original instruction prices for rent of each of those properties, and you can see that flats really dominate the marketplace here. So they're 40% of what's instructed and the by price for those flats 208,000 is quite low. So by the time you take into account your bike price, what you're going to rent it out for, and the yield is 5.8. So it's actually higher in flats than it is all of the rest of the properties. So, on balance, all of the things being equal, If you were building to rent you'd probably build flats in hollow if you was building in the area and in terms of ones with a. We see this throughout a a lot of in a London, you know, Flash! Just dominate the skyline, and they dominate the availability of properties. 77% of what's been instructed to rent over the course of the last year has been flat, and it's hard to see an argument really, where you should build anything else in that area, notwithstanding planning, permission, and all the other things that i'm sure we will go to talk about but there's also a high yield with them as well. You'll notice that the yield is 5% rather than 3. Point something over the course of the rest of the property types.
Stuart Ducker: And so just to summarize on that. So Harlow and I've given you the districts there. So Cm. 17 to 20. About 1.3% of property there is on the marketplace, and ones with significantly higher proportion of properties on the market. 2.6%. And I did say we should look at the best agents to sell your properties. An agent called Rayland Johnson, sells the most property, so they have a 13% market, sharing all that. They have low fallen through rates and price reductions. They're not paying us by the way. But if you selling those properties in Hollo, you know you might want to look at those as a viable option, whereas in ones with Welsh, Kf. H. Kingsley, for call, he would sell the most properties that put an 8.4% monkey share.
They have higher than normal price reductions, and there's a couple of things that might sort of sweat you towards other alternatives and the other thing is I did mention right at the start of this one of the things that we've got is a likely to instruct a model in that area which is very successful and used by estate agents to predict which properties are going to go into the marketplace. But if you're building properties for sale now, there's nothing stopping you obtaining this from marketing to those people to say we are building, which is for sale in Harlow, and we sort of know that you're likely to instrument your property, or you look like somebody who would instruct your property for sale over the course of the next 2 months.
and within the top 10 of that model there are over 3,000 addresses within the top 30% of that model. There are 9,600 addresses in one, with, of course, those numbers are far larger, with 21,000 in the top 10 to the most likely to instruct, if you like, because, as I said, the market is much more dynamic and much more transparent.
Stuart Ducker: The markets likely to instruct in the top 30 since the model 54,000.
Nimbus Maps: It's just kind of so the like this to instruct. So the reason that's relevant for us today is the fact that the people that are selling the house, the ones that we buying the houses that you're building an effect. So so you will get customer base to to market directly to, so that you can be saying he's my great new scheme of 10 houses in Harlow, and those 3,000 people are the ones that you give me like. Sell the house soon, which means I'm looking for another one to move into. Basically
Stuart Ducker: Sure, yeah. And then the one thing that I didn't say is over the course of 2022, I think out to 30 some model identified something like 82% of all instructions. So it's pretty successful. You know, top 30% that randomly expect 30% of instructions but actually you're getting 82. So it is possible to target people who are significantly more likely to buy your properties that your building is effectively what i'm saying.
So in order to talk about this a little bit further, we have a site report which you can request from us. And basically what this does is it tells you some of the things that I've been talking about, really. So if you were looking to look at what Harlow's like as a development area. It would tell you the state of the local market. You know what the sales and rental figures look like at a local level versus regional what the recommended housing mixes, and all of that kind of stuff, as well as the time to sell, and those crucial price achieve versus listing prices, the needs of the location. I've already spoken about. Really the sales prices. We can also do Prices square foot and talk about yields is of showing you. If we're talking about built rent, and and even if we're not really, I suppose, and that that report price per site, if you like, or per area. And really, when we're saying site, we're talking about things like I'm looking to build some property in somewhere in Harlow, and that that would be the whole of the area that we would cover for the price of doing that £400 per back basically.
Nimbus Maps: Fabulous? Well, so we've got that that information available to us for Harlow and for one. So I guess the next job really is to trybring that to life, and so please don't know the numbers helps you find opportunities, check what they work financially, and in planning to help you connect with the owners to to buy this stuff off of market. And so so my job now really is to say, let's go off and and find some opportunities. And so I have actually been colluding on this. So so i'm going to go off. Where should we go if we go? Let's go, let's go harlow first.
Just to prove that we haven't we haven't choreographed this. So so let's go off to to Harle and get that? Get the name right first. So, Harlow, Stuart, we're looking for terrace houses what we're gonna go and build to sell. Then it's terrace houses. We want it's kind of it's. It's small units.
I guess. There's there's multiple ways in which we which we could do that, I suppose from my point of view. We've got a picture of the whole of Harlow, if you like you. But what I do understand before I start is where the good parts of town and the bad parts of town off first. So obviously the analysis being done, is, say, well in Hollywood what we should be should be building and and so space for me. What I want to start off with is and I do this every time is, is reach us to look at across Harlow sort of what those average values are. So the so where are the good parts of town, and where the where the weak parts of town, so that I know that if i'm sort of disappearing off to passwords that actually the average price of that, this is a Show me demographic neighborhoods. It's showing me, then, the sales price of housing on a rate to square for averaged out across those areas.
Nimbus Maps: It's say, if I want to find a a good part of hard. It's sort of northwest patch across the northeast. Probably all. Okay. This patch down here starts to look a bit. It's sort of 10% cheap as it's. Probably not the best part of Harlem, and of course, if I give out sort of East, I get some some high advice. In fact, out here as well. I get some some nice high values, too, so it's. Give me an understanding of where I should go and go and look. There is a question about kind of. If If I got rental yield, then do I also, instead of things like Hmo is actually a bit of a an Hmo marketplace across Harlow, too, so I sort of have a feel that I could be if we do start looking at rentals. We start looking at flats in Harlow to to rent. We go then flats in high to rent Stuart. Are we going going flats? Yeah. So so depending on which one is on going, for if it if it is flat i'm going for for rent, I can be thinking at the same time, but perhaps an hmo exit as well, so it could be. Perhaps, looking at commercial conversions. I could look at office convert to flats. I could look at shops it up there, and I could convert the other parts of shops into into a flat, and then obviously it into C 4. And so we generous thereafter as well, because I've got both those things in that market place when I feel comfortable with that. So so let's a little poke around to see what we can find. And and so if we're looking for the house, it's it's, it's, it's gone off. It is it's showing me harlow, and these little kind of white outlines. These are freehold properties. They're showing me freehold titles across the map, and I spoke to the first way to to start to find some opportunities. We'll see how lucky we get. This is probably where we choose a more choreograph than we are, but you know he who does rob me wins obviously. So. So let's just kind of see what we see. I'm guessing with a little bit, too. It's a little bit too densely packed here. But I've got a bit
Nimbus Maps: So so as Robbie says so ultimately what this is showing, this is our ordinance survey, masterm, overlay. So what this does, is it when we start looking at an area we start looking at Google satellite view. It's really hard to see where the opportunities are. It's really hard to see the build environment. And so what these, what the all the semi mastermap does is it just removes all that cluster of the map? It's. All we see is building and land that we just can use our I then, to pick out opportunities and and sort of. As I say, I got pretty lucky here, because also looking down this street here I can sort of see. I've got house, house, house, house, house, house, house, house, house, house, house, and so my opportunity. We need to put something in the side there is. It's super simple equally along. Here is all kind of walkway that comes through here, and actually kind of house house house that gap house. And so again, the opportunity to put something in there potentially so kind of quick ways to find small schemes, small. And and, as I say this part of it probably isn't easiest place. I probably could've picked a an easier place to go, and if we perhaps just do that, just to kind of complete the picture for you. All.
One of the things that I often like is is trying to find areas where the where the streets in a little bit less regularly. It's a bit too new. Build for me, actually, but we'll we'll keep trying and see what? See what we can find. Because again this the same, the same things true, and the kind of the more the the street scene, and the more the kind of the the roads curve and bend, and this sort of stuff you'll find this sort of small part of the land that gets get left and and on develops in effect
Nimbus Maps: What can be useful as well with this is is to have a certain site, size in a particular location, and and one of the easy ways to find out where in Harlow would be a good place to to find bigger or bigger opportunities, if you like. So we're building the old infill opportunity that ordinance today. Mastering up overlay is super super helpful.
But we do have a a slightly upgraded version here, and then i'm going to kind of just jump into and cheat with here, which which gives me sort of residents development plots also money. And what this is doing is it's giving me a combination of 2 things it's giving me a combination of looking at. Where in the area do I find big enough sites that I can go off and try and unlock opportunities on them. So where I? Where is this is something that's a bit bigger than a sort of a little terraced house, if you like where I then also have an eclectic street scene, where we have different size of how on different sizes of plots and things, and what we can see in the top, north to the northeast corner here of of Harlow. We have this sort of this sort of clustering of these properties around here, so what i'm expecting to find is when I start looking up here, i'm going to find a lot more opportunity. So it's a little poke around and see what we find again back into the good old good old ordinance Survey, mastermind and hopefully, will that be going? So this is again where we sort of see this opportunity.
Nimbus Maps: You can see here again, sort of houses all kind of packed in. And then suddenly you get a big gap in a sort of a big house on its own there, so the opportunity, if we were thinking of perhaps flat, some like that, we could take that site, and it would be the coffee building up to flats and press, build a terrace and houses around the back of Prop Self and keep the keep, the the the front front on the rental faces. Same down here again, sort of a house up to Simon this side garden, but equally this sort of stuff down here where you've got this big title sort of a building to the side where actually we could always retain all of that and have this lot here develops. Off we go. Thanks very much. A number of similar kind of it's types of possible land ultimately, where the same thing is true. So to that elite plus. This just helps me kind of zone into those into those areas ultimately.
Nimbus Maps: So that's really kind of how I would find my terrace houses, how i'd find the sort of the development plots at it's most basic with members, if i'd like some of those opportunities that I kind of do actually, and I probably the the only ship layer back on again. Click on the property here. That'll give me the information to tell me all about this particular property, so I can see it's 3 whatling roads, I said. What Clington rose in Harlow. I could see this type of number. It's owned by a private individual probably live in the house. I suspect I can buy title register with platform. I'll give you the details. I can see it's just like a half an acre. I can scoop down some of this stuff. It's solved recently. We have the the the price it's sold for we see energy form certificates. We see planning histories around it, so to see if that particular property had a a planning application on it so kind of interesting. They had a a a consent in 2021 for a new house in the garden. But there's equally one beach means it's a tpo set on the side, and it's kind of a few down here as well, so it could be doing some work on the on the property, so we may have the order of constraint to worry about.
We sort of start to look at, try to develop this site out more formally, but it does seem like this kind of a a clear site in many ways, and I which of these these these trees have have tp on them, but it doesn't seem like we shouldn't have too much problem getting onto the onto the site and being able to perhaps develop outside, or perhaps something at the back.
Nimbus Maps: And and this sort of stuff so like it'll be quite, quite useful. I suspect we can see some stuff around planning policy, so the property is not listed doesn't fly. It's not the Green Bell or a and B. So we've kind of hit some of those headlines, and we get into a lot more chapter in verse around. What's the planning policy section where I can dive into housing delivery tests and flooding, and all that kind of good stuff, slower and all that kind of stuff. So all of that stuff can then be very useful to understand more about the low areas it conversation. I like kind of good stuff, too.
One of the things that I do quite like to do is as part of that of that assessment is, understand. If I am looking to build new new new units in this particular location it starts to try to get a warm, fuzzy feeling about others that are doing a similar thing nearby. So we have to think of the the planning application. Sort of overlay, if you like. Sort of a little layer here where you can, you can plot on the map. Where do we see planning applications across that area sort of usefully. There's no sort of red dots on the on the site. So in effect, these planning applications are classified for ready for the residential planning applications. Blue, if that commercial or combination of both, if they a mixture scheme or a or a change of use.
Nimbus Maps: I mean, you see, little red spread spots all over the place, and and the bigger the planning applications, the bigger the spots and the sort of the newer. They are the kind of more I they they sort of. They disappear back into the sort of a faded way of a time it effect, if you like. What we can see down here is that there's a little the red spot down here which a bigger spot, which is kind of interesting. This is showing this, this building being demolished to say one of time and apartments going in that was refused in 2,022, and I can click on the link that's gonna see why that got refused. See if that's a You know we're not supporting property development in this in Harvard over our dead bodies, or whether they a design issue or something like that, that they've they've they've had it it's a problem there in effect.
Nimbus Maps: so hopefully all of that is useful. I'm just wondering if I can segue now to the next part of what I want to show you, which is so ultimately one of the things that also sort of excited when we go away from the idea of of build, sell, and move into, built to rent and stuff thinking about. Well, actually, if I was going
acquire some stuff in this location, we know there's an marketplace we could think about. Hmos is an exit on this whole bunch of things we could do around all of that. But what's going through my head at the moment was we try to leverage some of the the change legislation around commercial properties and the relatability of all of that leverage.
The fact that Covid is kind of turned the commercial world upside down so retailers now with a completely different thing from what they were. Pre Covid, you know, back in 5 years ago, more of quite as a retail it was to get shop, fill it for the stuff, and set it through the front door of the shop. Now it's managing on multiple channels of websites and all this kind of stuff leveraging that also the fact. The offices changed, and it's it's kind of set up. So you know we are we remote working, and we hybrid. Working. How many days we in the office all this kind of stuff is it's kind of changing
Nimbus Maps: sort of coming back. I think that's my kind of prediction for 23. Is it going to start coming back? And the pressure to back in the office is a bit higher.
Nimbus Maps: Ultimately, what I was interested in is is starting to use that same overlay in a second to say, Well can we go off and find buildings that, like convert into flats, to sell in effect, and the 2 obvious places for that. All this kind of many of these places really, when it comes to to doing that, because there's plenty of new Pd. Rights that come out of the back of the bill Bill build message from from a couple of years ago. One of those up to being Class N. A. And so what members does here is it takes the all the classy buildings in the area, put them on the map for us, and removes the ones that that wouldn't fall within the article. 2, 3 lamb that needs to be as part of the as part of the getting class I made to apply an effect to find the classy buildings. It removes any of those I have planning constraints that would preclude the use of class. I a.
To convert it from classy into flats and it runs a calculation for viability in terms of numbers, too. And so what we should hopefully find is might be something like this. We'll, we'll see what we find. So this is a shop under Class E.
Nimbus Maps: Don't particularly want to read about the shop. I'm not sure that necessarily the most exciting thing. Maybe they will call them about so cases 2 and 1,000 square foot shop. What it's saying is that sales values here about £460 for it's worth a 1 million quid. We'll put 1 million what it's being redeveloped. The value of the shop is about 1250 foot in rental rental terms. It's applied to 7% yields pretty quite punchy. Now given given kind of what retail looks like at the moment to say it's within £65 of foot. It's a about 400 grand conver to 400 there's 203,000 left, over, which is about 40% return on cost. So kind of a quick way to understand that whether i'm particularly bothered about that as a as an opportunity to sort of look and just see if
Nimbus Maps: I'm not sure whether I do or not. But let's just give it a chance to see if you get all of the right, then that's kind of interesting. So do I want to convert that. Well, maybe maybe it's better than I thought. It's gonna be. It's a bit of a space opportunity above it if it's not listed which won't be some on the class I know, overlay so kind of an interesting thing. Maybe. Let's dominate for a while. I don't want to do that, so we kind of we could think about that particular one.
Nimbus Maps: Ultimately it depends if the only wants to sell by. So so what we can then do with this is, is we can click on to the button here brings that information panel Back out again out the left hand side. I see the property now is over the whole other States. I can save that to a tool called my sites. Very simple. Click it pop it into something like this click, save it's just for the label. It's just that it's saved, that into it's in it's the system that have this on my site section over here, where I can see the properties that I've been identified. I can then send letters out to the back of that by by downloading. This is full list of of sites and effect, you know. Excel file with the the details of the property, the owner's name and address, all kind of structured need, so I can then go and send it in. Left out to those those owners.
And ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to find about 100 opportunities. If you find 100 opportunities like this then what you'll tend to find is you send a 100 letters out. You'll get by 8 responses. Of those 8 responses half will say, i'm not interested when you hear that here. No, not now, Rob the no, never give me another. You give me a letter it about, you know. 3 6 months time. Just say still here. Still, it's an interesting kind of thing for the other 4 that come back that didn't say No, thanks very much. They'll say, all make this have a conversation. So I then go and see those people, and and have a conversation with them. The trick to that conversation is kind of. Once you get to sort of.
Nimbus Maps: I suppose first is understanding why they've been bounded to you. So what is it that makes them want to speak to you about saying that property to you, or doing some sort of deal with you. So what is it that that that kind of motivation is because you want to be presenting that back to them as part of the as part of the the presentation. We try to work out what what the deal is gonna look like. The second question is is kind of what's the most important thing for you? Is it? Is it to get the most money out of this site, or is it to get your money now?
Nimbus Maps: Because there's 2 different prices, and of course, getting the most money would mean perhaps the subjects planning deal, and perhaps a little bit of risk in this, and perhaps leave the the building in the deal till the end, and press get paid out sale, pricing something like that and so asking that question will help lead you down a path that will take you down to subject planning, deal, option, agreement, and that sort of stuff. So so that's kind of quite a useful thing. And then the question that you also want to ask me if you can, is, what's the minimum price you'll accept for this building, but still be happy. And the crucial words to the bits on the end, which is, I'm not trying to take you the shared to your back. What I'm trying to do is to understand whereabouts your aspirations of this building, and can we then marry together?
The the the idea of Well, if you want to achieve that kind of level of of of a value for the property to your that you own, then the way we're going to unlock that is, through this sort of planning deal and and us going through this journey together. Perhaps the building in for a while, and we we pay a bit of interest on the on the V of this building you've left in until the end, and that's sort of that's because it's small size to pros, and this stuff and that, and that really works where you have super profit, if you like. So when you've got a profit on costs. It's greater than 25%. You can make 25% yourself, as the developer and you can share that service profit with the owner press 50, 50, or something like that, whereby it incentivize them to come on a journey with you to share the risk with you going forward so very quickly we can we around the map, and we can see what else we've got. So this is again on the shop, whether i'm particularly bob about shops at. See, there's not this. There's a 2,400 square for office.
This is more valuable, since it's time for similar kind of conversion costs 300 grams converted it with 1 point. One again called me pounds to profit in there, say 26% profit. So we've got less wiggle room to share that with the with the owners. But it may well be that we're comfortable with this, because we've got an existing use value of a of an office done. It's pretty well located in pretty well located in Harlow.
Nimbus Maps: So hopefully that's been useful. There are a few things you could also do so you could. You could look at with the with the knowledge that Stuart's and passwords about Harlow we could sit there and say, Well, actually, what are the planning consents that have come through in Harlow, where there are flat scheme.
Nimbus Maps: and if that's not held by a built rent investor, then they might be sitting there thinking. Well, I don't fancy scheme anymore, and if we know we can go and acquire that reposition into into houses, it's a terrace house to feel comfort with that. Then maybe that's an interesting way of unlocking schemes that it kind of stall in a little bit, because the because the finances and the kind of the the lack, and so like in the marketplace and the fact. So we can do that through some of the search tools on members which kind of closes up. We have a planning search here that would allow us to go often and see what the planning applications across Harlow for residential development opportunities and download all that, and do some really clever stuff. There's some kind of cool stuff within there which I won't show you now, but
Nimbus Maps: Ultimately you can use that tool for for a few things. One is finding opportunities with planning, consent or planning refusal. Things get refused for various reasons could be designed could be. A whole lot of reasons can be policy, and that can very difficult to get around. But it can be simple stuff like design. You can. You can go and get yourself through an effect so apple kind of to refuse into into a consent. Obviously, so, that can be quite useful within that file. We also link the planning application to the property that sits on. So what it gives you then, is a list of of developers that are buying sites and submitting planning applications in one. It also gives you the price they paid for, so you can link the 2 together very quickly through the file. So what a plot based around around Harlow, and understand exactly what that marketplace looks like. And when we start to acquire these these these properties, we have that kind of confidence in the background, and the fine thing that does it also tells you who the architects and and planners are that are working for those developers, too, so that can be super helpful.
Nimbus Maps: I suppose a flat scheme in a Terrace House scheme problem, do the same architect for those depending on the number of units. Probably what i'd want a different architect for a flat scheme from a from a house scheme.
Nimbus Maps: I don't know. I just think about that. I think about Who was it was there? But that file will give you a list of all of the the planners working on different types of schemes. Certainly a conversion of upper parts of the shop, or something like that under cost you again one of the strategies that shown in the elite plus system. I just different architect for that from the one that I would use for a 5 terrace houses on a on our street somewhere be a different architect. I use the conversion versus versus that, and so that that I export that would show you all about it, and show you who the right people were to to work with, and you can even use it again.
There's a sort of an applicant agent search here that that allows you to go and look at what that agent actually do, what that? What that planner actually does? What are the kind of what's the nuts and bolts of the of that business? Are they doing 1,000 new schemes on the end of the settlement, where it's all strat, land and master planning, or rather doing small conversions. Is it listed buildings?
Nimbus Maps: Is it kind of what is it they're actually doing? They're building sheds on the it. Just supplement this sort of stuff. So a number of things that system can help you with a lot more like show you which could show you things like comparable commercial comms. Residential comes really kind of getting under the skin of what always what this means getting our developer prices right? But what I want to show today was really how we can leverage the power of of of a TwentyCi. And you can see, what does that marketplace really look like? What's the stuff that's really happening in that marketplace and my company, that marketplace, what stuff I should be building? And then you can drive that into like finding strategies to unlock this stuff off market by at the right price and be successful.
Nimbus Maps: That is the name of the game. Obviously, there is one thing I probably should be showing you so there is. There is one final thing I've nearly finished, but I would like to show you something else. It's my new toy. I have a new toy in numbers, and that new toy is, of course, nothing other than the unbroken lots of flats. So so this is slightly off topic today, but it's super interesting. Hopefully. So so what this does here is this is this is looking at across Harlow. Where do we see the box of flats? Right. So it's. Show me all the lots of flats across across Hardly what it's doing then is it showing me those that are under viable ownership? And it's saying where there are no leases granted this property, but I know what it's been sold off there's an opportunity to buy them off a commercial yield, which ultimately is. Let's say, 6, 7, and of course, then, the residential value of that property that's higher than the than the the value of the property on the commercial yield and effect. So what it's showing me is that there's a bunch of properties across across Harlow, where we can go and see. For example, this here, this 3 flats above the jewels. This not not be sold off, so I can buy that. And typically i'll pay a commercial value for those buildings then the value of the flats will will be valued if it flash by the commercial value rather than the resident, to find you when you buy it. And so it's typically quite a big uplifting that you probably buy it, so that so on. And typically, if you buy 5 you could sell for on for the value of the 5 you pay for it.
Ultimately you kind of get one free, so by full, get them free ultimately with their type of 15. So super super simple strategy couple of flats there with commission on the ground floor. Vibrable ownership makes you sign. So the vibration, basically saying, we don't want to deal with councils, housing associations, and this stuff is removed all of the so that sort of stuff out the way.
In effect 5 units there a couple of questions underneath it. 5 there, typically, you'll call one of those you keep one for free Ultimately, with a bit of time spitting. Got you list for your lawyer, and kind of jumped on really. So so a few simple things, just to give you a few ideas about how you might be able to unlock the opportunity in those areas. And I guess if we're in areas where you are saying flats are selling well, there is nothing better than broken blocks. Go and buy a job lot of 20 of them flog 18 and keep to for free super super simple, so that we should be part of that. And once we think that's what you're saying in one with the it's it's flat. We should be looking out for sale, so maybe maybe that could be interesting over there. So now i'm gonna i'm going to show up.
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