Property leasing, sales and purchases. Market research and advisory. Pitching and sourcing new sales and lease transactions

Job responsibilities

Source viable takers for available vacant spaces within and outside KF commercial and residential property portfolios.

Source new property transactions for Knight Frank portfolio

Mediate the dealings between sellers and buyers ensuring good conduct and the honest exchange of information towards a beneficial understanding

Appraise the value of properties by thoroughly researching the market or past purchases and advise client as required

Property purchase and sales on behalf of Knight Frank clientele in order to grow Knight Frank bottom line

Prepare all contractual and legal documentations related to leases, sales and purchase of properties

Manage lease renewals on behalf of clients

Accompany buyers during visits to and inspections of property, advising them on the suitability and value of the property they are visiting

Arrange for title searches to determine whether clients have clear property titles.

Investigate clients’ financial and credit status to determine eligibility for financing and source of funding (KYC)

Develop proposals for current and prospective clients.

Education & Experience

1st degree in Estate Management or related field with a minimum of 2nd class grade or its equivalent

6-8 years real estate brokerage experience

Knowledge, Skills and Attributes required to execute the job

Marketing skills – a strong understanding of marketing tools and practices, such as social media and local advertising

Multitasking – ability to handle negotiations for various clients, communicate with agents and other involved parties, and prepare documents

Sales skills – ability to close deals and follow up on leads

Communication skills – strong oral and written communication skills when preparing documents, speaking with clients, and interacting with real estate professionals

Strong knowledge of current real estate laws

Strong negotiation and dispute resolution skills

Knowledge of real estate market in Lagos and current real estate standards

Strong analytical skills- ability to spot, assess and address risk, materiality and interdependencies and make make recommendations to alleviate risks

Sound presentation and pitching skills

Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills, and ability to work as part of a multigeographic team.

Adaptable to working in a fast paced, ever-changing environment

Ability to work well independently as well as the ability to work well with stakeholders

Excellent Market research skills

Strong relationship management skills

Systems & IT competence

MS Word; MS Excel; MS PowerPoint; MS Outlook

Apply Here

Why green construction is needed to affordably increase housing supply

by Brendan Haley, Kevin Lockhart. Originally published on Policy Options
September 6, 2023

Canada needs more housing – especially affordable rental housing. This is the message from commentators such as Carolyn Whitzman and reports by the National Housing Accord and others on the housing crisis.

An often-quoted figure from a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) study suggests that Canada needs to build 5.8 million housing units to restore affordability by the end of 2030. That’s 3.5 million more units than what are currently being built now.

If the new construction is built to today’s minimum standards, each new home could become another source of greenhouse gas emissions. Homes that aren’t well-designed, insulated and air-sealed won’t protect people from extreme heat, forest fire smoke and other serious weather events associated with climate change.

Additionally, less-efficient buildings won’t be affordable, leaving owners and occupants vulnerable to rising energy and maintenance costs.

Most importantly, attempting to build inefficient buildings quickly is a dead end. New construction practices and techniques are needed and many of those changes make homes energy-efficient and climate-friendly.

Better sustainability, better productivity

Overall, requiring higher sustainability performance helps push the construction sector onto the higher productivity path that is needed to increase housing supply.

There is no evidence that making homes energy-efficient and climate-ready significantly increases costs. A thorough review found construction costs for the most efficient buildings average only three to four per cent more than building to minimum code requirements.

Early studies exploring the cost of building electrification show all-electric buildings constructed to net-zero energy-ready standards can be delivered for less than the average cost of similar code-minimum buildings. These marginal costs can be expected to fall further as high-performance construction becomes the norm.

The major problem is lagging productivity in the construction sector. If policymakers and the industry can’t fix this problem, attempting to scale up housing will result in higher construction costs, poor building performance for owners and occupants, more risk of cost overruns and project delays, as well as a boom-bust pattern that keeps workers away from careers in the trades.

Ten building techniques for net-zero buildings

Luckily, several construction practices and techniques build net-zero emission buildings while improving productivity. Here are 10 examples:

1. Pre-manufacturing building components in a factory and then transporting them to the construction site eliminates project interruptions and quality problems due to weather, while providing a comfortable and safe place for people to work. This method also ensures building components are airtight and continuously insulated for high energy-efficiency performance.

2. Integrated project management and delivery gets everyone involved in the design of construction projects and makes them take accountability for the entire building’s performance. This method uncovers ways to reduce costs and increase climate performance by working as an integrated team. For example, paying close attention to airtightness can avoid the need for more expensive and larger heating systems.

3. Designing buildings with simpler shapes makes them more energy-efficient and less prone to defects, while lowering the cost of both energy and materials.

4. Building green can attract a new generation of workers who are motivated by environmental sustainability and interested in using digital technologies.

5. Net-zero emission building codes and performance criteria for publicly financed housing can be part of a clear roadmap for the building sector to prepare supply chains to avoid future shortages and bottlenecks.

6. Building more homes in urban areas with ready access to services and amenities increases density and decreases the cost per home built, while giving people options to walk, bike and take transit. These buildings can use infrastructure already available. It also becomes possible to heat and power several buildings at once with energy-efficient district energy systems.

7. Electrified mid-rise construction eliminates natural gas distribution service costs, risks and scheduling problems. Constructing “missing middle” mid-rise buildings means using less-costly and lower-carbon wood instead of concrete or steel. These buildings also do not require energy-intensive elevators or onsite parking, which requires use of expensive and emissions-intensive concrete.

8. Sensors and smart technologies can alert construction site managers to water pipe leaks and material damage, which can increase costs and insurance premiums. After construction, these technologies optimize energy systems based on factors such as weather and the number of people in the building, providing information on how to improve future designs.

9. Building information modelling provides home designers with a low-cost, collaborative way to test construction designs, techniques and material options. Done in a virtual environment, it lowers cost and can increase energy efficiency.

10. Digital technologies also enable better tracking of materials, time and risks so construction managers can weigh costs and contingencies. This information can be used to reduce material wastage, improve safety and maximize energy efficiency. Smart contracts can track the environmental impact of building materials while reducing fraud and scheduling risks. Planning supply chains in response to demand promotes better access to sustainability-enhancing materials and services, with faster and more cost-effective delivery.

This is only a partial list, and new solutions are on the horizon.

These examples demonstrate that more green building solutions will expand housing supply. If our governments respond to the housing crisis by improving productivity as outlined above, they will achieve their goals while making new homes ready for a net-zero-emissions future. This can further prepare the construction sector for the larger task of dramatically accelerating the upgrade of existing buildings.

The policy response required to trigger these changes includes requiring higher net-zero performance building standards and an enhanced construction innovation strategy. This can be done by building on the work of the National Research Council, as well as local energy-efficiency partnerships and initiatives such as Natural Resources Canada’s codes acceleration fund.

To solve the housing crisis, policymakers need to pressure the construction industry to do things differently, which also presents an opportunity to adequately respond to the climate crisis.

This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Chinese architects have told Dezeen they are regularly working through the night while their pay plummets as the country’s property industry deals with a severe crisis.

Dezeen has spoken to more than 10 architects based in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen who reported widespread layoffs, pay cuts and wage arrears in the industry in the past year.

“You are having a good day if you leave work before 10pm,” said Shuchun Yi (not her real name), a young architect and a former employee of state-owned firm Shenzhen General Institute of Architecture Design & Research (SZAD).

“I know some of my colleagues have worked until 3:00am consecutively for three months,” she added.

Yi no longer works at SZAD but was too scared to reveal her identity when speaking with Dezeen for fear of consequences when trying to find another job.

Spiralling developer debt and stalling projects

After a long period of booming urban development, China’s property industry is in turmoil, with developers struggling under spiralling debt and construction projects grinding to a halt.

The crisis is having a major impact on architecture firms, with once-reliable clients no longer commissioning projects.

Among 13 publicly listed architecture firms in China, only one saw revenue growth in the 2022 financial year.

The other 12 all had significant revenue dips, with Shanghai HYP-ARCH Architectural Design Consultant the worst performing, its turnover falling by 60.7 per cent.

One US-based architecture firm with a Shanghai office told Dezeen they have reduced the team’s headcount from around 100 to 30 due to a lack of projects.

Another overseas firm with an office in Shanghai admitted that falling revenues have caused it to curb recruitment, meaning existing staff are having to work longer hours.

Chinese architecture firms are struggling to land new projects as the country’s real-estate boom falters. Photo by Simbaxu. Top photo by Liao Xun/Getty Images

The story of SZAD serves as a useful illustration of the issues facing architecture studios in China.

Founded in 1982, SZAD has offices across the country, including in Shenzhen, Beijing, Chongqing and Wuhan.

Known for designing supertall buildings, it employed almost 3,700 people at its peak five years ago following a strong period of growth driven by China’s real-estate boom.

As China impressed the world with its unprecedented speed of urbanisation, developers demanded faster and faster design and construction times so they could quickly move on to the next project.

In 2013, SZAD signed a long-term strategic partnership with giant Chinese developer Evergrande that led to numerous large projects.

“Architects must reject the ‘follow your passion’ narrative and see ourselves as workers”

“The majority of the projects were residential and formulated, with architects only required to do minor tweaking on each project based on the standard structure that the client supplied,” said Xue Wei, another former SZAD employee (also not his real name).

“Normally it takes between 45 days to 60 days to finish a complete project drawing, but SZAD was able to reduce that time to 25 days,” he added.

“Sometimes, SZAD was even able to deliver a partial drawing of the project in two or three days to help the client speed up the construction.”

Wei claims he and his colleagues were regularly working overnight and rarely had weekend breaks to accommodate the demand for speed.

The obsession with quickly turning around projects resulted in architecture firms fighting to land new projects for lower fees or sometimes even risk not getting paid at all.

“Sometimes the project had already been delivered but the contract was never signed,” said Wei. “It would then be very difficult to get paid.”

Chinese magazine LifeWeek has previously reported similar issues at another state-owned architecture firm based in eastern China.

Employees would have to share the risks as well, as most large Chinese architecture firms use an unusual salary structure in which the contracted salary is set at minimum wage with the majority of income paid in project-related bonuses.

That means if the firm does not get paid for the project by the client, no relevant bonus is paid to the employee architects.

Many architects agreed to such payment arrangements without concern, because there was a consensus that the real-estate market would continue to boom and that the projects would keep coming.

Source

Trouble is brewing in Indianapolis as for example, a tech giant is paring back a quarter of its office space inside the tallest building in Indiana.

In Atlanta, a private investment giant defaulted on a $212 million mortgage on a 29-story office tower.

In Blatimore, a landmark building sold for $24 million in the month of July, about $42 million less than it fetched in 2015.

The urban doom loop is creating a big issue in these areas. It is also spreading to other parts of the United States of America.

Experts are seeing a commercial real estate apocalypse that could wreck local tax revenue in the meantime.

The COVID-19 era has spread the increase of empty offices due to remote remote work. Now, many once-bustling commercial areas are slowly being deserted as workers operate from home.

Sometimes, when a major company slashes office space in mid-size cities, things change, including the threat that a downturn could become a ghost town.

Which companies are under threat?

the growing numbers of working-class people doing their work from home is leading companies like Milwaukee or Memphis are now rethinking their leases or pulling out of these deals more than before.

Landlords find it harder to attract new tenants as rates are climbing higher. Buildings also sell for less than they once used to. Business districts may dry up, with shoppers and tourists having no reasons to go there to patronize food sellers.

Some experts have describe the new threat as a “train wreck in slow motion.”