SPR AGM 
10 November 2022

Opening the AGM, outgoing chair Hamish Smith explained that the meeting was once again being held online rather than face-to-face, on this occasion because of a Tube strike rather than the pandemic.  He suggested that with dark clouds currently besetting the economy, this is a challenging climate for property researchers, but one in which they can add real value within organisations by following research convictions.  This is also a time when the Society has an important role to play in encouraging high quality discussion and debate.

In his report on the Society’s activities over the past year, Hamish recalled that a major objective had been to bring members together again after the pandemic.  This had been achieved, despite considerable uncertainty about the potential impact of Omicron early in the year.  Feedback on seminars and webinars had been positive, particularly the quality of the speakers, while there had also been some new social events including winter drinks and a photography walk, as well as the revival of the Golf Day after a few years’ break.  The SPR Research Course with its blend of high-level insights on the business and networking also proved successful.

The health of the Society was reflected in the growth of the membership to more than 570, its highest ever level, which was particularly gratifying in the difficult pandemic conditions.  Further highlights of the SPR calendar are still to come, with the Annual Dinner and new events in the shape of a wine tasting and a roundtable discussion on the metaverse, the first in this new breakfast-time format.  Hamish thanked the SPR committee for their hard work in organising a total of 21 seminar/webinar and social events during the year, together with the Coffee and Conversation and the Research Course. He also thanked MSCI RCA and Datscha, and Oxford Economics for sponsoring the Summer Drinks and the Annual Dinner.

In his final duty as this year’s chair, Hamish announced the six papers that have been shortlisted for the SPR Research Prize, with both the Under-30 and Open categories again seeing a high calibre of entries, making the judges’ task a particular challenge.  The shortlists are:

Under-30 Prize:
UK Housing Market Focus – Andrew Wishart, Capital Economics
The Determinants of UK self-storage rents – Daniel McKegney, Heitman
New Homes: Remaining Competitive after Help to Buy – Sophie Tonge, Gaby Foord, Savills

Open Prize:
Suburban Build to Rent – Jacqui Daly, Richard Valentine Selsey, Guy Whittaker, Savills
Timber Construction: Truly Sustainable Real Estate – Tom Duncan, Alex Dunn, Cromwell Property Group
The Affordability of Warehouse Rents – Kevin Mofid, Savills

Ben Russell then presented the Society’s accounts for the past year, indicating that the closing balance was set to be higher than expected, chiefly due to income from job adverts of more than £13k as against the budgeted figure of £5k, with some 30 adverts posted on the website through the year.  Income from member subscriptions was also about £2k higher than budgeted while this year’s Annual Dinner expenses were yet to be accounted for  Looking to the year ahead, Ben explained that the budget assumed some fall-off in subscriptions and advertising income, given the economic backdrop, while admin costs were anticipated to rise with inflation and the Annual Dinner was projected to be somewhat larger in scale, since demand had already exceeded capacity this year.  There was also a special item of £3k included for growing engagement with universities.  The overall outcome should be a loss of around £11k for the 2022-23 year, which would be consistent with the Society’s intention of not making a profit over the longer term, even though the bank balance continues to look very healthy.

Next year’s committee was then elected, with the outgoing members – Zuhaib Butt, Tessa English, Siena Golan, Lucy Greenwood and Stephanie Lin – thanked for their efforts.  Lucy Greenwood was singled out for her contribution over seven years, including one as chair.

The committee for 2022-23 will be:

Alex Dunn, Cromwell Property Group (Chair)
Yi Wu,  Henley Business School (Vice Chair)
Matt Soffair, LGIM (Junior Vice Chair)
Benjamin Russell, Tristan Capital Partners (Hon. Treasurer)
Shehryar Qazi (Hon. Secretary)
Charles Burton, Oxford Economics
Chris Dunn, Colliers
Cleo Folkes, Cushman & Wakefield
Pearl Gillum, Savills
Will Laing, Savills 
David Inskip, CBRE IM 
Rad Radev, Carter Jonas 
Hamish Smith, Savills IM 
Joanna Tano, Columbia Threadneedle Real Estate Partners 
Mhairi Thomson, Avison Young
Michael Caira, The Crown Estate (co-opted member)
Lucy Palk, Savills (co-opted member)
Mark Stansfield, CoStar (co-opted member)
Amerita Vasseramo, M&G Real Estate (co-opted member)

Alex Dunn, the incoming SPR chair, then set out plans for the year ahead.  As Hamish had already mentioned, a key innovation will be to hold a number of roundtable events which should bridge the divide between technical and social aims, giving a particular boost to networking, while also hopefully making it easier to find hosting space in offices due to their relatively small scale.  These meetings are not however intended to replace seminars and webinars, with the latter having proved particularly valuable in increasing the Society’s accessibility to members located outside London.  Seminars already planned for 2023 include the UK Outlook Meeting in January (jointly with the IPF) and others on life sciences and grid capacity.

Aside from technical events, the Society also intends to expand support for members in the form of a mentoring scheme for newer entrants to the field and by developing a closer relationship with universities’ real estate departments.  Innovation is also set to continue in the area of social events, for example with the inclusion of a London treasure hunt and greater efforts to introduce regional networking events for those based outside the capital.  In addition, now that lockdowns have been (hopefully) consigned to the past, it should be possible to revive site visits, which have always proved very popular.

In the final major item on the AGM agenda, Alex announced that this year’s SPR Fellowship was being awarded to Malcolm Frodsham, founder of Real Estate Strategies and previously head of real estate research at Legal & General and IPD (now MSCI).  Malcolm reflected that the Society had been an important presence during his 20+ years in the industry, and that he looked forward to developing the collaboration that had already begun on the Research Course and at other SPR events.

Alex closed the meeting by reminding members to keep putting forward their ideas on how the Society can evolve and improve in the future.  And finally, he looked forward to seeing members at the Annual Dinner on 17 November.

Tim Horsey