Property Week - 7 October 2011

ANALYSIS

1st Friday

VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY T

he stories of the six students who won a week’s work in the overseas offices of developers and agents, through a project called Sociable Surveyors, will be told for years to come.

When the students settle into permanent jobs, they will be able to enthral colleagues with stories of constructing a luxury apartment for dogs in Monte Carlo, listening to a contractor pitch for work with 16 giraffes close by, lunching with colleagues in Paris where the bill is €150 a head or breaking an arm in a Shanghai traffic accident.

The students are now ambassadors for the project and will talk at universities to persuade others to follow in their footsteps next year.

Sociable Surveyors was set up in May by two Kingston University graduates, Sebastian Abigail, who is now on Knight Frank’s graduate scheme, and Elliott Sparsis, who is studying for a masters in real estate at South Bank University.

Although the paths of Abigail and Sparsis have diverged, they will run a Sociable Surveyors’ competition next year.

To enter this year’s scheme, 300 students recorded videos of themselves. Employers chose the best submissions and gave selected students an all-expenses paid trip for a week’s work. Flights were paid from the £10 each student contributed to enter the competition.

Here are their stories.

Abroad appeal: Abigail (left) and Sparsis set up Sociable Surveyors to provide overseas placements for their peers

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PARROTT’S FASHION: LIZZIE PARROTT, SAVILLS, NEW YORK Nothing illustrates the effectiveness of Sociable Surveyors as well as the good fortune that befell Lizzie Parrott (pictured, winning her placement in July).

After a week in Savills’ New York office, she came back to London and down to earth with a bump last month.

There was no job to go to after gaining a 2:1 degree in real estate management from Oxford Brookes University.

Then, on 27 September, the call came: Savills’ London headquarters had heard about Parrott’s work in New York and offered her a two-year training contract. She arrived at the Grosvenor Hill office in Mayfair the following day.

Parrott, 22, does not understand why she was not selected earlier to work in a surveying firm to go through the assessment of professional competence (APC) — she thinks that there must have been something missing from her CV. But that was overcome by her prizewinning video, which outshone 120 other candidates who wanted to work in Savills’ New York offices — the most sought-after placement.

Hurricane Irene delayed the start of her adventure, but eventually she arrived last month at Savills on the 36th floor of 599 Lexington Avenue. She was immediately put

to work researching for a new office development in New York, one so confidential that not even she was allowed to know the location.

She looked at the general economic background, using data published by Jones Lang LaSalle and CBRE. But she also used online property search engine PropertyShark. com and newswire Bloomberg. She transferred the information to spreadsheets and it was incorporated into the main report.

All this was done under the watchful eye of Guy Benn, the former City investment agent who heads cross-border investment for Savills in New York.

“Guy arranged for me to go out with agency Stribling & Associates for the last couple of days, so I was taken around the high-end residential developments in New York,” she says. “I was looking at apartments worth between $1m and $3m, but I had to pretend that I was shopping for my very rich father. I don’t think they let just anyone around.”

Parrott’s father was, in fact, a surveyor for Lloyds TSB, before the HBOS merger in 2008.

The week taught her that in New York, brokers are the big money earners, not investment agents as in the UK. Savills paid for a week’s stay at the Yotel New York on Times Square in Manhattan.

She reports that, although there was sometimes a drink after work “everyone went home on time, and they don’t mix business with pleasure”.

PHOTOGRAPH: STEVE CADMAN

9 Six surveyors travelled the world this summer through a global internship scheme. Christine Eade hears their experiences in the latest in our series of monthly 1st Friday articles for young people in property

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05/10/2011 16:30:06

1st Friday

ANALYSIS

Défense mechanism: Bridge navigated his way around Paris’s business district during his placement

PHOTOGRAPH: ATAAULLAH JAUNOO

PHOTOGRAPH: STEVE CADMAN

PARIS MATCH: STUART BRIDGE, KNIGHT FRANK, PARIS

Rich pitch: Parrott viewed high-end apartments in New York under cover

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Stuart Bridge (pictured) should have returned to Oxford Brookes University last month for his final year for a BSc in estate management.

But when his week ended last month with Knight Frank in Paris, the firm liked him so much he was offered a further fortnight in London.

Last week he worked with Knight Frank’s healthcare team, valuing care homes in Worthing and Brighton, having spent the previous week working with the West End office agency team.

Bridge, 29, came late to property after working in recruitment consultancy.

Knight Frank chose him out of 85 other students who wanted work experience in Paris.

“This was a great opportunity,” he says. “I am not from a private school background, and I have the impression that the larger consultancies look for private schools on a CV.” Bridge arrived in Knight Frank’s office in Place Vendôme, near the Ritz, Chanel and Bulgari. The 50-strong office is headed by Philippe Perello.

Bridge’s first assignment was to look for a 10,000 sq ft office in business district La Défense for a retained client.

“It was a great opportunity to look around La Défense, which is twice the size of Canary Wharf,” he says.

Bridge admits his French is spoken at a schoolboy level but, although most of the staff are French, 80% speak English. They wanted to help him, too.

“Priscilla Charrey, one of the head office’s agents, really looked after me and introduced me to everyone in the team.”

The meetings and viewings were conducted in French, but photographs are a universal language. Knight Frank was pitching for an investment sale instruction and, as part of the presentation, Bridge was sent out to take iconic pictures of Paris for the marketing brochure for the prospective client.

He also went out to value a townhouse leased by a film company, and realised the tenant breaks at the third, sixth and ninth year depressed the investment value.

“It was very social, but it was a lunchtime thing,” says Bridge, recalling a leaving party lunch. “We went to a very high-class restaurant with the whole team. The bill was €150 a head. I’m glad I wasn’t paying it.”

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PHOTOGRAPH: GARY SOUP

PHOTOGRAPH: SPACEJULIAN

SHANGHAI FAN: TOM MANTELL, SAVILLS, SHANGHAI Few had prepared longer for their adventure than Tom Mantell (pictured) who, on graduating from the University of Reading, won a week in Savills’ Shanghai office.

Mantell had studied with a personal Chinese tutor for 18 months, and had taken a two-week course in Mandarin at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

It made him the perfect candidate to work with Savills’ 60 staff in Shanghai.

He was amazed by the opulence of serviced apartments for expatriates, and marvelled at the sheer size of the shopping malls.

He worked in the commercial research department with James Macdonald, an associate director, and one of the few Englishmen in the office.

However, disaster struck early on.

“The drivers are quite maniacal there,” he explains. “A woman was clipped by a car, and, in trying to save her, I fell and broke my arm.”

Although getting hospital care in China could seem a little daunting, the team helped out.

“The next day I went into Savills and asked where expats get treatment, and they were really helpful,” he says.

Mantell flew home and has since had surgery on his arm. He now works as part of the real estate team in Zurich, but will compete again next year to return to Shanghai.

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Tall order: Liversidge, with Sophia Bell in Hammerson’s Italie shopping centre in Paris (right), negotiated a cleaning contract in French at a Paris zoo, where only giraffes remained

FRENCH TWIST: GEORGE LIVERSIDGE AT BOUYGUES AND HAMMERSON, AND SOPHIA BELL AT HAMMERSON, PARIS

Shanghai knight: Mantell’s heroics on a Chinese street meant he broke his arm during his trip to Shanghai

George Liversidge (pictured), 22, was chosen by the Paris offices of both Bouygues and Hammerson. The Nottingham Trent University student attributes this double success partly to his French mother, who insisted he became bilingual.

She would never have guessed her son would one day negotiate a cleaning contract at Parc Zoologique de Vincennes in French, for Bouygues.

“I wasn’t in the office at all, but on site every day,” he says.

“They are redoing the whole zoo, and they had started clearing the site. All the animals had left last year, apart from 16 giraffes and some ostriches. The giraffes were going to stay because there were quite a few of them. I was dealing with the cleaning contractors to find out what the best price was and then going back to the site manager for him to make the final decision. It was a really great experience.”

It was also a long working day, which began at 7.30 am and finished at 7 pm.

By contrast, Liversidge’s work experience at Hammerson was with the asset management team, looking at a range of shopping centre development sites.

He worked with Sophia Bell (above), 21, a student of economics and French at Durham University, and both finished their Paris trip on 30 September. Bell and Liversidge examined the business plans and the economic models for the proposed centres. Language was no problem for Bell either, because she had just completed part of her degree in Aix en Provence.

Liversidge returns to Nottingham Trent to continue to study quantity surveying for his final year. He will then consider doing a masters, before finding a firm at which to begin his APC. Bell, who was an intern at Savills for two months, plans a masters degree in real estate, and thinks her true interests may lie in residential development.

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05/10/2011 16:35:42

ANALYSIS

1st Friday

PHOTOGRAPH: RODGRIGO SOLDON

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NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT: JAMES PAUL, BOUYGUES, NICE

CAPITAL ASSETS: KATE SPARKS, GC2, LONDON

James Paul, who graduated this summer with a first from Edinburgh Napier University, after a four-year BSc in quantity surveying, worked for a week in Nice for Bouygues.

He could not resist popping over the border to Monaco to witness Bouygues’ development through its subsidiary, Richelieu, of a rich man’s fantasy in Monte Carlo.

“It was absolutely incredible,” recalls Paul. “It was a mixed-use development of small offices and five apartments, but there was a triplex for this man and his dogs. He had brought in animal psychologists to design things for the dogs to play in and a swimming pool for them.”

Back in France, Paul witnessed lavish construction in Antibes, where a €110m seven-storey development had parking excavated to a depth of 50 metres.

His job was to shadow the chef du chantier (quantity surveyor) and the chef de treveux (construction project manager.)

“Ninety per cent of the work is in pure French, which was a steep challenge for me, as I am far from professionally fluent. There was a lot of construction terminology and jargon.”

Paul, 27, said goodbye to Edinburgh in June.

He now lives in London and is applying for places on graduate schemes run by the big London practices.

Two of the six students who won a week with a London employer experienced life working with a sole principal, rather than large multi-disciplinary practice.

Kate Sparks (pictured), who is now in her final year at Oxford Brookes University, worked for a week at GC2, the South Bank firm based at the Tower Building set up by George Copeman.

Having previously taken part in work experience at Savills, Sparks says working for Copeman on his own gave her a different insight into working in a surveying firm. As Copeman is an APC supervisor, he knew what would interest Sparks.

“I worked on a development appraisal in Battersea, which was really useful because that’s what I am doing in one of my modules,” she says.

She also carried out market research in connection with agency acquisitions.

She is beginning to look for graduate jobs in surveying while completing her degree.

Simon Ambrose, winner of the 2007 BBC television show The Apprentice, set up his own development company last year, and chose Rachel Goodwin, a Southampton University student, to work for him for a week.

The others who won a London placement were: Gary Dracott of Sheffield Hallam University, who worked at Hammerson’s London office; Claire Chambers of Glasgow Caledonian University, who spent a week at DTZ in London and will also work in Knight frank’s Brussels office; Danielle Moyles of Cambridge University, who spent a week in Hammerson’s London office, and Sam Salloway of Reading University, who worked for a week in Savills’ London office. 9 Battersea home: Sparks worked with sole princpal and APC supervisor at GC2

Marina life: Paul got a taste of Monte Carlo (pictured) when he visited a Bouygues construction site

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