The instruction
A major residential property group holding a portfolio of seventy four properties in the East of England needed one answer across all of them: what condition is each property in, what would it cost to bring each up to letting standard, and where does development potential sit in the portfolio.
The brief
Portfolio decisions fail when every property is treated as a project. Seventy four detailed building surveys would have cost more than the information was worth and arrived after the decisions needed making. What the client needed was one consistent appraisal of the whole portfolio, in time to shape the decisions, with its limits stated plainly.
What we did
Every property was appraised on a common framework.
- ConditionAn indicative condition assessment for each property.
- Letting standard budgetA provisional budget for the immediate spend needed, calibrated to each property’s condition.
- Development potentialA view on where development upside sits.
- One scheduleEvery property comparable with every other, with budgets that aggregate to a portfolio figure.
A portfolio appraisal is a prioritisation tool, not seventy four building surveys, and pretending otherwise serves nobody.
The RICS guidance
The RICS guidance note Surveying assets in the built environment centres on agreeing the scope of an inspection with the client and reporting within it. Here that meant an indicative assessment on one common framework, with its limits stated, rather than seventy four full surveys.
The outcome
One document that turned seventy four separate questions into a portfolio strategy, delivered while it could still shape the decision.
