We recently welcomed Ed Crockett as our New Avenue Living Fund Manager, bringing with him over 20 years’ experience across UK real estate capital markets. Ed will play a key role in the fund’s success and in the delivery of homes that make a real difference for our communities.
We caught up with him to learn more about his background, what attracted him to the role, and his ambitions for his future working with Thriving Investments.
Can you tell us a bit about your background, what led you to real estate and, in particular, residential?
I grew up in a small farming community in Mid-Wales, the youngest of five kids. My dad was, as well as a Maths and CDT teacher, the ‘careers adviser’ at our local school. When he asked what I wanted to do in the future, I said: “I want to be outdoors as much as possible, probably doing something involving maths and problem solving”. He said “ok - surveyor”. Whilst he expected me to go and stand by the side of the road with a Theodolite (and I think he still does), he opened the door to this incredible industry filled with wonderful people.
I don’t know whether it’s a function of being the youngest of five children, but all my life I have put a great emphasis on fairness. As I grew older, the disparity in housing choices and outcomes across the UK seemed to me to be not only the biggest inequality facing our society, but a challenge on which I could use my experience and knowledge to try, in my small way, to help resolve.
What stood out most to you about Thriving Investments and made you want to join?
I firmly believe that Institutional Capital (Pension Funds) can be used to create amazing communities providing high quality, well managed, affordable homes for long-term rent and delivering a fair, risk-adjusted return to those investors. If we can do this at scale, we can create a better, fairer housing market for everyone. I feel that those values and ambitions are shared by Thriving Investments, and so I jumped at the chance to join the team.
What are you most excited about in your new role as Fund Director at New Avenue Living?
I am most looking forward to working with investors who buy into the principles of long-term community investment to grow the New Avenue Living fund series. I am also excited to create more great places to live for those who provide a vital role in our local economies; those who currently must take the worst of what the Private Rented Sector has to offer.
The New Avenue Living funds play a key role in delivering affordable homes for essential workers – a growing topic in the UK’s housing crisis. Where do you see the biggest opportunities and threats in this part of the market?
To tackle the housing crisis, we must build more homes – of all tenures – and inflation is the challenge to that, with obvious implications for affordability. The huge opportunity that we have is a growing, knowledgeable investor base that has a better understanding of the risk profile of scale residential projects and the nuances of investment into affordable housing projects. When well-managed, these are lower risk than often considered and this will lead to increasing investment, which leads to more homes and more choice for struggling households.
New Avenue Living has seen strong success in Scotland. What has been the key learnings, and how will this inform the next phase of growth in both Scotland?
Focus on what you do well and stick to it. The Fund in Scotland has been highly successful in delivering affordable homes into the most expensive markets, where lower-earning households are really struggling. We have a deep pipeline that will allow us to continue to do that, but we are also looking at how we can deliver in more regional markets where there simply are not enough homes for people to access.
What do the next 12-18 months hold?
My key priority over the next 12-18 months is to launch the next New Avenue Living Fund in Scotland and launch an equivalent product across England and potentially Wales. Through prioritising this, we can scale delivery of high-quality, affordable homes for essential workers in more communities, while providing a resilient, long-term return profile for investors.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I’m hugely excited to join the team at Thriving Investments. We’ve got a lot to do but we have all the ingredients for success and the rewards, for our Investors, our Residents and the Communities we curate, will be huge.