Savills teams up with Thames Tap

The Reading office of Savills has teamed up with Thames Tap as our latest partner.

The office in Hawker House in Napier Road has grown from two teams to six in the seven years since opening and now has a team of 40 professionals and support staff operating from it.

Disciplines offered now include planning, valuations, development, new homes, lettings and occupier services, giving it a wide range of areas of expertise Thames Tap readers can benefit from.

For Savills in Reading, work continued throughout lockdown with very little use of furlough and, post lockdown, the Reading office is now populated again by all teams.

Head of the office Phil Brown said: “Even though Covid 19 has been fantastically challenging, we have been operational throughout, putting in place robust Covid-secure measures to ensure the wellbeing of staff and clients. There has not been any downing of tools at all.”

The teams, he said, are now sharing time between the office and home; time in the office being important for interaction with colleagues and personal development and mentoring.

And despite the gloom of recent months Savills views the Reading and Thames Valley property market with optimism.

Development director Ed Keeling said June and July were the strongest months ever in the company’s records for new home sales for this time of year, and the predicted fall in prices has not happened.

He said: “Coming out of lockdown, the forecasters were predicting property prices would plummet 10 per cent, nationally

“But if you step back from what the forecasters were saying, the Thames Valley is very much underpinned from the employment perspective.

“There’s lots of research, science and technology jobs so we’ve not actually seen mass redundancies kick in yet and we are three months past lockdown.”

He said new homes continue to be built and major drop off in building had also not materialised.

Mr Brown said some major long-awaited developments had begun to move forward before Covid-19 and some key sites are now either well under way or progressing.

He said: “The developers are now bringing those sites forward, there’s Huntley Wharf, Thames Quarter, Berkeley’s SSE site (in Vastern Road). Developers at a lot of big sites had started to be mobilised before Covid-19.

“There’s a lot going on and Covid-19 does not seem to be stopping Reading getting on with things.”

Mr Keeling said another factor creating local optimism is the trend for Londoners to look for alternatives to the ‘uber-high densities’ of the capital and seeking to live in quieter areas with gardens where they can reach the capital but work mostly from home.

Enquiries Savills have received for new homes and rental properties suggest the Reading and Maidenhead areas are popular.

He said: “People have started to realise they don’t need to be in the office five days a week.”

But, despite the new demand for outside space and a quieter existence, demand for flats in Reading town centre has not slowed down.

However, developers of new office space may reflect on demand before continuing their schemes.

“The Savills team in Reading are involved in many of the highest profile projects in Reading and the Thames Valley.

“Whilst our projects speak for themselves, teaming up with the Thames Tap is part of a drive to raise our profile as the leading multi-disciplinary property consultancy in the area,” said Mr Brown.

Image shows the majority of those in the Savills teams operating from the Reading office.

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