Lockdown Diaries: Howard de Walden’s Tracey Hartley
Tracey Hartley is director of residential at the Howard de Walden Estate and looks after 800 homes across 92 acres in Marylebone. She shares a day in late November, from a noisy awakening in the North East to a quiet evening in central London.
My day begins at 6am at home in Whitley Bay. I’d love to say I awake to the gentle breaking of ocean waves and birds softly tweeting. The truth is, it is more shrieking seagulls and, on this Tuesday morning, the roar of the bin wagon.
While eating breakfast I scan through e-mails to check that there haven’t been any major issues or emergency callouts overnight. None, thank goodness. Increased time at home has essentially given our tenants a microscope on any potential issues with their properties, often combined with a lower tolerance towards neighbours. We’ve witnessed a spike in queries as a result.
Tracey Hartley is director of residential at the Howard de Walden Estate and looks after 800 homes across 92 acres in Marylebone. She shares a day in late November, from a noisy awakening in the North East to a quiet evening in central London.
My day begins at 6am at home in Whitley Bay. I’d love to say I awake to the gentle breaking of ocean waves and birds softly tweeting. The truth is, it is more shrieking seagulls and, on this Tuesday morning, the roar of the bin wagon.
While eating breakfast I scan through e-mails to check that there haven’t been any major issues or emergency callouts overnight. None, thank goodness. Increased time at home has essentially given our tenants a microscope on any potential issues with their properties, often combined with a lower tolerance towards neighbours. We’ve witnessed a spike in queries as a result.
Some of these are concerned residents, worried about their ability to pay because of changes to their income, which receive a sympathetic ear, but we’ve also had instances of antisocial behaviour, which has kept our property management team busy. The ultimate sanction is, of course, eviction, but with court backlogs there is no swift remedy.
Onto my first meeting, a 9am video call with the executive directors. Today’s agenda includes reviewing our lockdown regime and the all-important discussion of this year’s Christmas get-together, via a Teams call.
Our chief executive has promised a donation for every member of staff wearing a Christmas jumper, for our charity partner The Hidden Network, a collaboration to end rough sleeping in Westminster. As a result, our employees are now stress testing the possibilities of wearing multiple jumpers to relieve him of as much cash as possible.
It’s back-to-back Teams calls for me this morning and at 10.30am there’s a review of current projects. It raises the challenges of both our team and the contractors maintaining the pace on sites, while working in a Covid-safe way and we try to work together to address this. At 11am I join the UK Apartment Association’s Festival of Build to Rent, discussing education and qualification needs with the Institute of Residential Property Management’s chief executive Andrew Bulmer.
Virtual conferences bring a whole new level of anxiety. It is one thing exposing my dodgy décor and dysfunctional household to work colleagues, but another entirely to open up my living room to industry contemporaries, while aiming to retain a shred of professionalism and credibility. Fortunately, the session goes smoothly and highlights the importance of delivering relevant training and qualifications to the BTR sector.
I make a quick foray into the kitchen at 12.30pm to see what’s cooking. My daughter Kathryn launched her home bakery business in April and has been rushed off her feet ever since. Given that I quite like my clothes to fasten, I look but don’t touch and grab anything but cake for lunch.
Next, I have an internal meeting to review the marketing on our available residential stock. Given the tough market in central London, we are monitoring this closely and reviewing it weekly. There are fewer overseas students this year and demand for weekday crash pads close to work has diminished.
Many urban professionals have returned to the family home or rented further out to save money in the face of job insecurity or less frequent commuting. There are many reasons, but they all conspire towards more choice for prospective tenants right now. The team are up against it, but are successfully tying up deals every week, so there is still clearly an appetite to rent in W1. Commutability to the office and our vibrant neighbourhood has served in our favour.
At 4.30 pm I dash to Newcastle Central to catch my regular train down to the big smoke. I commute down from the North East each week, a routine which hasn’t been impacted by the restrictions. We want to continue to look after our residents and most of our operations are functioning as normal so require the residential team to remain in attendance each week.
The three-hour journey is handy for longer tasks which require uninterrupted concentration and is perfect for the monotonous task of approving invoices. It is amazing how quickly the time flies.
I take a quick Tube ride from King’s Cross to Marylebone at around 8.30pm. As I head to the supermarket to stock up on essentials for the next few days, I make my way through a quiet Marylebone. The current closure of bars and restaurants admittedly robs the neighbourhood of some of its usual evening vibrancy. I really hope that the hospitality sector comes through this.
Bedtime approaches at 10.30pm and in the absence of my usual 6.00am gym sessions, I prepare my workout clothes and set the alarm for an early morning run instead. Win the morning, win the day, as one of my friends is always reminding me. I’m not sure about that, but there’s bound to be some cake going spare when I get home on Friday, so I might as well offset some of the damage now.
