Cobalt news

The Hubs of Property Professionals

Timothy Rowe

24/09/2007

As the pan-European property market continues to attract investors from a wide range of locations there is much debate in the industry as to where to base teams in order to fully benefit from cross-border opportunities.

It seems clear that day-to-day asset management is best done on the ground and once a material amount of investment has been undertaken in a specific market we are asked to recruit local asset management teams to manage portfolios. Where there is more debate is where to locate finance teams, development teams, transaction teams and strategic asset management teams.  London seems to be winning in terms of the location of head office functions and there are a number of reasons for this.

London, both the West End and City are major hubs of professional advisors, both Surveying Consultancies, Legal firms and international banks.  This range of advice in one place makes doing business very much easier.  Despite the mobile age that we live in, there is a real business need to meet advisors and clients face-to-face in order to fully benefit from relationships.  Email, mobile phones, internet, video conferencing, blackberry’s etc are all useful tools but we work in a people industry and that should not be forgotten.  In my opinion the two major factors of the emergence of London as the hub of pan-European investment is the supply of professional property talent, initially through the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and recently through the emergence of other professional industry bodies such as the Society of Property Researchers.  A RICS qualification is recognised worldwide and is seen as very valuable endorsement across Europe.

This formalisation of the professional functions in the real estate sector has resulted in a diverse community of Real Estate specialists in the market and we find that most shortlists of head-hunting assignments have a significant number of London based candidates.

In spite of all that has been written and reported about cross-border migration in Europe, a recent study points out that the annual mobility of EU nationals between member states is less than 0.4 per cent.  But this comparatively small degree of movement is hiding a much greater willingness to move, particularly among the younger well educated generation, according to the study professionals are congregating in London, with the lure of diverse and well remunerated roles in the banks, funds and advisors.  The language factor should also be considered and the majority of roles that we recruit for require English as a first or second language.

There is a pool of talent in all markets and London does not have the monopoly on talent however it does have more volume, making it an obvious place to locate and source new staff.  We find that in terms of relocating people, it has the most magnetic draw and that is not just the case in Europe, we have recently undertaken senior level searches in the US and a multiple search for one of the world’s largest cost management consultancies, recruiting a number of Quantity Surveyors from Australasia to work in London.  Due to the investment drive and large scale infrastructure projects such as the London 2012 Olympics this level of effort is required in order to recruit.  This is the case across most of the principle markets of Europe.

Country Trends:

• UK professionals moving to CIS and CEE due to the fact that it is an exciting, dynamic because it is a naïve market
• People are still being attracted to the Asian markets due to its strong international interest.
• Scandinavian and Benelux countries open to recruitment from other locations.
• India seeing many requirements for international professionals.
• In Germany  we are still seeing significant demand which is made all the more difficult to meet as there is a reluctance to move between centres in Germany.
• More companies are opening offices in Austria due to its proximity to CEE.