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🎙 The Viking Chats – From Silicon Valley to Street Smarts: Neal Bawa on Data, Development & Doing It Differently

This week on The Viking Chats, we go global - quite literally - as Neal Bawa, one of America’s most well-known (and polarising) data-driven real estate investors, joins Kristjan for a cross-Atlantic conversation packed with eyebrow-raising stats, uncomfortable truths, and big lessons for the UK property industry.

Neal isn’t your typical investor. He’s a self-proclaimed tech geek, former Silicon Valley exec, and now the founder of Grocapitus and Multifamily University - with over $1B in active real estate projects under his belt. But he doesn’t just build properties - he builds algorithms, models and machine-learning tools that tell him exactly what, where and when to invest.

And spoiler alert: he doesn’t trust anyone who invests “off gut feel.”

In this fast-paced, unfiltered and sometimes jaw-dropping chat, we cover:

• The five-year rule that underpins every single investment decision Neal makes - and why if you’re not working to a defined hold horizon, you’re already on the back foot
• Why 50% of US investors are quietly exiting the market - and what the smart 10% are doing instead
• The real impact of AI on housing and development, including how Grocapitus is using generative models to identify micro-neighbourhoods years before they boom
• What the UK gets wrong about housing policy - including why Neal sees Build to Rent as the most undervalued (and poorly executed) asset class in the UK
• A withering takedown of poor tax incentives, weak innovation, and the British obsession with owning old homes
• How international investors assess UK lettings - and why many are quietly turning their backs on outdated systems, tenant law instability and opaque regulation

But this episode isn’t all critique. Neal offers a hopeful, structured alternative for how the UK can course-correct - and how data, tech and smarter regulation could unlock not just housing supply, but long-term investor confidence.

We also get personal:

• Neal shares how growing up in India shaped his view on housing security
• The moment he realised “playing it safe” would never build legacy wealth
• Why he believes UK agents and landlords are woefully under-leveraging the power of data

This episode will challenge your thinking - whether you’re a letting agent, investor, policy maker or simply someone trying to make sense of housing in a post-COVID, AI-disrupted world.

It’s a no-fluff, high-signal conversation between two people who care deeply about raising standards in housing - and who believe the tools exist to fix the system. But only if we stop clinging to the past.

🎧 Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Because sometimes, the smartest person in the room isn’t the loudest - it’s the one with the spreadsheet.

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