Knight Franks reports ‘record year’ for building consultancy and valuation teams

Commercial property specialist Knight Frank is reporting record growth for its building consultancy and valuation teams this year after seeing a 57per cent in turnover for the former and 22per cent for the latter.

Ian Tew, who heads-up the building consultancy service, puts the growth down to a rise in demand for both professional services and project work.

The service has also given instructions for the management of some large construction projects, which has been another boost to revenues.

Key projects include the build of the £4million, 17,000sq ft. headquarter of Learning Curve Group at DurhamGate and the £12million refurbishment and extensions of the 500,000st ft. Cummins campus in Darlington.

Partner, Ian Tew said: “To say we’ve been busy would be an understatement and we’re currently recruiting to expand our team to increase our service offer. The majority of our work is repeat instructions from clients who are seeing the value in the insightful advice we can offer, which isn’t limited to the North East region, but UK wide.”

The valuations team puts their recent success down to valuing large portfolios for clients like Adderstone Group, Hanro, Jomast and Northumberland Estates and an increase in work for banks and investors.

Partner, Kevin Scully commented: “The fact that we have a full-time dedicated residential valuer is rare in the North East and this enables us to value very large mixed-use portfolios.

“We recently recruited Becky Gaughan who specialises in healthcare valuations so having Becky here means we can now value care homes, day nurseries and health facilities.

“We are of course part of a global company, so we are regularly instructed on high profile national contracts. But, having said all that, I think the main reason we are doing so well is because we work hard and provide market-leading advice, supported by a strong agency presence that our clients trust.”