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Propertyshe podcast: Martin Samworth

Chair of the RICS Board

Posted on 5 December 2023

Susan Freeman

Hi, I’m Susan Freeman.  Welcome back to our PropertyShe podcast series brought to you by Mishcon de Reya in association with the London Real Estate Forum, where I get to interview some of the key influencers in the world of real estate and the built environment. Today, I am delighted to welcome Martin Samworth. Martin joined CBRW as a graduate in 1983 and enjoyed 37 years’ service with the company until 2020.  He has extensive global corporate experience across the entire real estate sector at the highest level with developers, investors and occupiers.  He was appointed as CBRE Group President and Chairman, APAC/AMEA before retiring in December 2020.  Since then Martin has taken on a number of non-executive and chairing roles covering many aspects of the real estate industry.  These roles include chairing the RICS Board.  So now we are going to hear from Martin Samworth on his impressive real estate career to date, his thoughts on the sector and his plans for the RICS.  Good morning Martin, welcome to the virtual studio.

Martin Samworth

Morning Susan thanks for having me.

Susan Freeman

It’s great to speak to you and I realised that we first met in around 2001 when I was writing my MBA thesis on the subject of the change that had taken place at Richard Ellis which had just been taken over by US based Insignia so actually the last time I interviewed you was 22 years ago.

Martin Samworth

Wow.

Susan Freeman

And a lot has obviously happened in that time.  So let’s just start at the beginning, how did you get into surveying, was that something that you’d always had a burning desire to do or what was the route?

Martin Samworth

Er yeah, there’s probably two reasons actually Susan, I mean it runs in the blood a bit I have to say so a number of my direct family and actually some of my you know, more remote family have all been involved in the property industry in some way, shape or form.  But the reality is I think I always wanted to be involved in something that I actually thought touched everybody’s lives and was relevant to everyone.  So, and property you know I saw did that with people, that was the context of people living in their home or where they went to work or you know, what they did from a recreational point of view.  So having some insight and knowledge about something that was relevant to everyone seemed to me like a good thing to be around.  What I don’t think I’d appreciated at the time was just how diverse the whole industry was and what the range of opportunities or the different facets that existed that you could then sort of go into and you know, perhaps develop a little bit more expertise in so that was an interesting additional piece of insight that I learnt you know, quite rapidly after I’d finished my degree.

Susan Freeman

It’s interesting what you say that property is something that affects everybody and it’s where they spend 90% of their, their lives and there are so many different aspects to it and yet we, we have a bit of a problem getting the stories out and I think that’s something we will come to a little bit later in the, in the discussion.  So you started at a firm called St Quintin which probably is a name that many of our listeners you know, won’t remember and I mean interestingly according to your CV you joined CBRE as a graduate in 1983 but then I suppose St Quintin did become part of CBRE.  I mean what was life like then, were you working in the West End?

Martin Samworth

Yeah well it was very different from the industry and the world that we’re both working in now I have to say.  It was, it was hugely informative, I mean I was in the city, it was quite a city orientated firm at the time, it was heavily involved in development and city investment work and… but was quite rounded, it also had a number of other ranges of sort of services that it provided but it was a great business actually and I learnt an awful lot from it and I was fortunate enough to be very closely working with the senior partner at the time and I think one of the challenged that people face today just the rate of learning particularly as some of the firms have got larger and then your access to more senior people and direct access to clients is perhaps a little different to what it was when I started out so I learnt a lot very quickly and it was very informative I think and hopefully stood me in good stead.

Susan Freeman

No it’s interesting because I think people used to get thrown in at the deep end sort of much more quickly at that time and you either sank or you swam so you’ve got immediate access to clients and as you say senior, senior people in the organisation.

Martin Samworth

Yeah and this particular individual I worked for was very good at making sure that he was a real client man and really focussed on making sure that he provided excellent service and I think a kind of rewarding experience for the client both professional level and at a human level and so their relationships you know, went beyond just a sort of real estate professional type of relationship.  He really coveted and looked after them you know and I think I learnt a lot from that.  He was also very good at interacting with people, being available and open and interacting with people from really all sorts of different backgrounds and different professions etcetera so again, he was a very engaging individual and again highly relevant I think to our profession and you know, being part of an industry that is very community and sort of market orientated in many of its components so again, a good attribute I think.

Susan Freeman

And do you think that there is still the same focus on those strong relationships that there were at that time?  Is it still all about relationships or have things become a little different?

Martin Samworth

I think for probably the most successful people they’ve been very dedicated to a relatively small number of clients and they foster much deeper working partnership style relationships than perhaps they otherwise would be able to do.  So I, I personally still think that’s a really important dynamic and would still be a strong advocate for people to make sure that they, they really look after their clients and they partner with their clients and they really you know, understand what they are trying to achieve and trying to help them on that journey and almost have a closer sort of symbiotic type relationship as they can do.  I think that’s fulfilling for both sides and it’s like any relationship, if you don’t continue to invest in it then it starts to lose something so it’s important to continue to do that I think yeah.

Susan Freeman

And I wonder how one teaches that you know, to the younger generations you know, coming through how to build those relationships because they don’t come fully formed, you have to work quite hard building trust and creating those relationships and I wonder whether you know, the younger people coming into the industry have the same opportunity or the opportunity to learn how to build those relationships?

Martin Samworth

It’s a very, very important point and I think people still need to, those that wish to continue to evolve and develop their careers, it’s very important that they see the sort of cycle to a sort of more senior kind of position and so they should conceptualise this in the way that you know if you come in as a graduate you are supporting people and learning and trying to develop your own relationships but you’re sort of reliant on the business or the other people that you’re working with to help you into the work that you are doing and the relationships that you can then foster and develop as your own.  So you are almost going from a position where you are quite reliant on the business or those around you to then evolving into something where other people become reliant on you as a senior person because you’re helping them and opening the door for them to new relationships and you develop your own client base and your own personal brand as part of the organisation.  So that’s a sort of piece of evolution that many people I think need to continue to try and go through.

Susan Freeman

And I always think that for surveyors they come with a network of people that they studied with who then you know, may go to other agencies or may go to property companies so that network is there.  It is slightly different for lawyers because you know, we tend to be on the opposite side from each other but it’s I suppose a good starting point to have been through education with people who are going to be in your business?

Martin Samworth

But sure that’s a good leg up but I think that’s just the start Susan, I mean I think you have to build your own network.  Furthermore, not just because they are good business relationships that means you can be more effective and provide a better service at the end of the day but also because you learn a lot more from interacting with a range of different people from different backgrounds or different professions or different parts of the same profession even okay so it’s a constant journey but it’s part of continuing to develop your own personal relationships and your own perspective on what you are trying to do and how you can best contribute.

Susan Freeman

Yeah it is important and just going back to CBRE, I think you joined in 1999 from St Quintin, St Quintin became a part of what was then Richard Ellis UK which subsequently became CBRE and I remember it, it was quite complicated.  I think at the time there was another CB Richard Ellis?

Martin Samworth

There was CB Hillier Barker it was at the time yeah, yeah.

Susan Freeman

Yeah and so it must have been quite a challenging time because you came in, I think you subsequently then ran what became CBRE UK and went on to run APAC and EMEA but there were an awful lot of mergers, acquisitions, takeovers and I mean just being able to bring together those you know, different businesses and different cultures, there must have been an incredible amount of learning on the job?

Martin Samworth

Yes I mean I learnt an awful lot from that even from the integration of St Quintin into Insignia Richard Ellis at the time and I was a proprietary partner of St Quintin and we went in feeling that we’d done a lot of work on how we were going to organise the business and how we were going to continue with the integration and the evolution of the culture of the business and how we would blend the cultures of the business and continue to develop the brand of the combined business so I learnt a lot from that as a partner of the business that went into a merger and then was involved in, in numerous pieces of EMEA subsequently as MD of the UK business.  I learned a lot of lessons on probably each of those deals but you learnt quite a few of the things that really make a difference to forge success for EMEA and they’re very easy things to get wrong and lots of them fail but I think there’s no simple and quick solution but there’s a few things that you learn along the way that gives a better chance of success in terms of how you… what the outcome is with blending those two businesses at the time.

Susan Freeman

And are there any particular dos and don’ts that you’ve learnt along the way, sort of anything that is a particular red flag that people should look out for?

Martin Samworth

Yeah well I think the starting point is certainly, is the vision the same, is the objectives and the integrity and the culture and the chemistry all going to work.  Those are questions that you get to even before you get to try and negotiate terms.  Then there’s the question of, and this doesn’t have to wait until after you’ve done the deal by the way, a lot of it we used to do before we actually closed the deal is how is it going to work with the people, how are we going to redefine the structure of the organisation, what roles and responsibilities exist, who’s going to want to go on the journey, who’s not going to want to go on the journey and how do you deal with those people so you know there’s difficult decisions to be made along the way as well but you have to have a common purpose and a common vision and you really need to take everybody with you on it so it’s important that everyone sort of gets with the programme if I can put it that way.  But you don’t want to compromise on too many decisions at the early stage because they can become protracted and they can become distractions and they can hold you up.  So if you’ve got tough stuff to deal with, it’s better to deal with it sooner than later for example.

Susan Freeman

Yeah and obviously I, I think I wrote about 65,000 words on the change process at CB Richard Ellis but mine was a sort of like snapshot that you know, stopped in about 2001 and obviously that was just the beginning but I know I always felt that one of the CBRE secret weapons was Reg who was an amazing character who organised the get togethers and the ice breaking events and you know, got these people from different organisations together in a room and sort of broke down the barriers.  I mean did that help?

Martin Samworth

Oh undoubtedly.  I mean look we, we bought some businesses lots of people thought were not ideal fits so whether you take Holly Blake or Frank Warwick or Dagliesh you know, there were going to be some challenges in some of those integrations and there were.  Getting people together and getting, making sure everyone had a common vision and they knew each other or got to know each other and making sure that we could closely work together was an important piece of it so the role that Reg had in helping to facilitate that was really, really very important and there’s no quick, easy way of doing that.  It required a lot of time and it involved a lot of organisation to make sure we got people together but it really ultimately saved us a lot of time I think Susan, so it was time well spent so the contribution that he made in those, in that context was invaluable.  But it didn’t stop there because he also helped after the integrations had been done to continue to foster internal relationships and make sure that you know, the sports and social and other things that again are things that are easily forgotten sometimes these days, that make the place a rewarding place and make it sticky for people is really, really important.  So, you know, we put a lot of value in that and I think it sort of helped define the, some of the culture and some of the values of the organisation but it helped collaboration enormously as well.

Susan Freeman

I’m smiling as you’re talking about the sporting activities because I actually remember coming to one of the sports days and Reg was just wearing this multi-coloured leotard and leading some exercise programme and you know, so everybody joined in.  I think those sort of, the softer side of actually integrating people you know, can get forgotten.

Martin Samworth

It can, very easily yeah but it is very important.

Susan Freeman

And you were talking about um, you know the Dalgliesh and Holly Blake and Frank Warwick.  You had quite a lot of big personalities coming in to the organisation I mean, are there any sort of anecdotes, anything that, that happened when you were trying to integrate these organisations into CBRE?

Martin Samworth

I don’t think so really.  I mean it was, there was a lot of things to address along the way but um, and some of them took longer than we expected perhaps you know, some of them were a bit more challenging than others but again overall I think you know, some fantastic people came into the organisation when those mergers happened.  Some real market leading people.  The quality of the people are great, I mean look at what’s happened, Kieran is now MD of the CBRE in the UK.  He came from Dalgliesh and that’s true of a lot of his colleagues that came from Dalgliesh, they’ve ended up in very senior positions in the organisation.  I think it, it really did help to move the business up to just another level and yes they were very time consuming to do and they were time consuming after we’d done them because we needed to work harder at making sure the integration happened but the business valued from them enormously I think and so did the people in the business actually as a consequence.

Susan Freeman

And your CV talks about you being involved with 30 mergers and acquisitions just in your last 10 years at CBRE so I mean that is, that’s quite a lot I mean had there been any just didn’t work despite your, your best efforts?

Martin Samworth

Yeah we had some where there was a couple in the regions that we did where people saw out their contractual terms and then decided to leave for whatever reason.  We still had legacy benefit from that, relationships with clients and other people that joined but some of the principals didn’t stay as long as we would have liked but on balance I think for what we did, we made sort of very significant strides forward by a lot of those key acquisitions that we did.  And the strategy was always to do infill acquisitions and at the same time run an aggressive organic growth strategy by hiring very good people into the business at all levels and I think that again those two strands of growth delivery were very powerful actually.

Susan Freeman

And essentially because I know when I was interviewing you and your fellow directors back in the day I was also interviewing people in the post room and on reception and the director’s would say, ‘yes culturally there is nothing between us, you know, exactly the same’ and you speak to the receptionist and she was, ‘no they are so different, I can tell you know, as they come out of the lift you know, by the way they dress and we know which company they come from’ so you know it’s a different view point. 

Martin Samworth

I think what was important and what we tried to do there in that context though was always to approach these things on the basis we were going to take the best of the two components and try and blend the two.  So it was never a well you know, the business has been acquired and therefore you know, you need to do it this way.  It was okay how can we take the best of both sides and turn that into something really powerful so that was the attitude that we went on and just help us and give us the excuse to make it a success and reward everybody accordingly because everyone was approaching it on a positive constructive basis.

Susan Freeman

And then you went on to be Group President, Chairman of APAC and EMEA and you were in that position I realised during the Covid lockdown period which must have been extraordinarily challenging when you are sort of dealing with people globally all facing different issues?

Martin Samworth

Yeah I mean most of my time with EMEA and APAC was before Covid and I was on a plane pretty much every week in and out of Europe the whole time and you know, a week in Australia, here and off to India and so on and so forth.  So I enjoyed it enormously and there was quite a lot of things that we wanted to, areas where we saw growth opportunities but also one or two areas where perhaps we needed to fix a few things so yeah, Covid was you know, brought everything and a lot of things down to sort of earth with a bit of bump of course.  But it was important to get in front of people and to understand their business and to look at what the market opportunity was like and you know, how we could ensure that everyone was working as optimally as possible and it was as connected as possible so that did involve, and I think it was very valuable to have that face time with people during that period running up to Covid.

Susan Freeman

And I think you were also instrumental in starting the residential business at CBRE UK?

Martin Samworth

Yes that’s right yes.

Susan Freeman

And I am not quite sure when that was but it’s strange to think that before that time residential you know, wasn’t seen as a sort of key part of what you were doing.

Martin Samworth

No it became evident to me that there was more and more mixed use schemes starting to happen and mixed use schemes were becoming more acceptable from an institutional investment point of view which historically as you know, they weren’t you know.  It was an office, it was a shop or it was a warehouse or an industrial unit.  Mixed use was quite hard for some of the investors to kind of relate to and how to… what segment of their portfolio to put it in and so on and so forth.  As, as mixed use became a more acceptive investment option and mixed use increasingly included a residential component that meant that to be able to serve their clients properly across all the facets of that development you needed residential experts and capability so that was one dimension that drove the decision to invest in those, in that capability.  And similarly because we were acting for lots of corporates at that time who might have had surplus land or surplus premises that would naturally go to residential use, we found that we were selling that land but we weren’t necessarily travelling with the development being involved in selling some of those completed units into markets that we had a presence in already in Asia for example where we could easily access some of the buyers.  So it was almost a natural extension of the business so we did it really for those two reasons actually.  I think they were, they were the catalyst for deciding to build that capability in the organisation in the UK.

Susan Freeman

No it’s extraordinary when you think that I think when Brindley Place was, was developed, the idea that you would put a restaurant or um sort of retail under an office building people said that it just wouldn’t be fundable so we have moved on.  So you left CBRE at the end of 2020 and I mean looking back obviously there was an awful lot happened during your time there.  I don’t know whether you could pick out any particular successes from that period?

Martin Samworth

Um I think the original merger is, very clearly sticks in my mind because that was a key turning point.  I think probably before that I hit a fork in the road because of my original background as an investment sort of development and sort of finance advisory role which I thoroughly enjoyed by the way.  But the fork in the road moment was well do I continue to effectively try and facilitate investment transactions or do I try and help build a business from a leadership management point of view and it took me some time to transition from one to the other but I think I always knew I really wanted to try and help build the entire business rather than you know, just be responsible for one piece of it or, or try and do real estate investment deals.  So that was quite a key point and some of the learnings that go with that and the experience that go with that are quite different but it is a choice that I needed to make and I think I made the right one and I’ve certainly enjoyed it and then growing the UK business in the way that we were able to with the support that we had from, from our colleagues in the US and the balance sheet that was available you know, really helped us to be able to go out and do the things that we wanted to do to invest in the business so it was, it was a fantastic time actually but yeah, the pieces MNA and some of the key hires like you know, when we hired Tony McCurley and when we managed to bring Franco into the business, they were all things people didn’t think we would be able to do but actually I really got a lot of personal satisfaction being able to introduce those people into the business and I think they really enjoyed it and were very successful using the platform for their own careers as well so yeah, those were very rewarding personally.

Susan Freeman

It must have been quite hard to leave but I suppose in your, in your new roles with your non-exec and chairing roles you now have an opportunity to go back to consulting because there’s not so much management involved?

Martin Samworth

Yeah I mean I, I’m doing a range of things that are kind of complimentary but have different perspectives on it across the industry.  So I am seeing the industry from quite a broad perspective I think, whether that’s a sort of human capital side with Ferguson or moral at the RICS or what I am doing with one of the family offices I am involved with or M&G, whichever example you want to take, it’s nice to be able to see you know, much of what’s happening and now more latterly UK housing which is something I’m increasingly passionate about, how we can, how we can try and help deal with the housing crisis in the UK.  So things like that give me quite a broad perspective on, on you know, how things are evolving, what’s changing, the importance of technology, the importance of data.  All those different facets that are going to continue to change the landscape that we are operating in and that people are working in and it’s going to continue to evolve very rapidly I think.

Susan Freeman

And what do you look for when you are asked to take on a role, what’s the deciding factor for you?

Martin Samworth

Well is there a common vision, is there a common purpose and the people, the people that I want to be working with and you know, can we collectively achieve more together than, than separately.  So you know, if you can’t do that then there’s probably not much point for either side.  So you know, time is short and it gets increasingly shorter as you get older unfortunately so you have to make the most of it so it’s important to make sure you feel you can make a difference.

Susan Freeman

One role that you took on about a year ago where I am sure you can make a difference is the RICS.  I mean obviously a lot of people will have asked you this, why did you take on the role because um, it’s clearly um, something that will need a lot of time and attention?

Martin Samworth

Yeah I mean I have been asked that quite a few times Susan, you are right. I am not sure many people saw that one coming necessarily but in my, the latter part of my career at CBRE one of the things I really enjoyed was the turnarounds and just trying to sort of deal with some of the difficult stuff and the tough stuff and actually trying to make sure that we made a difference in a short space of time in some of those locations and service lines where we were trying to affect change and evolution.  So that was a big piece of it because I saw what I feel is an industry I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed being involved with and continue to be very passionate about.  As a professional body that can influence and make such a huge difference to I think the built and rural environment globally that is a massive opportunity for the RICS but it is only an opportunity if it takes it, it’s not something that will just naturally happen so things have to evolve and obviously there’s been some turbulence and some you know, issues that the RICS has had to face over recent years but actually the opportunity for it has probably never been greater than it is now for various reasons which we can come on to so for me, I saw it as a challenge and I do like challenges and it was a turnaround but I fundamentally believe that there’s a tremendous opportunity that we can take the RICS towards achieving.  So that was the attraction.  I in truth discovered that it was probably going to be a slightly bigger challenge than I realised at the time I said yes but I’m undaunted and enjoying it actually enormously and um, the scale of the opportunity actually is probably even bigger than I thought on the upside.

Susan Freeman

So obviously we’ve all seen a lot in the press about you know, the RICS and you know what fundamentally do you think went wrong and what is, what is the opportunity.  What do you hope to achieve?

Martin Samworth

Um, I think, I think if you go back to some of the recent sort of past and some of the things that happened I think you know, that some of the international perspective perhaps happened at the expense of the membership back in the UK so I think that the eye had been taken off the ball a bit in that sense.  There were clearly one or two sort of issues in terms of the management set up that existed that needed to be put right and so there was a bit of a breakdown on… in a couple of instances without going into too much details.  But I think, touch wood, those things are behind us and there’s now a governance structure and an organisational set up and everything that is increasingly fit for purpose for the journey that we want to go on so the reason I say that the opportunity now I think is greater than its probably ever been is because effectively the RICS is a professional body but it’s also a membership organisation and it has the opportunity to help enrich its members not only professionally but it has the opportunity to hopefully give them a rewarding membership experience as well and I think it’s incumbent on the organisation to do both those things but also to operate first and foremost in the public interest and help Government deliver on some of its objectives whether that’s whichever Government’s in office and it’s well positioned almost in some respects uniquely position to be able to do that.  But again it has to take the opportunity to do those things, it has to be organised in the way that will enable it to do those things and have the people inside it that have the same vision and ambition and desire to deliver those things and those are the things that we are working on at the moment but it doesn’t matter whether you take sustainability, valuation, UK housing crisis, planning system, whichever… cladding, whichever example you want to take, you know, if the industry is looking for guidance on some of those things or its looking for evolution on the changing environment that we are all living and operating, again I think the RICS is uniquely placed to be the, the sort of influencer and the knowledge base for that to help support the industry and the profession around those things.

Susan Freeman

And do you see the RICS being the body that can help to address the image problem that the real estate sector has?  As we started off in this conversation talking about you know, how important the built environment is and how multi-faceted it is but somehow we don’t seem to be able to sort of project all the positive things that happen.  I mean is that something for the RICS?

Martin Samworth

Er yeah, yeah I think it is.  I think, I think actually the RICS should be setting the standard on many things whether you take the DNI for example, you know we can’t expect the industry to continue to continuously improve around DNI if we don’t do that ourselves so we have to set the standard for that.  And we should be providing guidance and other things on a whole range of things that influence that continued improvement in the sort of perspective of the industry and the brand that exists for chartered surveyors or the profession generally so for sure it should yeah and it can do that I think Susan, yeah.

Susan Freeman

And would it collaborate with other industry bodies in doing that because I mean one of the things Liz Peace suggested in the recent Chapman Barrigan Memorial Lecture she gave was you know, why don’t all the many real estate bodies get together and help to improve the image.

Martin Samworth

Yeah and that’s a very good point and yes I absolutely believe that in fact I was on a panel at the Conservative Party Conference recently on the housing crisis and I was on the panel with the head of the Town Planning Institute and the RIBA and the CIOB etcetera and we all agreed actually we should be collaborating on these topical issues far more closely and far more regularly than perhaps has happened in the past.  I think collectively it will be a more powerful voice than if everyone tries to do it individually for sure so Liz is absolutely right about that.

Susan Freeman

Okay that’s good.  I was going to ask you about the Party Conference in a minute but just on the diversity and inclusion, I mean I, I don’t know what percentage of your membership are women for instance, I don’t know if you’ve got that stat?

Martin Samworth

Well I haven’t got the latest number but I mean the short answer is not enough and that is something we are acutely aware of and we are intent on trying to help encourage and sort of facilitate continual improvement around that.

Susan Freeman

And I think you are on the advisory council of real estate balance?

Martin Samworth

Er well I was yeah.

Susan Freeman

You were okay so obviously you know that’s an organisation that is working towards more diversity in real estate so basically there’s room for improvement there.  So you were at the Conservative Party Conference I think, was it the first time you’ve been to the Party Conference?

Martin Samworth

Yes I haven’t been before actually yeah, it was a very interesting experience, it was in Manchester and it was very busy, there was lots of, lots of people there.  There were lots of interesting panels.  My primary focus again was around housing and the UK housing kind of crisis so I went to a couple of the events around that and then sat on a panel on the Monday evening so yeah it was very informative and I was glad I went and then Justin, our new CEO went to Liverpool to the Labour Conference so we sort of did one each really.

Susan Freeman

No it’s interesting I for the last sort of 10 years or so I’ve been to both and we’ve hosted dinners at both conferences to try and get developers and Government and the local Government together but I mean one of the frustrating things is you know, the housing crisis has been top of the agenda for many years but we don’t seem to be making very much progress and I don’t know if you’ve got any thoughts on what you know, we could be doing, what Government could be doing in order to improve things because we are not building many new houses at the moment.

Martin Samworth

No it was interesting.  I heard a lot about the problem and I didn’t hear a lot about the solutions if I was entirely honest with you and I didn’t come away thinking that from what I experienced the solutions were coming any time soon either because I am not 100% sure they worked out what the solutions are.  It’s very, very interesting, I think there is a lot of discussion about the supply side and the issue that goes with the number of new homes being built and that is an issue but there’s things that can be done about it but I think people have also perhaps forgotten that the equation is two dimensional so yes you’ve got a supply issue but you have a demand issue as well.  Now I am not saying there isn’t demand because there clearly is demand.  The issue is is it affordable demand okay, so can you get an equation that means that there’s a ready market so that you can satisfy people’s housing needs.  If the demand side of the equation was sort of solved or supported the house builders will build the houses you know, they are not not going to build the houses because they can’t sell any but know they can sell them they’ll build them so planning is an issue and everyone knows it’s an issue but things need to be done to address the issue Susan, you can’t just leave it like it is, it won’t fix itself yeah.  There’s stuff that needs to be done and some, probably some discipline that needs to go into the equation to get those things done whether they are local plans, five year housing supply, metrics etcetera, etcetera and so I think a bit more rigor and a bit more investment around the number of people that, that deliver those planning reviews and decisions is really fundamentally important.  Then there’s how you can stimulate supply and there’s things that you can do to stimulate supply and then there’s things that you can do to facilitate affordable demand and so I think whoever is in power needs to look at both sides of the equation and all those components and whether that’s help to buy, whether that’s tax incentives for private landlords, whether it’s tax incentives for developers and so on, there’s a whole bunch of things that can be done, they are not all tax related by the way.  But there are things that can constructively be done to get a buoyant and balanced market that will respond to the housing crisis and I’m not a great believer and I don’t understand still why, why there seems to be the sort of obsession with setting targets that everyone knows are probably completely unrealistic and never been achieved in the past so you are setting yourself up for failure before you’ve started.  It would probably be sensible to try and fix some of the issues and put some positive things in place that means you’ve got a chance of hitting a sensible target, not going with a target that is somewhat unrealistic in, in the current set up.

Susan Freeman

I saw an interesting graph recently sort of showing you know, who had actually been building houses over the last decades going back to the 1950s and it showed in such sharp relief how important the Council housing was that you know, a huge amount of the affordable housing was actually built by the Local Authorities and when that stopped things seemed to sort of go wrong from then on because we were building flats and houses that weren’t affordable, they were good investments for people but we just weren’t building the affordable homes that people need.

Martin Samworth

Mm, so again I think some creativity on things like that or whether that’s new towns or, or how you deal with some of the, some of the green belt or you know, other components of it that helps to go towards facilitating that is obviously important so yes I think you know, shared ownership, the different options that enable people to get exposure or you know, get a home is really important so yes shared ownership, help to buy you know, all these other sort of options that help people get exposure to either renting or buying is really, really important.

Susan Freeman

Yeah I think it’s not… the rental market isn’t really being helped at the moment by the fact that it is sort of less attractive to private landlords to be in that market.

Martin Samworth

That hasn’t helped the availability of it no so I mean actually that’s another dynamic that has contributed to the availability of rental and the increasing rents that have gone with that as a consequence.  That, that’s not just a product of that, that’s also a product of the fact that it’s not so easy to buy at the moment because of interest rates etcetera so the whole lot’s collided somewhat.

Susan Freeman

So is that something that the RICS is going to be involved with?

Martin Samworth

Well we’re very much tracking and looking at that and we put out reports regularly on the UK housing market.  I think there is an opportunity for us to help and work closure with Government to try and help facilitate some of the change that’s needed to help deal with the problem and the crisis yeah so I think there is an opportunity to do that.  We have some quite good insight around some of those things that I think we could support Housing Minister or you know other people in those other relevant roles to dealing with this issue and it’s clearly going up the political agenda quite rightly as it should because I think it’s now in the top sort of 3 or 4 issues for both leading parties at the moment and the problem is becoming more acute not less acute so it really does need urgent attention.

Susan Freeman

It does, I was told that it was very much on the agenda at the Labour Party Conference but not quite as visible on the agenda at the Conservative Party Conference although there are always like really interesting you know, the fringe events where you do get these you know, panels of experts but as you say, lots of problems and a bit short on solutions.

Martin Samworth

Yes I hope it doesn’t become just a political issue, it’s something that almost – and I know this is wishful thinking and probably isn’t going to be the case but it should be – it’s so fundamentally important that it should be almost apolitical issue you know, whichever party is in power should be finding solutions to this and working with those that can help them to implement those solutions.  I mean finding solutions is one thing, implementing and executing on the plan to solve the problem is something else and I think there has to be some accountability for delivering the solutions when everyone has agreed what those solutions are and that’s going to take time and investment again.

Susan Freeman

No I think you are right about it being apolitical.  You mentioned higher interest rates and you obviously have the benefit of having experienced a number of economic cycles and I think for some of the younger people coming up you know, through the industry higher interest rates have come as a little bit of a shock and obviously we, we know that you know, interest rates have in the past got much higher than this but I just wondered you know, what advice you give to you know, younger people who haven’t seen you know, haven’t had this experience of different cycles and you know, who are finding you know, this higher interest rate economy a bit of a shock.

Martin Samworth

Yes well I am sad to say it’s probably become the new norm you know, so I think everyone has to sort of find ways of operating the sort of interest rate environment that we are now in.  You know, hopefully there may be some adjustment downwards in the next sort of few months or year or two.  Do I think it’s going to go back to anything like it was previously or that a lot of people in the late 20s or early 30s have experienced, I suspect not.  So I think there is life at 4 and 5% interest rates or higher in fact, you and I both experienced that as you say.  But I think you just have to adapt and adopt and find a way to operate whether that’s from a business point of view or from a personal point of view in that environment but it’s perfectly feasible.  So there are adjustments that can be made or adjustments that will happen in a free market that will help to facilitate some of that as is happening now in actual fact.

Susan Freeman

Yes I think just in the sort of commercial property market I mean people are sort of waiting you know, for a price adjustment so I am not sure how quickly they are coming through.

Martin Samworth

Er, it’s probably going to take a little bit longer for things to sort of completely stabilise and for seller’s expectations and what buyers are prepared to do start to match.  At the moment they haven’t.  I think there’s been a lot more resilience in the residential market than perhaps people thought but there’s probably still some more adjustment to go in both the commercial and the residential markets and until that adjustment people feel that there’s some stability on interest rates and a bit more or a bit less uncertainty around it and the two sides of the market match up again you won’t see the volumes increasing and the level of activities going back up again until we reach that sort of equilibrium point and at the moment we’re not, we’re not there yet and we are probably, we may even be six to twelve months away from that still.

Susan Freeman

Oh six to twelve months okay.  So the people that are coming back from Expo this year sort of talking about survive until 25 weren’t, weren’t that far out.

Martin Samworth

Well not on that basis yeah I hadn’t actually heard that but that would sort of correspond to, I mean I, when things, there was evident things were starting to change and there was going to be a period of change I thought it might be a two year period that there would be relative inactivity and change in values and volumes etcetera taking place and clearly what’s happened is that it’s going to take longer so it’s not two years, I was wrong.  It is probably more like three or four.

Susan Freeman

Okay so time to concentrate on getting things right.

Martin Samworth

Well yes absolutely but that’s not to say there isn’t opportunity and things, there is and there’s a number of buildings that have been sold recently and sold well and with a decent list of buyers but some of those prices are not prices that we saw two years ago and some sectors have been far more resilient than others.  Student housing for example has held up far stronger than secondary offices for example so you know, just to take another extreme.  So it’s not the same across all components of the market and all the different sectors there, a lot of them are behaving in different ways for obvious reasons so whether that’s residential, hotel, student, offices you know secondary shopping centres etcetera, etcetera, they’ve all got their own sort of market fluctuations that they’re going through for various different reasons.

Susan Freeman

Yes it’s a whole other conversation isn’t it about what happens to all our secondary offices so I am not sure that’s one we want to start on now so I was just wondering, I mean obviously you have done so much in your career to date, are you still looking for new challenges?

Martin Samworth

Er yes, I mean I am always looking for interesting new things and some things sort of you know, come through and then they you know, you do your three years or, or it reaches a natural conclusion and you sort of move on to something else so… but I am trying to make sure that I adhere to the criteria I referenced before is you know, is there a common purpose, common vision, common objective and um you know, can you make a difference at the end of the day but yeah, I am still learning an awful lot from the different things that I am involved with which I think is great because I’ve always been an advocate of continual learning for people and I’ve always tried to do that, you know whenever I’ve been to Belasea or to Harvard or any things like that, I think it’s important people continue to personally develop so I am enjoying that.  I’m enjoying being around the different businesses that I am sort of involved with generally and yeah my sort of latest passion as I’ve probably implied is sort of the UK housing market but I’m, I’m really intent on helping Justin and the executives leadership team within the RICS and those other bodies, governing council etcetera to really try and take the opportunity that exists for the RICS and that is obviously taking up a bit of time and is probably more intense at the moment or certainly the first twelve months have been more intense that I expect it to be over the next sort of 12 or 24 months as the new leadership team gets bedded in and the agenda moves forward which I am confident that it will do.

Susan Freeman

And I don’t know whether you do have any time off with all these, these roles you have on your hand but how, how do you spend your time when you’re not working?

Martin Samworth

Well I try and play tennis, I try and get to the gym.  I still like travelling a lot so I do try and get to travel, my wife loves to go to the theatre and we go to concerts so yeah we’re out and about quite a bit so yeah, hopefully health, reasonably healthy and active life around the business components of it yeah.

Susan Freeman

Well it sounds pretty good.  So Martin thank you so much, I mean I, hopefully we won’t leave it another 20 years before I get to interview you, it’s been really interesting thank you very much.

Martin Samworth

No it’s been a pleasure, thank you and um thank you again for the interest.

Susan Freeman

Thank you, Martin Samworth.  It’s been great to get the chance to interview you again after a 20 year gap and to learn from your extensive experience of the real estate sector.  We’ll be watching your progress at the RICS with great interest. 

So, that’s it for now.  I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation.  Please join us for the next PropertyShe podcast interview coming very soon. 

The Propertyshe podcast is brought to you by Mishcon de Reya in association with the London Real Estate Forum and can be found at Mishcon.com/PropertyShe along with all our interviews and programme notes.  The podcasts are also available to subscribe to on your Apple podcast app and Spotify and whatever podcast app you use.  Do continue to subscribe, leave positive reviews and let us have your feedback and comments and most importantly, suggestions for future guests.  And of course you can continue to follow me on Twitter @Propertyshe and on LinkedIn for a very regular commentary on all things real estate, Prop Tech and the built environment.  See you again soon.

Martin Samworth joined CBRE as a graduate in 1983 and enjoyed 37 years service with the company until 2020.

He has extensive global corporate experience across the entire real estate sector at the highest level with Developers, Investors and Occupiers and with a background of specialising in Investment, Development and Real Estate Finance advice.

He was appointed as CBRE Group President and Chairman APAC/EMEA, before retiring in December 2020.

Since then Martin has taken on a number of Non-Executive and Chairing roles covering many aspects of the real estate industry.

These roles include Chairing the RICS Board.

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