Send us a text Want to scale in real estate Without a big budget, team or endless meetings? I asked Kelly Bream (multi-time founder; ex-COO, Bidwells) How to grow a real estate business from local to national. Here’s the playbook: People > platforms first. Hire complements (e.g. brand/marketing), not clones.Standardise the boring; localise the value. Centralise compliance/process. Localise relationships.What and where, before how. Get the client and go-to-market...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper is joined by Hayley Rees, Managing Director at £50bn+ Pension Insurance Corporation. In Anna’s words: There’s lots of advice for private investors. Almost nothing on how big institutions back UK housing. Yet it’s a major growth area. So I asked Hayley (MD at £50bn+ insurer PIC) what actually works. We covered: How to choose investments: Compare returns to UK government bonds (gilts). Avoid 10 year projects, as there’s a lot of competition for 10 year m...

Send us a text Richard Donnell, Executive Director at Zoopla joined Anna Clare Harper to share what the latest rental market data means for investors, and how to underwrite real estate deals with the right rent growth assumptions. Topics include: Rent growth has slowed - why and what next for UK rentalsUnderwriting rents to earnings, not history or inflationThe most invest-able places (and EPC grades) Renters Rights Bill opportunities and risksWe also covered what strategy Richard would ...

Send us a text Riccardo Ianucci-Dawson, CEO of £50m Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) Alto Software Group, joined Anna Clare Harper for this episode. It’s hard to get real estate deals done in 2025. With caution, fall-throughs and zombie pricing. So some smart investors are buying real estate businesses. Not just assets. @Riccardo Ianucci-Dawson is CEO of Alto A £50m ARR estate agency CRM powering 25,000 agents. We discussed: How smart investors are growing in 2025Top leadership lessons...

Send us a text Martin Wolf CBE is Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times. Described as “the most important economics commentator in the world.” I had such fun recording this. Thank you for sending in your questions. If you’re a real estate investor, policymaker or fellow economics nerd, this episode is for you. We covered: The costs and benefits of land/property taxes. → The right thing to do, but destabilising? How house price increases don't create growth. → They tra...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper joined Charlie Martin on his podcast, The Responsible Edge. In Anna’s words: There’s a £2.2 trillion UK housing opportunity Unlocked using clever automation and AI But hiding in plain sight: Existing private and social homes That need upgrading quickly. AI can help analyse portfolios To make fast, reliable decisions. So analysing 10,000 homes takes hours, not months. But, TBT - AI has its limits e.g. in construction. I explored this with ...

Send us a text Melanie Leech CBE, British Property Federation CEO joins Anna Clare Harper. In Anna’s words: ‘35% of no new homes is still nothing.’ People love to blame planning for our housing crisis. But it’s only half the story. You also need to: Tackle construction cost inflationManage skills and labour shortagesNavigate new regulations (eg building safety, net zero)Make the numbers work with 35% ‘affordable’ requirementsI loved chatting with Melanie Leech CBE, Chief Executive of the Brit...

Send us a text David Smith, Economics Editor at the Sunday Times, Award-winning journalist and Author with Anna Clare Harper. In Anna’s words: The housing crisis isn’t just about supply. It’s about who owns what – and who pays for it. In this episode, I spoke to David Smith, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times since 1989 – and a role model who first got me (and many others) interested in economics as a teenager. We covered: ● Why 68% of property wealth is held by ove...

Send us a text Tenants are happier than owners. (and that’s not the only surprising truth about new builds). I chatted Hannah Marsh, a co-founder of HomeViews, the biggest property review platform in the UK - dubbed the TripAdvisor for property - and recently acquired by Rightmove. In this episode of the podcast, she shares what she learned scaling and selling two startups. She also shared the surprising results of data on Build to Rent from Rightmove and HomeViews, and what opportuniti...

Send us a text Monica O'Neill is CEO of ENSO Advisors LLC. She was a Co-Founder at Tristan Capital Partners, and a Managing Director at AEW Europe. She joined Anna Clare Harper for this episode of The Return. Monica has grown two multi-billion dollar real estate platforms and helped shape the US affordable housing system (via Low-Income Housing Tax Credit). Now she’s doubling down on UK residential, especially affordable and supported housing. In this episode, we discuss: -  ...

Send us a text In this episode, the podcasting roles were reversed. Erica Sosna interviewed Anna Clare Harper, Host of The Return and Co-Founder of GreenResi. Anna says, 'I was lucky to be invited on The Career Equation, hosted by Erica Sosna - career coach and Good Housekeeping’s in-house career expert. The format is that each guest brings a career challenge they are facing and Erica helps them through it using her methodology. My challenge (at the time of recording - a few month...

Send us a text Andy Rothery, Head of Europe for Real Foundations / Former Head of Deloitte Real Estate and Maya the Robot joined Anna Clare Harper for this episode of The Return. ‘AI will replace us.’ No. AI will scale us. AI will free us. AI will sharpen us. To become a high-performing, high-growth real estate business, you embrace it all. → Automate what slows you down - like messy bank reconciliations → Focus your team on value-add work - like relationship-building. → U...

Send us a text What people think you should do: Take a huge mortgage.Own a home ASAP.Consider your home to be your main ‘investment’.Spend the bulk of your money on your home.Or, you could: Enjoy living in a much nicer place than you could afford to buy.Waste less time on property maintenance.Enjoy the flexibility, and move when you want to (not after 3 x sale fall throughs).Make informed investment decisions suited to your age and stage of life.Spending all your money on a home doesn’t...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper spoke with Aubrey Adams OBE, Chair of Tritax Big Box REIT (FTSE 250), Former Chair of L&Q (105,000 homes) and Former CEO of Savills about building trust and how housing gets funded. The episode covers: → How to fund and scale Housing Associations (Including cash flow, bonds, grant etc). → How real estate Boards can build trust. → Where public housing providers should take risk. Guest website: https://www.tritaxbigbox.co.uk/ Host LinkedIn: https://ww...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper spoke to Guy Horne, CEO of HSPG, a real estate company that acquires, manages and develops residential property, in particular Affordable housing. This episode includes: What are the key differences between affordable, Affordable, social, and supported housing, in words my mum can understand?What are the hottest strategies for Living Sector investors seeking to solve the homelessness crisis, including place-based portfolios?What impact is grant funding having ...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper chatted with Gus Wiseman, Head of Investor Relations for the UK Government’s Office for Investment about: What international capital thinks about UK housing vs. Europe vs. the US.How UK real estate platforms can position themselves to secure investment from global pension funds.Why self-deprecation is doing UK Plc no favours - and what we can do about it.Guest website: http://great.gov.uk Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guswiseman/ Host Link...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper chatted with John German, Managing Director Alternative Investments at Invesco Real Estate about the differences between UK and European Living Sector Investment, with a special focus on Affordable Housing. This episode is brilliant for anybody new to this sector as John is an expert at navigating this sometimes complex sector. It covered: Who’s who and what’s what in Living Sector investmentWhat different investors look for: Income vs Total Return...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper chatted to Phil Clark, NED at Pinnacle Group (70,000 UK homes); Thriving Investments, part of Places for People; Chair of Pinnacle Investments (a partner of ours); Executive Chair at Wellcome Trust’s Genome Campus; and Investment Committee NED at UCL and PIC. They discussed what role institutional investors play in the UK Living Sector, and how to become a NED. Topics include the match between institutions and social/affordable housing, including: - Scale – Ho...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper chatted to Ann-Marie Atkins, a Managing Partner and award-winning Financial Planner at Evelyn Partners, about what you need to know about investing. Disclaimer and spoiler alert - there’s no actual investment tips or investment advice, the game-changing advice is about TAX and INFLATION (and booking a Finance Date with yourself). Some snippets from Ann-Marie: Want to double your money in the next 10 years?? You can, if you invest at 7.2% interest (a version of...

Send us a text Anna Clare Harper chatted to Rob Beiley, a Partner at law firm Trowers & Hamlins with over 20 years of experience in the affordable housing sector. Rob advises housing associations, local authorities, developers and institutional investors on topics including corporate governance, housing finance, development and structuring. He’s also a board member of the Housing & Finance Institute, Chair of the British Property Federation's Affordable Housing group and a contributor...