The views were shared at a recent developer mixer event held by Helix Structured Finance and Domus where a panel of industry experts debated various hot topics influencing property delivery.

“We've seen a lot more activity over the past six months,” said Daniel Broughton, partner at Portner Law.

“Developers are acquiring sites and are a lot keener to work on other projects . . . there's been a lot more positivity in the air,” he added.
 
According to Chris Bavin, commercial sales manager at Domus, a positive impact here has been a stabilisation in costs.

“We're actually in the position where we haven't increased prices on some products for over a year now,” said Chris.

“Ukraine has been a massive [driver] for us. It only takes one part of that chain to fall and the whole thing collapses.

“It's nowhere near as bad as it has been, that's a positive, but we're certainly not at pre-pandemic and pre-war levels of pricing — whether we're going back down to that again? Probably not.”

A key area that is being overlooked, according to panellist Adam Stiles, managing director at Helix, is the role of landowners.

“The main stumbling block is the one non-professional in the whole piece: the landowner,” stated Adam and, specifically, the “unrealistic expectations” of the landowner.

“But what we've seen from the start of the year to now is that the sites that weren't viable earlier in the year are suddenly more viable.”

In response to a question from the audience about growth in JVs with landowners and whether there was resistance from landowners about developers securing the loan on the land, Adam explained that generally the landowner will keep the land, it will not transfer.

“Effectively, a lender takes the third-party first charge and the borrowing goes to the SPV,” commented Adam.

•   The Finance Professional Show 2023: The Video
•   Socius launches place management specialist firm
•   September UK construction sees biggest upturn since April 2022

“Which is why it's third parties, because the buyer doesn't own the land, but the landowner is in the SPV under the agreed profit share.”

In agreement was John Mumby, director of planning at Iceni Projects, who pointed out that landowners have realised the position of power they have, given the government’s new housing targets, and can “just sit on the land until things look better”.

The new government’s push to accelerate housing delivery was a key point of debate, and while the experts saw several issues with this, they welcomed the move from the government to tackle planning.

“I don’t think they are completely unrealistic,” said John when asked about the 1.5 million housing target. “It’s unrealistic in terms of time.”

In terms of the government’s plans, John was sceptical about the money being invested in this from the government. Though he applauded the commitment, he said more investment would make a difference.

“The government has announced money to go into training of local council officers, but it's not going to be enough,” said John who also argued affordable housing targets could complicate things.

“Every scheme that comes forward, who's paying for it? The reason is they don't have any money. So the government's got to step in quickly to release funds to allow development to come forward.”

With an emphasis on pushing through delivery, and avoiding costly delays, the panel also discussed the importance of retaining high-calibre legal support.

“Your lawyer is the wrong place to try and save £1,000 or £2,000,” said panellist Scott Apps, head of distribution (development finance) at HTB. “It's half an hour's insurance if you look at it on the basis of the total cost over one year.

“It's so fundamental that they understand construction law, not just property law or residential property law, because it's fundamentally so different.”

In agreement was Daniel, who argued the importance of maintaining discipline with so many stakeholders: “Being organised is always the main thing.

“It also gives the buyers confidence that you know what they're doing, and that you're well organised, and that it gives them more confidence in the product.”