Last week V10 were delighted to have two “A” level students attend our London offices to observe and shadow the internal workings of the company.
Both students are considering a career in development and are in the process of choosing their educational paths to start such a journey. James and Sam have clear, but different visions on which bachelor’s and master’s degree courses they wish to pursue and their experience at V10 was meant to enable them to shape those choices.
Accurate Appraisals
Karl and John, V10’s main Directors, set the students a number of tasks. Each task was a building block to completing a development appraisal. However, first the students’ attended V10’s weekly land and project meeting. In the meeting the team reviewed thirteen projects with a combined potential pipeline of 1320x homes located in eight London boroughs and counties. This exercise illuminated the extensive due diligence that the V10 team undertakes on every project; detailed market research using Hometrack, reviewing technical reports and assessing abnormal issues, s106 and CIL cost and relief reviews, RP and contractor partner considerations – all this ahead of finalising V10’s ProVal appraisal – to see if the project is commercially viable and whether it can be optimised to achieve such. V10 prides itself on cherry picking projects to work on for its RP partners with the highest probability rates of success from the outset.
Building Blocks of Development
James and Sam were set the task of valuing 90+ homes in Leicestershire and set about calculating the average £’s per sqft that might be achievable of each house type. Next, they reviewed an s106 document to extract and calculate the s106 contributions. Finally, having reviewed the Design and Access Statement they were able to spot some of the site constraints and issues which ultimately V10’s pre-construction team would need to identify for costing purposes. At the end of the process V10’s ProVal appraisal was demonstrated to James and Sam where they saw the impact of the accuracy of their work in altering the projected land value.
Karl Timberlake commented;
“Upon arrival at the office James and Sam were evidently two very bright and polite students, so, John and I decided to throw them completely in at the deep end.
They showed a clear grasp of the figures and their interrelationship’s including some of the jargon such as GDV. Further, without any training they were able to identify some key development issues. A great start for two people hitherto without any experience in the industry!
Hopefully James and Sam picked upon on the V10 team’s passion to deliver more affordable homes and also the need for accuracy at the appraisal stage and integrity in one’s business dealings. I would add that we might want to adopt James and Sam as our lucky mascots as whilst they were with us we agreed terms on another deal!”
On behalf of them both, James subsequently commented:
“I really appreciate the time and effort that you both put in to helping Sam and I get a really good overview of what V10 does and a better insight into the affordable housing sector. It was particularly interesting to see how the land valuation software works and to realise how technical that process is.
I was particularly impressed by V10s values and commitment towards sustainability. I found it very interesting when you said prioritising the affordable housing sector was V10’s niche and whilst it does not offer the greatest short term returns, it has given V10 a strong reputation with regard to ethics and commitment to improving living standards for all.
I am very grateful for you putting up with my many questions, I hope we weren’t too much of a distraction, especially as you were so busy. We really appreciated how open you were with us – the experience has definitely fired up my interest in the residential housing sector.”
- The photo shows James and Sam (left and right in the foreground) attending a meeting with V10’s external consultants.
