Real estate making a difference is real estate at its best

EDITOR’S COMMENT By the time you’re reading this I will be pedalling my way through France, making my way to MIPIM by one of the most carbon-efficient ways and raising much-needed funds for the various charities supported by Club Peloton, principally Coram. But I’m not writing this to make you jealous (the forecast is for rain and a headwind) or to green-shame you in my carbon-light transport mode (I’ll be training back with the news team, as part of EG’s commitment to ESG), but to offer up a reminder of the positive action the real estate community brings about. This year’s ride hopes to raise £255,000. I have no doubt it will smash that target. Every single one of the 80 or so property professionals I will be riding with, plus the Club Peloton team that make the event run smoothly, will be digging deep – physically, mentally and financially – to bring about positive change through this ride. Kudos to them. If this sector is anything, it is full of people who want to make a difference. Take SAY Consulting founder Debra Yudolph as an example and then the swift move into action that several major landlords in the sector took. After being contacted by the Ukrainian Social Club, via architect Ros Elwes, Yudolph put a call out to the real estate community on LinkedIn to help provide space for the rising number of care packages being donated for transport to Ukraine. Within 45 minutes, British Land had offered a 5,000 sq ft vacant storage unit at its Paddington Central campus – with no red tape or strings attached. That was Saturday night (5 March), and the club was able to use the space from Sunday morning. Since then, Quintain has also pledged to give the club space at its Wembley Park development. More will follow. This is real estate at its best. Mobilising to make a difference. That ability to have a real impact is one of the things that attracted Stephanie Hyde to the role as UK chief executive of JLL. In this week’s EG Interview, she talks passionately about the role of real estate in the levelling-up agenda, the power of regeneration, and how rewarding (and, dare she say it, fun) a career in real estate can and should be. How real estate mobilises itself at MIPIM will be interesting to see, of course. There are notable absences. No British Land – but it has just secured £290m of funding from AustralianSuper for its Canada Water project , which was the big “sell” at MIPIM in 2019 – nor Landsec. SEGRO will be there but smaller and some of the big regional developers – Harworth, for example – are also giving it a miss. Is this a realisation after two years of no MIPIM that congregating in Cannes isn’t really necessary or just a hangover from the pandemic not quite being over? Plenty are going, of course, with a decent representation from across the globe. Most of the big pension funds will be there, as will the major consultancies. I expect this year’s event to be more focused, with those in attendance there with a purpose in mind. A clear focus on what they need to achieve. Chief among those needs, I suspect, will be the need to reconnect. To re-establish relationships that have been maintained during two years of virtual meetings but that will only really thrive when bought back to real life. And while it may feel not quite right to be dreaming of a crisp dry rosé and exchanging gossip on the Croisette at a time when so many are just dreaming of safety, I have no doubt many of those conversations we will have will be about what real estate can do to continue to shift its perception to one of a profession that delivers change.   To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews