JLL’s affordable housing business has launched a dedicated team for the North of England following a string of high-level hires.
The move sees the creation of a new specialist team at the global property consultancy, offering an enhanced regional offering to the affordable housing sector from locations in Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle.
The new affordable housing team is led by Richard Houghton, who has joined JLL as a Director from Cushman & Wakefield, where he was a partner with 16 years’ experience in valuation and advisory work.
Richard is joined at JLL by associates, Simon Taylor, also from Cushman & Wakefield, and Charles Smith, who joins from Fabrica by A2Dominion, with the team dividing their time between Newcastle and JLL’s Leeds office.
Two more hires from Cushman & Wakefield, Oliver Potts, associate, and Gemma Sedgley, surveying executive, are based in JLL’s Manchester office.
The hires take JLL’s UK affordable housing team to 70 people and further enhance its specialist services in loan security valuation, transaction support and bond issuance, along with development advice, and supporting housing associations to value land acquisitions and sites.
The addition of these new colleagues will strengthen JLL’s existing client relationships across the North, and develop new ones through the team’s established contacts in the sector.
Richard Petty, head of JLL UK’s Living Advisory, said: “We are delighted to welcome our new friends in the North, who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience of providing affordable housing valuation and consultancy services. We understand how important local knowledge and understanding is to our clients, so building on our long-established residential businesses in the North of England to complement our existing, market-leading affordable housing teams in London, Birmingham and Edinburgh, will allow us to offer a truly comprehensive and integrated national service.”
Richard Houghton, director, JLL North of England, said: “We are delighted to become part of JLL’s affordable team, which has such a strong reputation in the sector. We want to grow and develop the business in the region, and being part of a big, national team like this gives us the platform to do so. We’re really looking forward to continuing our work in the sector with the resources, brand and support we need.”
The JLL affordable housing team values almost one million homes throughout the UK each year, in addition to scores of development sites. The team works with over 300 different RPs of all types and sizes, and with all the lenders active in the sector, as well as a wide range of investors and other stakeholders.
JLL has been particularly active in the stock disposal and swaps market, which is a result of increased pressure in areas such as build safety, quality and the retrofit agenda.
The affordable housing team has a track record of more than 25 years working with registered providers, funders and stakeholders across the UK.
Originating in London but operating nationally, the affordable housing business opened an office in Birmingham in 2015, when JLL acquired Mazars Property Consultancy, which had provided valuations and surveying services to the social housing sector for 20 years. It saw a team of five from the Mazars subsidiary, headed by Director, Dave Chapman, join JLL. And, in 2013, the former DTZ / Cushman team in Scotland moved across to JLL, originally under Craig Fulton and now led by Allan Briggs.
JLL’s broader residential and commercial property divisions have been operating from its Manchester and Leeds offices for many years.
The latest move into the North West and North East of England not only provides the JLL affordable housing division with a stronger national footprint, but further strengthens ties between the English business and its Scottish counterparts in Edinburgh.
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