Property Focus: The Interview – Chris Oakes

In our series of interviews with top professionals from across the property sector, TheBusinessDesk catches up with Chris Oakes, director of luxury residential property developer Huntsmere.

What are your views of the current state of the residential property market in the North West?

There seems to have been a marked improvement in the last three or four months. This started at the lower end of the market, with buyers starting to recognise value. This seems to have filtered up into the mid-market, which now seems to simply be suffering from a lack of available stock and mortgage funding. I haven’t noticed any specific change to the top end of the market.

There have always been buyers and the demand for real quality seems to have remained strong over the last few years. The difference now is that there is virtually no stock. If you want a house with a pool around Alderley Edge or Prestbury, it’s a case of building one.

What key challenges do you think will most affect your sector over the coming months?

More than anything else, it’s the availability of funding. This is going to prevent most developers from building top quality property on a speculative basis, which will lead to a continued shortage of available finished property.

Buyers are more likely to have to associate themselves with a developer and work in conjunction with each other.

Why do you think the North West is a good place to do business?

It’s superb for transport and communications and yet it operates at a slightly slower pace, which makes trade more enjoyable.

We operate primarily in the high net worth sector and whilst we don’t have the annual influx of foreign HNWs that can be seen in London, there are a large number of business owners, sports stars and other high net worth people around that support a very strong market.

What is your favourite building in the North West and why?

It has to be the subterranean house we are building in Bowdon.

If you could improve anything in the region, what would it be?

I’d like to see a greater concentration of banks based out of the area, who understand trading in the area and are able to provide old fashioned relationship banking.

We have a couple of very solid relationships, but would benefit from more competition in the sector.

What was your first job and how did you enter your current line of work?

I graduated with a degree in electronic engineering and spent a few years in industry. I then retrained to be a barrister and spent 10 years at the Manchester Bar.

I have operated a number of companies in the property sector since the late 1990s and this stems from a straight-forward love of the sector.

What do you most enjoy about your job?

I love the fact that I can take a project all the way through from concept stage to a finished product. We even like to provide a high level of after sales care, because we don’t believe that the development cycle ends with a purchase.

We operate at the upper end of the luxury property market and I love sourcing new and unusual materials and incorporating them into our designs.

What barriers have you faced during your career and how have you overcome them?

Barriers are endless and constant. In my current business it’s finding the optimum site for a client’s requirements or the perfect design solution to unlock the potential in a challenging site.

It can be persuading a planning officer to support an application when it doesn’t fully meet there criteria, or finding a lender whose terms fit the bill.

The solution is the same in each scenario – it’s all about having the right attitude, the clearest communications, thinking creatively and having lots of energy.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Always concentrate on the basics.

And the worst?

Never sell property! It might work for some, but it can and has proved fatal for others.