Uptake Of Shared Ownership With The Demise Of Help To Buy

We hear what William H Brown’s Rob Chapman expects buyer trends to look like for new homes in the next 10 years.

Rob, how did you reach your current position as Land & New Homes board of management partner at William H Brown?

I was approached by our now divisional managing director, Robert Jenner, in 2014 to join Sequence as a new homes manager and build our new homes business further for the William H Brown brand in Essex and south Suffolk specifically. The strength of the company in the region has enabled us to double the number of offices in my area whilst also moving into new growth areas for us, such as East London. We have in turn been successful in building the Land and New Homes business to support the branch growth from just two of us in 2014 to a current team of 13 working with me in the Essex and Suffolk Centre, delivering on average over 400 new homes sales a year over the last five years and completing on multiple land transactions every year.

William H Brown has 129 branches but is also part of Sequence national estate agents, how does this extensive coverage benefit your clients?

William H Brown has been established for over 130 years helping to make it a household name in most of the locations we operate in. This sense of familiarity and trust in a local name can often be a huge benefit to our developer clients, who may not be as well known in a locality, as home movers can sometimes feel more comfortable popping into their local branch to discuss a development rather than a sales office of a developer. The extensive branch network of not just William H Brown but our other Sequence brands including Barnard Marcus in particular, then provide our clients with thousands of active home movers to directly market their developments to at a click of a button.

Have you always worked in Land & New Homes, or is it something you came to later in your career?

My career in property started straight from school, albeit in residential sales in 1998, working for a local independent estate agency with several branches throughout Essex and then subsequently a national agency in the early 2000s. Property development was present in my life throughout though and in 2005 I joined my family land, development and construction consultancy business which provided invaluable insight into all that takes place prior to any property being able to be built, let alone sold!

If a person has a home or piece of land they're keen to sell as a plot, what would you suggest they do to begin the process?

I believe the best place to start is actually at the end, for example what will sell best and for what return once built. By speaking to their local Land and New Homes property experts from

the outset, they will be able to advise them of the most commercially saleable end product, to help the process of securing planning have the appropriate commercial focus from the outset. The local expert will no doubt know the right consultants to work with, dependent upon the size and nature of the development and most importantly, which planning authority it falls into.

Deben Fields

Michael Gove has committed to the government's pledge to build 300,000 new homes by the mid-2020s, do you think this will be possible?

I am sure I am not alone in believing that this may be a challenge. Notwithstanding the rise in costs and availability of both materials and good labour, the largest obstacle to delivering new homes remains our planning system. Without major reform into a process which seems to take longer each year, and investment into the local planning departments (that are in the main incredibly under resourced), the speed needed to be able to hit a target such as this seems unlikely to be achieved.

Which schemes have you been focusing on recently?

With the cessation of Help to Buy, we have seen a healthy uptake of interest in Shared Ownership schemes which provide another invaluable route of assistance to get a first foot onto the property ladder for many people. There is also a far greater buyer awareness of the potential of energy-efficient new homes given the current cost of running older homes, so those schemes with green credentials are starting to take a larger slice of the buyer pie.

Are there particular parts of the country where it's easier to develop land into new homes?

I think it would be fair to say that most regions have positives and negatives and whilst one part of the process may be easier, another part will undoubtedly be a challenge. Whether it be nutrient neutrality issues or a moratorium on planning over the potential impact on air quality levels, unforeseen planning issues can appear that effect a whole area in what were normally fruitful places to develop. In others, the sales values achievable may not provide much profit versus build and land costs for most of a town or county, but that same area will most likely have hotspots that buck that trend. My advice for anyone looking to develop anywhere would be to first engage with your local or regional Sequence land and new homes experts who are happy to provide valuable insight, data and advice from the outset.

What do you expect to see in terms of buyer trends for new homes over the next 10 years?

In a society that continues to put more and more focus on our environment, the buyer awareness and demand mentioned earlier for green credentials in property is likely to only increase further. This will see the awareness and demand for Passivhaus standard style schemes likely grow, such as the Deben Fields development in Felixstowe, Suffolk that we are launching for East Suffolk Council in 2023. It wouldn’t be a stretch for every buyer to expect electric vehicle charging points to come as part of the standard specification within a shorter time period too.

And finally, what's next in the pipeline for the Land & New Homes division of William H Brown?

In my nine years with the business, the division has grown fantastically to capture our continued success within the region so I would expect this to continue. This would be in terms of land transactions, new homes sales, and colleagues in the team, as we look to increase both our residential branch numbers in the region along with the Land and New Homes professionals to support them. Our superb marketing team continue to innovate and help us adapt to market conditions but our roots remain planted with great people working with market leading branches to provide a superb service to our developer clients.