From Silicon Valley to Street Smarts: Neal Bawa on Data, Development & Doing It Differently

🎙 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• How international investors assess UK lettings - and why many are quietly turning their backs on outdated systems, tenant law instability and opaque regulation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.

Transcript

Kristjan Byfield: Hi everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Viking Chats podcast. I'm delighted to be joined today by our first US guest,…

Kristjan Byfield: Mr. Bawa. Neil, how thank you for joining us today.

Neal Bawa: Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Neal Bawa: It's actually very exciting to be on a UK-based podcast. I think this is also my first UK-based podcast.

Kristjan Byfield: 

Kristjan Byfield: There we go. So, look for those out there with all of my guests, I'd like you to in your own words give a bit of a telling of your journey to date. You can go back as far as you want. but fundamentally, obviously, really interested to see how you got into property. You and I talked about that that wasn't where you started. and kind of where you're at now and what your kind of key objectives are at the moment.  And then from there, we're going to drill down because there's some really fascinating stuff that I've read on your website and about you. So, I'm really really keen to drill down into that.

Kristjan Byfield: Before we do that, for our UK audience and…

Neal Bawa: …

Kristjan Byfield: and others listening abroad, tell us a little bit about you and your journey to where we are today.

Neal Bawa: so I'm a data science is an area of interest of mine. sort of an amateur data scientist if you will. and most people get into real estate either because, they have some family that's in real estate or they get a fix and flip or maybe they buy a rental property. for me, I got into real estate in reverse because my first real estate experience was to build an office campus from scratch for my tech and healthcare company.

Neal Bawa: and that introduced me to real estate. I mean until then I was just in Silicon Valley running a company with 100 plus employees and not really thinking about real estate in any way except for owning my own home. I live in Cal California. I call it tax. and so big fat tax salary. I'm paying 50% of my income to the IRS.  And when we built that campus, I was just shocked by how much of a difference that would make to my home income because of, the wonders of depreciation and other benefits that you get from real estate. And that sort of opened my eyes to real estate, though I have to say I didn't jump in immediately. I didn't actually buy my first rental until 2008. but it sort of opened my eyes to real estate.

Neal Bawa: I'm on record for saying something, and this is a joke, that real estate is America's best and, authorized tax scam. And that, I said that before I understood that depreciation is actually a legitimate tax benefit, so I didn't understand it.  But I think the joke sort of goes to make you understand just how stunning real estate is, especially when you look at US law for taxes in terms of mitigating taxation and building wealth. And so over time, basically my journey in real estate started from 2003.

Neal Bawa: So now we're in the 23rd year of that journey with about half of that being sort of a full-time journey with, me having investors and the other half just me growing my wealth.  Nothing.

Kristjan Byfield: So I mean really interesting…

Kristjan Byfield: because I'd say at the moment in the UK we're probably finding the opposite on tax with property particularly in residential property at the moment. The government here has been closing or getting rid of a lot of tax benefits and tax loopholes to investors. part of that has been driving a change in the demographic of landlords, trying to get landlords to move away from being individual singular people landlords and actually forming companies. So, some of the changes don't apply if you become a company. but interestingly, there's been quite a lot of increases to capital gains tax, remove it, removal of things that you can write off.

Kristjan Byfield: So, it's really interesting. but what you said with the US, that doesn't surprise me tax- wise. yeah.

Neal Bawa: Donald Trump is a real estate developer.

Neal Bawa: Most of his wealth is tied up in real estate. So, there was this bill that they passed called the big beautiful bill. You may have heard of it. And the big beautiful bill bought, expanded opportunity zones, which is a very large real estate benefit. Bought back 100% bonus depreciation, which is a very, very big deal when you're buying a building if you basically depreciate a good portion of it in year 1 instead of waiting 27 years to depreciate it. Obviously, you'd be more likely to buy it because you get massive tax benefits in year one and write off a lot of your taxes. so those kinds of things.

00:05:00

Neal Bawa: And then one day before we're doing this podcast, he basically said, "I want Fanny May and Freddy Mack to buy $200 billion in single family loans." And when Fanny May and Freddy Mack buy $200 billion in single family loans, that absolutely will cut interest rates. it'll reduce interest rates dramatically in the US for single family. So, he's always looking for ways to basically boost the real estate economy.

Neal Bawa: Obviously that benefits of him because he's got billions of dollars of assets himself…

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. Sure.

Neal Bawa: but in general I think he has a very strong belief that a strong real estate market is necessary for a strong economy. So it goes beyond his personal gain. I think he has very strong beliefs about that. So we've got at least three more years left of Trump. So we expect the real estate market to benefit from some of the stuff that he's doing or has done or is talking about now.

Kristjan Byfield: And so let's go back that I mean that was quite a fascinating first experience in property building an office campus as your first endeavor into property.

Kristjan Byfield: I'm a big believer that you probably learn that we learn generally a lot more from our mistakes than from our successes. what were some of the biggest kind of mistakes you learned on that first project?

Neal Bawa: So firstly I mean yeah it was a great experience…

Neal Bawa: because there were no investors and no bank right so first those are the two things that you're very afraid of making mistakes on so we made a huge amount of mistakes and I mean I can tell you one mistake that cost us about $800,000 right and it was such a minor mistake mistake but it was such so huge in terms of the losses. so on one sides we were building conference rooms and sort of sales offices and the other sides we were building classrooms cuz we were a tech and healthcare education company. And so as you can imagine a classroom when you're building it you look at the size of the desk. So let's say you have desks that are 5 feet wide.

Neal Bawa: And so you want to build 5T multiplied by let's say four, desks a breast. So that's five multiplied by four, that's 20. And then you want to have an aisle way probably in the middle or on the side, So for people to walk through and get to their desks. And then you want to have the walls. in my case, I did the design work and I said, "Okay, I'm going to have four tables in each row, so that's 20 ft. And then I'm going to have a three-foot aisleway and I'll leave a few inches in there. the way that the diagrams were written, I didn't understand that I had to also factor in in thickness of the walls in there.

Kristjan Byfield: Right. Yeah.

Neal Bawa: I didn't count that in. I said, "Okay, the builder's going to do that." Exactly. I'm just looking at my portion of it. And it's like, "No, you got to count the 6 in for the wall in there." So, I ended up with the room being 3 in narrower.

Kristjan Byfield: We lost the Jesus.

Neal Bawa: And so when we basically went in for, fire code submissions, we had already put in all of our studs, these metal studs that basically hold up the walls. And the fire inspector comes in and says, this aisleway is 3 in narrower." So basically now we had to rip out 250 ft of studs and move them 3 in. And that cost us $800,000 to do.

Kristjan Byfield: So, yeah, some of those lessons. obviously you talked a little bit about your journey. before we talk too much more, I'd love for the audience just to frame a little bit more about where you are now. So, can you tell us a little bit more about the real estate kind of empire that you've built and…

Neal Bawa: So I mean the value of the assets goes up and…

Kristjan Byfield: and what you look after now and the overarching kind of strategy that underpins that?

Neal Bawa: down as you buy stuff, you sell stuff and also the market has actually been trending downwards in the last three years because interest rates in the US went up tremendously. So the value of the assets went down ish in assets. I have 1,300 separate investors that have invested 300 plus million 350 million somewhere in that range for these assets and…

Neal Bawa: most of the assets are ets large apartments 300 units type of…

Kristjan Byfield: How many units does that equate to?

Kristjan Byfield: Just ballpark obviously. Yeah.

Neal Bawa: how many units.

Neal Bawa: So typically my projects are about 100 apartment 200 apartments or 300 apartments. Those are sort of the bulk of them even though I have some projects that are smaller as small as 48 units. but typically I try to buy or…

Neal Bawa: build somewhere between 100 and 300 units in a single project. Right? and that would mean that if I'm building something on the lower end it might be worth 20 25 million US and on the higher end it might be worth 100 million So we have two different divisions of our business.

00:10:00

Kristjan Byfield: And you primarily to sell or…

Kristjan Byfield: you retain and let and manage.

Neal Bawa: One builds so we basically buy a piece of land and entitle it and zone it and permit it and then basically go vertical and build it out and then fill it.

Neal Bawa: So that's one division and the other division basically buys buildings that are built in the 70s and…

Neal Bawa: 80s and then buys and refurbishes or rehabs them and increases the rents. So two completely different businesses, but they're both under the same umbrella.

Kristjan Byfield: that you're keeping the assets and…

Kristjan Byfield: and letting them out as a revenue generating portfolio primarily.

Neal Bawa: Yeah, they're usually a five-year business plan. So you're buying it and then you're improving it over the first two years and then you're letting the revenue increase for the next two years and then the fifth year is sort of the sale year. if you're building it then the first year is all zoning permitting entitlements.

Neal Bawa: The next two years are construction. The fourth year is lease up and then the fifth year is stabilization and sale.

Kristjan Byfield: So look let's start talking about some of this.

Kristjan Byfield: So you talked about your background in tech and software and your kind of passion as I think you kind of very humbly said as a kind of amateur data scientist there think you would argue…

Neal Bawa: right? Sure.

Kristjan Byfield: where you've got to now I think you've definitely moved out that amateur category but for those listening how do you leverage data and tech to identify opportunities It's

Neal Bawa: So when I started looking at real estate in So luckily by 2003 my taxes were going down because of the office buildings that I mentioned. And so by 2008 I'd gotten to the place where I had money in the bank and I wanted to spend it. Everyone else was telling me that this was the worst time to invest in real estate.

Neal Bawa: But when I was looking at it as a technologist, trying to do my research, trying to crunch numbers, to me, it appeared like it was the best time in a 100 years to buy real estate.

Kristjan Byfield: Was this pre or…

Neal Bawa: And so I would go and explain my thoughts to people and they would basically say, you're really an idiot. I mean, you're a first class idiot.

Kristjan Byfield: post everything kicking off in 2008? Right.

Neal Bawa: 2008 is when everything was kicking off. So, the news was all bad about real estate. And here's me basically saying, "Look, this is a great time to buy real estate." And everybody else saying, "This is the worst time ever to buy real estate. Everything is crashing." And I'm like, "No, you don't realize that the values are basically going to crash to the point where you'll be able to buy a home for onethird of a replacement cost or 1/5if of a replacement cost." And nobody was really listening to me at that point in time.

Neal Bawa: So, I became obsessed with the idea of finding minded people that wanted to use data to sort of make their decisions rather than all the bad news that was on TV. and so I opened a meetup.com, the basically a way for people to get together. Luckily, my business had large conference rooms and classrooms. So, we basically used those and we established a meetup around sort of the data science of real estate.

Neal Bawa: what are the sort of things that people look for in real estate in data science what should we be measuring and how much should we be measuring and once we measure it what's a good range what's a bad range things like that right so we started getting together with some other people luckily I'm in Silicon Valley I mean…

Neal Bawa: if you throw a rock you're going to hit a technologist it's going to bounce off and hit another technologist right there's lots of geeks right there's lots of people that like numbers and…

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah, you're not short.

Kristjan Byfield: You're not short of people with technical

Neal Bawa: and so it's a great place to be in if you're to look at real estate almost as a technology and try to apply data to it.

Neal Bawa: So what we did was we started looking at what are the things that swing real estate profit the most right and this is universal it would apply just as much in the UK as it does in the US and what we found was that when you take large amounts of data and we were gathering tons of data mining it from different websites like Bureau of Labor Statistics and Zillow and Trullia and Redfin and places like that that you can gather this data from. What we found was it was basically income growth, home price growth,…

Neal Bawa: and crime reduction. These were sort of the big five. And you might say, there's obviously things that you're missing from there, quality of schools is obviously a big deal. And what I would say is not so much because if you factor in these five Yeah.

Kristjan Byfield: I like those things drive the quality of schools,…

Kristjan Byfield: right? And a neighborhood improves, the values increase,…

Neal Bawa: Exactly. the values go up,…

Kristjan Byfield: money goes into the schools,…

Neal Bawa: right? Exactly. Right.

Kristjan Byfield: you get wealthier people's kids going to the Yeah.

Neal Bawa: So it's sort of a recursive effect. But the bottom line what I found was these five were actually bigger than the value of schools…

Neal Bawa: because I was ending up with the same set of cities whether I had these five or if I added in schools I would just still end up with the same cities. So what I did was I said let me focus on the big five because these big five are basically telling me these are the big five that are in swinging real estate profits the most. So once again job growth.

Kristjan Byfield: Because you build some bots that went out and…

00:15:00

Kristjan Byfield: scraped these sites or did you recruit data analysts or did you  integrate with their data. I mean, do they have open data sources? A lot of those

Neal Bawa: So most of the time I hired a Ukrainian hacker and he would write software scripts in a language called Pearl. These days we use something called Python but back then we use Pearl and they would basically scrape data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. there's job websites in the US.

Neal Bawa: So what we were trying to learn is What makes home prices go up in a city faster than any other city? So my question is, if Christian and I are talking and Christian saying, Manchester is the best in the UK for real estate investor investment, I'm saying, "No, no, no. It can't be Manchester. It's got to be Leeds, right?" and what is the basis on which we're arguing? Is Manchester better than Leeds? Why do home prices go up better faster in Leeds than they do in Manchester? the question is, we were trying to basically try find data and…

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Neal Bawa: in home prices. Let's correlate this to increase in rents. What correlates the most? Right. So when you're trying to do a statistical correlation, you're trying to get as close to the number one. a correlation of one is perfect Correlation of.99 is close enough. So what we found is the rents were most sensitive to jobs.

Neal Bawa: So if an area, had job growth, it would immediately see rent growth. Home prices were very very tied to population growth. So as more people moved in, the population would go up. and then incomes obviously would,…

Kristjan Byfield: I don't think he g  Yeah.

Neal Bawa: it was tied to incomes. and all of this may seem fairly common like anybody listening would say, it's just common sense. more people come in, right? But the question is not that this is common sense because if it was then everybody would be successful at real estate but millions of people lose money in real estate. It's about what is the point at which growth in prices goes from this to that it becomes a hockey puck. What is that point?

Neal Bawa: So in the US we found that the population growth that is required to go from slow home price growth to fast home price growth is about 0.9 to 1.1% a year For income growth it's about two 7% minimum income growth and then you start supporting that hockey puck growth growth. For job growth it's about 8% in job growth on an annualized basis.  So what we were trying to find was the point at which you go from slow to hockey puck growth right and that number those numbers obviously change every year and we publish them every year on a website called multifamilyu.com and that's what people have been using.

Neal Bawa: So if you go to a website called it does…

Kristjan Byfield: acquisition, right?

Kristjan Byfield: It's also data to tell you when to get out.

Neal Bawa: because at some point what you start seeing is that growth is slowing in a market right so that market's become very expensive so less people are moving in that market's become so expensive that less people can afford to buy so everything basically starts to slow down so of course with data you don't just track when you want to go get into a city you also want to track Okay, when is everything slowing down and it's time to exit, right? And it doesn't always match up with your exit date because you might still be in the middle of construction when that happens. So, it's less of a perfect science. So, we primarily focus on when is it time to get into cities and should we be getting into big cities,…

Neal Bawa: medium cities, small cities, what makes the most amount of sense? Those are all the things that we are trying to figure out. So, it's not as simple as there should be population growth in any city that you're investing in.

Neal Bawa: It should be how much population growth and that should be compared to all of the other cities. for example, the UK is a much slower growing economy in terms of population than the US is. but the principle still applies.

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. …

Neal Bawa: You're comparing, to every other major city in the UK and trying to rank them and say, London's this portion of London the population growth is the This is where we should be building, right? Or this is where we should be buying.

Kristjan Byfield: a message I kind of got that came across looking to keep your website is that, this trust in data and technology, obviously being a technologist yourself, has kind of grown to the point where fundamentally it seems like data combined with AI and some other solutions you've got are kind of your main drivers to your decision. you kind of fundamentally I mean obviously I'm sure there's a little bit of questioning with the data particularly depending on the cost of the asset but it came across on the website that really data and technology seems to be kind of 90% of what determines that identifies and…

00:20:00

Kristjan Byfield: determines whether an investment is right.

Neal Bawa: I wouldn't say so I think that no I would disagree with that.

Neal Bawa: I would simply say data often tells us…

Kristjan Byfield: Okay. Yeah.

Neal Bawa: which cities to focus on. So we basically sort of eliminated certain vertical. So it's telling us right now multif family is good or industrial is good or hotels are good or retail is good. So now we start focusing on that vertical right because we've done more than multif family. We've done many other asset classes and then it's like okay what cities and what states to focus on. Now we're there now we're looking at those.

Neal Bawa: But beyond that when we look at an individual deal level a piece of land or a building that's already built that we're buying I think that there's only so far that data can take you.

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. Yeah.

Neal Bawa: Experience is very key.

Neal Bawa: So I think that data focuses you but I think in the end there's that the human element is still extraordinarily strong and maybe five or 10 years from now with the use of AI.

Neal Bawa: I mean our use of AI has become obsessive in the last year we may actually get to the point that you're talking about but I don't get the sense that we're there yet.

Kristjan Byfield: And I think so I think what's really interesting…

Kristjan Byfield: what you talked about is a obviously geographical location. it's where those metrics hit your algorithm or whatever you want to call it. and then like you said you will build depending on if it's commercial or multiome or apartments whatever the data says. I think what's really interesting there when I look at the UK market you will find that the vast majority of property developers are quite geographically centered like they will be a London developer or they will be a Midlands developer or a north developer.

Kristjan Byfield: There aren't many apart from a handful of really big boys who are kind of look at the whole market and then also over here they tend to be specialist you have commercial residential developers, you have ones that build apartment blocks, one that build small houses and again they tend to kind of stay in their wheelhouse.  What's really interesting talking to you is you seem to take this overarching view that fundamentally real estate's real estate. what it's classed as is fundamentally irrelevant because you'll bring in the experts to deliver the technical build that meets the regulations and compliance and whatever relevant to that sector.

Kristjan Byfield: But you will go, whatever Boston multif family housing is where the next big boom's going in and that's where you'll direct your attention. But then the next one might be warehousing in Michigan or…

Kristjan Byfield: something. I don't know, whatever. but it sounds like to you it's the location and the classification of what you're building is relatively immaterial. It is just about  that is and what

Neal Bawa: rel relatively yes…

Neal Bawa: but keep in mind so I think the word that you used Christian that is correct is relatively because it takes time to gain competency for example you understanding how to build or manage warehouses is fundamentally different from something like student housing or senior housing or things like that. So I think there are many things that we simply haven't done even though we provide data on it on our website saying this is a very good thing to do industrial in the last four years we've been talking about it but we only did one industrial project because we simply didn't have the competency.

Neal Bawa: So the data might say industrial is a better class than multif family right now. But if you don't have the connections, the competency, the skill to analyze, then you don't get too much into it. I regret not getting into industrial four, five, six years ago because I was publishing data about industrial being a better asset class. Part of it was because of AI, So what's happening is new AI data centers all of them are being built in warehouses.  So the industrial asset class has seen, higher occupancy, higher rents, lower cap rates. So, all good things that are driving up the value of industrial real estate. And we were talking about it, but we didn't get into it because we didn't have the competency. So, I think the word relatively is key because you've got to have the competency to manage that asset class. You can't just say data says today industrial is better than multif family and all of a sudden I'm an industrial guy. you're not because you don't have the skill to understand that market.

00:25:00

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. But that…

Kristjan Byfield: but surely that's where you can bring in expertise, I mean that's kind of what agents consultants are there for. And again like we said you build good buildings…

Neal Bawa: or partners.

Neal Bawa: In my case, I've partnered with people that have been doing industrial for a long time. they build industrial for a living, and I'm like, "Okay, I'd like to work with you and learn from you." Exactly.

Kristjan Byfield: but I can help you identify better places to build them. That's so Yeah.

Neal Bawa: the other way around where I use my data to say, right now northern Utah is a great place to build industrial and then I look for partners that are in northern Utah that build industrial, So, what I'm doing essentially is I'm not looking for a partner that lives in Tennessee. I want a partner that lives in northern Utah and builds industrial. I want an introduction to those people. Exactly.

Kristjan Byfield: Is they all that sort of stuff and permits and Yeah. So,…

Neal Bawa: I mean, so the data is helping me find the right partner in the right place.

Kristjan Byfield: because we're getting to the end of our time having a chat together. so for a UK landlord who's listening to this, what are your kind of key bits of advice when it comes to applying data to their kind of sourcing or…

Kristjan Byfield: decision process?

Neal Bawa: The first thing I'd like to say,…

Neal Bawa: and this might make me unpopular with your landlords, is that I think that UK landlords need to be careful. look when I compare the US landscape to the UK landscap I urge that UK land landlords should not make the assumption that the next 10 years of your real estate market are the last 10 or…

Neal Bawa: 15 years.

Neal Bawa: Obviously enormous increases in home prices and also some fluctuations, some downward movements as well, but in general,…

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. I mean there's little wage growth…

Neal Bawa: it's fair to say significant upward movements, especially London Metro, I mean, the others have not been as impressive, but there's been, huge increases in prices. And I think in some ways it's possible that landlords are thinking that that may repeat or continue. And I think that when I look at the demographics of the UK and the challenges that the country is facing, they're significantly more challenges than my country.

Neal Bawa: it's wage growth drives everything right…

Kristjan Byfield: which is the biggest problem here because wages Yeah.  Yeah.

Neal Bawa: because if you don't have wage growth people will leave right and that there's people leaving the UK so from my perspective what I would say is the data points me and I'm not by no means an expert on the UK I just study it because I'm Indian and there's a strong connection to England and when I look at it I go here's what I say boy I'm glad I'm not a landlord in the UK and I think UK landlords need to use data to fully understand where there's population growth, where there's job growth and also the quality of that job growth. Sometimes people are very basic in saying,…

Neal Bawa: this area is growing in jobs by 1%. But yeah, but is that a warehouse job or is it a technology job?

Kristjan Byfield: Exactly. If you're bring Exactly.

Neal Bawa: One tech job is equal equivalent to five warehouse jobs, right?

Neal Bawa: So I think that it's very important that people understand the quality of jobs when they make bets.

Kristjan Byfield: Exactly. And…

Neal Bawa: Also, I think that they need to understand that the next 10 years of landlording may not be as rewarding as the last 10 years and they need to be careful about it. That's what I see. But again, not an expert

Kristjan Byfield: then for agents kind of partnering with entities like yourself, with individuals like yourself, what kind of things are you really looking for? what do you find are kind of the predetermining factors of who's a good agency partner? Whether you're looking to sell off a development or…

Kristjan Byfield: have it let and manage for the next few years, what are the kind of precursors that kind of make or break an agent's bid to work with you? Yeah.

Neal Bawa: in the US this is very institutionalized there's a company that everyone in our trade knows 100% branding called co-star so I can just simply go into co-star and…

Neal Bawa: I can say okay I'm looking to sell my building in Atlanta 250 units I can click on co-star I can click on

Neal Bawa: particular tab and I can basically just say give me a list of everybody that's sold a building here in the last year and…

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.

Neal Bawa: then I just sort it by the guy or the agent that has sold the most over the last year and I give the business to them because they've got the biggest database they've got the biggest buyers they've got the biggest check writers and I want people to fight over my building and so from my perspect I mean that and co-stars universal I think what I mentioned here is something that almost everybody does so you basically give the agent with the biggest network and…

Neal Bawa: the biggest track record. And this information is very easily available for anyone that has a Star subscription.

Kristjan Byfield: Yeah, the interesting in the UK I mean our marketplace is completely the opposite.

00:30:00

Kristjan Byfield: It's in fact the opposite to most industries even in the UK where typically it's 20% independent but the UK real estate market is completely the 80% independent 20% corporate. So it's a huge dissemination and that kind of data because the marketplace is a lot smaller you find it quite hard to find accurate data on the genuine performance of agents. There's a lot of claims put out there but in terms of data that is really transparent and…

Kristjan Byfield: verifiable to an open market investor quite difficult to pick.

Neal Bawa: What…

Neal Bawa: what I would say sounds like there are technology opportunities there for tech people to basically build more software. And I hear that especially in London there's a lot of prop tech or property technology startups that are you follow the US model and aggregate the data together and make it available to investors and to anybody looking to make a decision. So I feels like the market there will mature as more software comes in.

Kristjan Byfield: It's getting there and it's getting better. And obviously, the thing we have to remember the UK is very influential globally,…

Kristjan Byfield: but we are fundamentally an incredibly small country with not that many assets.

Neal Bawa: Yeah. Sounds good.

Kristjan Byfield: So comparing it to a marketplace like the US, which is just vast. yeah, it's interesting. O'Neal, that's been a fascinating chat. I think we've kind of run out of our allotted time for today, but it's been an absolute pleasure having you great to have my first international person on the call. and yeah, this has been great and I'd love to maybe reach out to you in kind of six and 12 months time and kind of check in and see where that journey's gone.

Neal Bawa: Thanks for having me on the podcast. For those that want to learn more about our data methodologies, check out multifamilyu.com/ That's multif family followed by the letteru.com/club. We store all of our data there.

Neal Bawa: We have no subscriptions, no upsells. it would be lovely if someone in the UK was to basically take what we do and apply it to the UK market and let me know about it. That would be, a fabulous thing for me to know about.

Meeting ended after 00:32:49 👋

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