In this episode of the Inside Property Podcast, Paul talks about developing your ability to get deals done. Explaining how to get things to stack up so that you and anyone else involved in the deal can make enough profit to be able to repeat the process and continue to create the buildings and homes the UK so desperately needs. The advice he shares in this episode is applicable whether you are developing sites yourself or adding value then selling them on.

He lists out the main challenges you need to overcome and shares a simple way for you to learn how to do it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The first challenge is finding opportunities with minimal competition.

• Putting together profitable development deals is a skill set that can be learned.

• Paul has analysed all of his successful deals and those of other developers he knows and developed a step-by-step process that anyone can use to do the same.

• Properly assessing the potential of a site before you buy is an essential skill.

• The most important skill is being able to maximise the value of a piece of land. When you can do this, you can create no-brainer deals that are hard for landowners to resist.

• Being able to get a project through planning and knowing how to source funding are also essential.

• Understanding the motivations and goals of the landowner will help you put together a tempting deal.

BEST MOMENTS

“Quickly assessing the potential without wasting a whole load of time and money is really important.”

“The bigger the overall value pie you create, the better.”

“You need to have your exit in mind before you even start, because that will influence what you do in the early stages.”

“If you can't get them (the landowners) on board, you're never going to get a deal done.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

£1 Option Agreements episode - https://www.ivoox.com/1-option-agreements-audios-mp3_rf_136544437_1.html

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

Full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a7dm5yPqag

Today, Paul once again talks to David Hughes of Fuse Architects. This time they discuss temporary planning permission for modular housing units. David explains how using this approach would enable families who are often living together in a tiny B&B room to be properly housed in just 6 months. He also talks about why it makes financial sense for councils to use this method to increase housing stock in their area.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• In the UK, 117,000 households are living in temporary accommodation.

• London councils spend £114m a month on stop-gap accommodation.

• A significant % of people are housed in sub-standard accommodation e.g., hotel rooms of just 16.5 sq. meters, at a time when you can´t build a one-bed flat of less than 50 sq. meters.

• Building social housing currently takes 4 to 5 years.

• If the houses are only temporary, many of the costly and time-consuming reports that are currently needed would not be necessary.

• High building material inflation means that projects that were viable when plans were drawn up, become impossible to build because of finances.

• Sites that are going to be sitting empty for years, e.g. stalled sites, can easily have modular housing put on them.

• Modular housing can be leased to councils and are available for use in just 6 months.

• Modular housing can be craned away and used elsewhere.

• Using temporary planning permission can turn a site that is currently not financially viable into homes and generate income for the owner.

BEST MOMENTS

“Nationwide, there´s 117,000 households in temporary accommodation.”

“Greenwich spent £8.8 million last year on Travelodge.”

“So huge amount of reports. I read the other day that there was a planning report done on the speed of a cricket ball.”

“There is no advantage to getting planning permission for 100% affordable housing.”

“Because it is temporary planning permission, the hope is it will go through much quicker.”

“When local authorities want to make stuff happen, it happens.”

GUEST RESOURCES

https://www.fusearchitects.co.uk

Previous Dave Hughes episode -https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dave-hughes-the-developers-architect-design-grounded/id1750859336?i=1000676721440

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

Full episode on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK8EUKolqqo

In this episode, Paul explains exactly how he has achieved and is maintaining a 100% track record of winning planning approval over the past 40 years. He shares how he learned to do this, how you can do the same and how to keep your knowledge current to further reduce the risk of refusal.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• If at first you do not succeed, appeal. Paul has done this many times and has never lost an appeal.

• Take your time when putting together your plans. You need to do as much as you can to avoid getting a refusal on a site. Sometimes this can blight a site.

• Educate yourself about planning. Paul did this partly by going to planning meetings and observing what went on out in the real world. Book learning only gets you so far.

• Paul recommends qualifying as a Chartered Planning and Development surveyor like he did. He explains why.

• Never assume you know everything. That is why Paul still works with planning consultants. But at the same time, he also double-checks everything himself.

• Look at every little thing and think about how it applies to your site. That means keeping up with regulations, monitoring which planning applications are approved and which are denied and understanding why.

• Be all over all of the details. Do the planner's job for them to make it easier for them to approve you than it is for them to refuse you.

BEST MOMENTS

“Having a planning strategy before you even start is a big part of how I've got a 100% planning permission track record.”

“You don't really want refusals on your sites …. sites with refusals can sometimes get a bit blighted.”

“A lot of those applications I've had to win at appeal.”

“Be super detailed. Reverse engineer everything.”

“Understand all of the things that might come up before they come up and address them at the application and design stage.”

“You do need to learn and understand quite a lot of this stuff well, as much of it as possible yourself, in order to spot the angles, the opportunities and the pitfalls at an early stage.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

Scorecard - https://scorecard.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/innovative-developments-that-provide-both-profit-and/id1750859336?i=1000672292005

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

Here is a link to the full episode.

In this episode, Paul chats with Cany Ash, co-founder of Ash Sakula, a London-based, award-winning architectural studio known for its bold and innovative approach to design. Cany shares her journey, from her mother’s transformative experiments with spaces to shaping her vision for radically rethinking housing and neighbourhoods. Together, they explore how collaborative trust between architects, planners, and developers can spark real change, why isolated estates are a false economy and the transformative potential of "house-on-a-house” each with their own front door to the street.

Discover how Ash Sakula creates developments that enhance places physically and socially, and what’s needed to make this approach mainstream.

Follow Ash Sakula’s campaign, for Profitable Neighbourhoods: https://profitableneighbourhoods.co.uk/

#ArchitecturePodcast #FutureNeighbourhoods #AshSakula #UrbanDesign #CommunityBuilding

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• When a council is truly invested in a project seemingly impossible issues are overcome. Resident-led transformation also moves fast.
• Unless architects, planners and developers start trusting each other and truly work together things will not change.
• The best developments enrich a place physically and socially.
• Cany believes that building isolated housing estates when there is so much land elsewhere that can be revitalised is a false economy.
• Developments need to make sense for all parties, the developers, residents and the local authority.
• Right now, design codes and planning are far too restrictive.
• Creating a Profitable Neighbourhood ‘Twin’: one house on top of another house, with each having a proper front door, makes development viable in far more places.
  
  
  BEST MOMENTS
  
  “The business of making stuff feels to me like a human right.”
  “It was a real toggle of different house shapes, but it got more homes on the site.”
  “Nothing ever comes from nowhere. There is a need to create the right compost for development and the right ambition.”
  “The one thing we've got to stop doing is building house builder estates 3 roundabouts from the nearest pint of milk.”
  “Create micro neighbourhoods inside larger neighbourhoods inside towns.”
  
  
  EPISODE RESOURCES
  www.profitableneighbourhoods.co.uk
  https://www.ashsak.com
  https://www.phoenixlewes.com/
  https://lewishamsmallsites.co.uk/
  https://archello.com/project/the-malings
  https://www.lilac.coop

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

View the full episode on youtube here.

In this episode, Paul talks about one of his favourite ways to do land deals - £1 Option Agreements that enable you to effectively buy or control what happens to a piece of land for an investment of £1. If you think that sounds impossible, you are certainly not alone, but you´d be wrong. Paul and other developers have been doing exactly that for many, many years. That is how he does most of his deals.

Listen in and you will learn how to use agreements to control land that you do not currently have enough money to buy and do so by investing as little as £1 upfront.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• JD Rockefeller said, “Control everything without owning anything.”…which is exactly what land options allow you to do.

• Option agreements provide you with the option to do something, without the obligation to actually do it.

• When you don´t use options, the size of the deals you can do is limited by how much money you have.

• The right type of option on a piece of land provides you with time to get planning permission. So, when it is time to pay the full price for the land you already know for sure that your development will go ahead.

• If you don´t get planning permission, you are not legally bound to buy the land.

• Importantly, options are also beneficial for landowners. Paul explains how.

• You need to learn to use the right language to persuade landowners and land the deal.

• It is possible for you to make money from effectively selling your agreement to another developer.

• The deal must be properly worded and registered.

• To make money from options you must understand what the true value of the land is.

BEST MOMENTS

“An option agreement is just a legal agreement that gives you the option to do something, but beautifully, not the obligation”

“I realized that I could control land. I could get an agreement to buy it, even if I didn't have enough money to buy it.”

“For the landowner, you will be typically going away trying to add value to their asset without it costing them a penny. So, from their point of view, there's no risk.”

“You can effectively sell on, assign your agreement to another buyer and you never have to complete on the deal.”

“I´ve never had a landowner even try to get out of an option agreement.”

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

Watch the full episode on YouTube here

In this episode, Paul is joined by Henry Mayell, one of his business partners. Henry is the co-founder and COO of Viability, a software platform that enables homebuilders to quickly and accurately assess the viability of a potential development opportunity.

They discuss how Viability software enables developers to look at any site and quickly work out what type of homes, if any, can be profitably built on it. It can also be used to educate planners and legislators so they can quickly see how each of the additional things they ask for impacts the viability of the development. Henry also explains how Viability will help developers meet the new Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) targets.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Viability provides a step-by-step process and software to enable developers to very quickly produce an accurate development appraisal for any site. Once the relevant parameters have been fed in, the report takes seconds to generate.

• Viability software can also be a good education tool. It enables policymakers, planners and developers to quickly assess the cost impact of any proposed regulation changes.

• The software easily demonstrates to planners the impact each change they want has on costs and whether it is still viable to build on that site.

• Viability uses real-world market data, so planners are not left suspecting that the developer is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

• Viability helps developers identify the right Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) for each project.

• What materials you use should be an integral part of the design process.

• Provided you choose the right type of MMC for each site and deploy it properly, MMC is not more expensive.
• Viability also provides early stage BNG assessments, allowing developers to understand if the biodiversity in a specific site makes it unviable.

BEST MOMENTS

“Viability gives you an automated development appraisal … in seconds, rather than in days or weeks.”

“Ultimately, to deliver the homes, we need developers to find viable development opportunities.”

“It's actually about which MMC solution is suitable for your site and allows you to maximize its potential.”

“When planners try to demand everything, all that happens is things become unviable, and they don't get anything at all.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

https://viability.site

The Times article

https://geovation.uk

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

Watch the Full Episode here.

This solo episode of the Inside Property Development Podcast is all about the biggest mistake developers make, which is being over-reliant on their consultants. This is a problem because it is not the job of your consultants to know and do everything that needs to be done to deliver your project on budget and on time. Paul explains why so many developers fall into that trap and how to avoid doing the same.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• When developers become overly reliant on their consultants, particularly architects and planning consultants, things can go very, very wrong.

• When it comes to property development, consultants don´t know enough to be able to take care of everything.

• Consultants have multiple clients, so it is unrealistic to expect them to prioritise you and chase things up to make sure they get done on time e.g. expecting your architect to oversee getting planning permission.

• Developers need to see the big picture, and how everything fits together. They need to conduct the orchestra, which includes their consultants to make sure everything gets done properly and on time.

• Be 100% clear about what each consultant will be doing for you.

• You can hire a development consultant, but they are just going to do the things you can and should be doing yourself. Plus, they may not do it well.

• You are always going to be more motivated than anyone else will be. After all, it´s your money that is on the line, not theirs.

BEST MOMENTS

“Property development is complex, there´s a lot of moving parts. I often liken it to 10-dimensional chess.”

“There are a lot of things that influence the success or not of a deal, and it is not any of the consultant's job to know about those things.”

“It's not the planning consultant's job to sort of negotiate the whole deal.”

“It's very rare to find a good development consultant, who knows and does everything … if they did, they would be doing it for themselves as a developer.”

“It is our job to understand and instruct and put together a really detailed document for our professional team.”

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment

Watch the full episode here.

In this episode, Paul is joined by Dave Hughes of Fuse Architects to talk about the role architects play in the UK housing market, including why the way many of them work is holding back progress. Dave´s focus is on delivering affordable housing. He shares the challenges the sector faces and the innovative approaches they are using to overcome them, including temporary planning permission and modular housing.

They also discuss training for planning committee members, policy changes that would speed up the planning process, housing targets and overcoming the fear that is preventing the change that is needed.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Despite being well-trained a lot of UK architects are actually not that good at coming up with practical, liveable and deliverable designs and solutions.

• Architects are just part of a team. But many see themselves as somehow especially important or more professional.

• Often planners and policymakers ask for things without thinking about the negative impact delivering them will have. They don´t take a balanced approach.

• At the moment planners and committees just think that all developers are greedy liars.

• Even when you tick every planning box and meet every regulation too many planning committees are still not giving permission.

• High land prices make many 50% affordable housing developments impossible to deliver.

• Some councils are now giving temporary planning permission for modular housing.

BEST MOMENTS

“We only draw what we can build. We are very strict about buildability in our business.”

“Many planners and policymakers don't realize that, by asking and trying to demand everything, they actually end up with nothing.”

“I think one of the big issues in development generally, is viability.”

“A good committee is one that says - our policy, that we've all signed up to, says that they can do this thing, and therefore we have to say yes to it.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://www.fusearchitects.co.uk

https://www.buildingwithnature.org.uk

https://boutiquemodern.co.uk

Jackie Weaver story - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60374800

ABOUT THE HOST

Paul Higgs is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with 40+ years' experience in land, planning and development and a 100% success track record in winning planning consents.

Paul undertook his first refurb project when he was just 17 and then worked his way up from labouring on building sites to becoming Head of Land for renowned plc housebuilder, Barratt Developments. He managed to escape the corporate world in 2002 to set up what is now a multimillion-pound award-winning property development company, Millbank Group.

In 2013 Paul founded the Millbank Land Academy, the UK’s first training company dedicated to property development; to teach established and aspiring developers the insider secrets the big housebuilders don’t want you to know!

Paul is also a founding investor and former board director of the industry-leading PropTech Co, LandTech, and has lectured on Advanced Development Valuations on the MSc Property Development at London South Bank University.

CONTACT METHOD

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-higgs

Millbank Land Academy: https://www.millbanklandacademy.co.uk

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/paulhiggsofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@InsidePropertyDevelopment