Remote Work Life Podcast
At Remote Work Life, we spotlight successful location-independent entrepreneurs and established remote work professionals. Our interviews highlight their journeys and growth strategies, and their inspiring stories offer ideas for your entrepreneurial and professional ventures and reveal insights on thriving while working remotely.
Remote Work Life Podcast
RWL247 Beyond Airbnb: Smarter Stays For Work w/ Ben Davis of Saxbury
In this episode of the Remote Work Life Podcast, I’m joined by Ben Davis, Co-Founder of Saxbury, a long-time specialist in serviced apartments, aparthotels, and flexible accommodation.
Ben has spent more than two decades working across corporate housing, relocation, and property advisory, and he’s one of the clearest voices I’ve met on how the accommodation landscape is shifting for businesses.
I ask Ben why finding the right place to live and work is still far harder than it should be, even for experienced travellers. Ben breaks down the real differences between serviced apartments, aparthotels, co-living, and short-term rentals, and explains why the “just book an Airbnb” approach often falls short when someone needs reliability, safety, decent Wi-Fi, and a proper work setup.
We also talk about what companies actually look for when booking long-stay accommodation, how professionals’ needs have changed post-COVID, and why landlords and agents are slowly adapting to a workforce that moves differently. Ben also touches on the growing demand for work-ready spaces and how developers are rethinking underused buildings to meet it.
If you’ve ever struggled to book accommodation that fits the way you or your team work, this conversation will make the whole landscape much clearer.
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Hi everybody, it's Alex once again from the Remote Work Life Podcast, and today I'm joined by Ben Davis. He's the co-founder of Saxbury, a pioneering consultancy shaping the future of residential hospitality. Now, Ben has spent more than two decades across service departments, apart hotels, co-living spaces, and these are sectors that have become essential for co-located and remote professionals alike. Founders, you know, consultants seeking flexible, high-quality places to live and work around the world. In this episode, we'll talk about how the rise of remote work is reshaping corporate accommodation from what professionals look for in flexible stays to how landlords, agents, and other stakeholders are adapting to meet the evolving needs of an evolving workforce. Ben, thank you very much for joining me today. Very welcome. Thanks for the invitation. Looking forward to this. Yes, me too, me too. So, yeah, Ben, I'd like to just keep this conversation as I mentioned around accommodation, all these different types of accommodation that to be honest with you, I I don't really know that much about them. When I started, as I mentioned before, on the conversation that we had before, there are so many different sort of connotations and so many different people offering different things. I myself have had to stay in service departments. And me being the ignorant one, you know, obviously you will think about Airbnb, but there's so much, so much more to it than just that. So we're gonna be exploring that today. But first, could you just start by giving I know I gave you a bit of an introduction, but tell me a bit about yourself and how you got into this uh this area of work. So try and keep it short and sweet.
Ben Davis:I I set up Saxbury uh after being self-employed for about seven years, working as a property finder and for primarily for corporate housing companies. And that came about because I'd spent a number of years understanding uh about the demand side of temporary accommodation. So I worked for a global corporate booking agency many years ago uh in sales. So I built relationships with the key bookers of temporary accommodation. So those companies that had global mobility requirements, employees that were traveling around and needed to have those employees working out their office for extended periods, maybe periods that would be longer, longer than it would be comfortable to be in a hotel. So my job at the time was to identify who these businesses were, uh, who the decision makers, travel bookers were, and get on the phone to them and let them know that there was something more comfortable, a comfortable alternative and maybe less costly to staying in a hotel. And at the time it was very much a concept cell because this was pre-Airbnb, and we were, you know, were effectively offering uh business grade accommodation in in comfortable flats for their employees and you know, promoting that happy, comfortable employees work harder and stay longer. So it was very much a concept cell. And I spent a number of years working within that sector, uh, first as an agent and then going to work for uh an operating company, corporate housing company, and did some consulting for a while for another corporate housing company, primarily in sales, a bit of supply chain management. Realised I could see that the sector was growing rapidly, as in business take up and demand for corporate housing was strong. I could see that the corporate housing companies were looking to grow not only their client base, but also their property portfolio. And many of these companies didn't really have dedicated property acquisitions teams, so people to help expand their footprint in line with their demand for the clients. And similarly, you could see that the estate agents, the real estate sector, didn't really know what corporate housing was. They understood that maybe they could rent a whole building to uh a business, but they didn't really know that there were intermediaries out there that were leasing up buildings and then offering them as service departments to their clients for short periods. So recognizing a gap, if you like, I wanted to try and fill that knowledge gap, which is building relationship which was building relationships with uh real estate owners, investors, state agents, and then connecting them with corporate housing companies that had demand. So really interpreting what their demand was, identifying these blocks in key locations where I knew the demand would be strong, uh, and then working to present those to the operating companies and negotiated favorable terms for both parties. So I had a bit of success with that, did that for about seven years. Uh, and then um on a project, I met uh I met a chap who worked for another real estate agency. Uh, and uh over quite a long period, we we worked out a business plan to focus on building uh a real estate consultancy focused purely around service departments. And I guess at the time there wasn't really anybody doing that because the service departments and apart hotels are they come within under the hotel use class. So they've always been you know established and successful hotel brokerages, the likes of the you know, the big agents like Savals and Night Frank, et cetera, et cetera. But that nobody really had been specializing on this that seemed like an alternative or a niche, if you know it. And so I felt that there was certainly an opportunity there uh to uh to present to the world, to the investors, to the operators, that there's somebody and there's a team of people that understand this sector with uh a real, I guess, niche experience. And so we set up SnackSpree to provide that advice uh both to developers, to operators, to investors, uh everybody in that value chain uh and offer those solutions, brokerage, development advisory in that space. We've been doing that now approximately nine years, and uh yeah, still here.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:Yeah, and uh and I like I said, I I still think there's there's still on my on the side that I'm on, at least, of the side, i.e., you know, I'm I myself am a consultant, and I've I've also been in the the sort of on the corporate side. So I've also had situations where I've had to book accommodation myself, or at least somebody within the corporate headquarters, HR, or we didn't have a global mobility team, had to book that accommodation for me. And their go-to is just like uh like I said, Airbnb, let's just look at Airbnb, or something like what's the hotel chain called? Those little prem Premier In. So pr things like Premier In. So, but I've learned so much just by looking, just looking at your LinkedIn profile, to be honest with you, and also obviously looking at Saxbury website in terms of the variety of accommodation that is is out there, the kind of options that are out there.
Ben Davis:Yeah, absolutely. Like I think if you're an in employee or if you're uh PA, uh travel department or something, you you've got to find accommodation for your employee. I guess it starts with um this, you know, there's the need, so and so needs to be in a certain place for a certain period. It's about trying to find out, I guess, firstly, what what what does the employee really want? What are they gonna be comfortable with? Are there budget requirements as well? If somebody's staying for, you know, longer than three or four days or a week or more, then yes, an apartment would be ideal. It's probably it's probably going to be less expensive, it's certainly going to be more comfortable because people can cook for themselves and eat what they want when they want rather than being restricted around breakfast. And there's also you know, there's lots of other reasons why business is businesses above corporate housing or service departments. It could be it could be a lady traveling on on her own, not you know, and and wanting to be more self-sufficient rather than having to dine in the restaurant, you know, and it's it's just these things when you're a regular traveller, you you probably want to do things more on your own shift and the different types of accommodation. I mean, it's uh yeah, it must be very difficult for for businesses to work out what's what because you'll look online, you'll Google service departments in Birmingham, for example, uh, and you won't know who's an agent, you won't know who's an operator, you won't know who owns their flats, who rents them. You might not care. But actually, you what you care about is you know, are they is is is the flat real? Is it clean, safe, and legal? Uh is the operator going to be professional like a hotelier, and uh, you know, are you gonna get any uh blowback from the employee when they when they check in?
Alex Wilson-Campbell:Yeah, I think you put I mean we talked about this as well last time we spoke, but yeah, you you you do that's what I would care about, or at least if I was booking on behalf of somebody else, I'd care about the their comfort, the facilities, you know, all those different types of things. And I just did an exercise a couple, you know, couple after again after we've finished speaking, just to see, you know, if I was trying to book a an apartment in, I don't know, in centre of London, for example, I just did an exercise. I thought, let me see how easy it is for me to do that. And it it it really wasn't because you obviously again you've got Airbnb, but you've then you I as I said last time, there's like you see these different websites and you can't distinguish whether the website is an agent or is like some sort of aggregator of of of sort of apartments or apart hotels, and then you kind of go down a bit of a rabbit hole.
Ben Davis:So it's kind of like and I I couldn't see any sort of necessarily any sort of is there any regulator to sort of like I don't know that helps you with going in that direction of which ones are the you know the the the ones that uh worthwhile staying at or it or there is a company called the Association of Service Department Providers. It's been around for a long time. Um it's it's an association that uh professional service department operators can seek them out, uh join them, get accredited. So somebody will come visit their properties and you know give them a seal of approval based on you know a number of different hallmarks and factors that business travelers demand, safety, legality, all those kind of things. And then they're part of that group. But again, it's very niche and it's difficult, you know. And companies will then promote that they're registered with the ASAP, and then I guess that's a hallmark of quality. But I guess if you don't know what ASAP is, then you don't necessarily you don't know to look for it. So you know, the ASAP team, who I know really well, with some great people, they will promote this to the nth degree. But you know, I guess until um the it becomes sort of somehow enshrined in the law with respect to property use classes and you know what you what one must do to operate service accommodation, then it'll always be something that you're always just trying to, you know, eagerly, but at the same time have a huge amount of barriers to, you know, you mentioned about you know how you find property and the different sorts of property, and yeah, it's really, really difficult. And a lot of the time when you find service departments on a website other than Airbnb, other than booking.com, you might not even be able to actually reserve them for specific dates. You might just have to make an inquiry and wait till they get back to you. And that's mainly borne out of the fact that you know, if you're if you're an operator and you've got a block of 20 flats and the majority of your guests staying for 30, 60, 90 days, these people might have an option to extend. So the last thing you want to do is pull the rug from beneath them and sell dates in advance for three nights or four nights. So, you know, these short stays effectively fill voids. And so it depends on the strategy. You know, then conversely, you've got a lot of people, the operational Airbnb, they're actively targeting short stays for higher rates, leisure guests, and they do the other and they kind of sell the short stays well in advance. And if you want a long stay and corporately want to stay for a week or a month, then you know, you might have a hard job actually getting into that flat because the availability calendar's been repeated. So, you know, so that's why I guess it's it's best if you're if you're a business traveller or yeah, if you're a repeat regular apartment user, maybe not to use websites like Airbnb, maybe to use specialist travel booking companies, specialist apartment booking companies, relocation companies, because they tend to have an account manager, they'll do it for you. You tell them what you need, assessment. They say, okay, Alex, so and so needs to be in Burnham for two months within a matter of half an hour. They've sent them lists of vetted options that are all available and they all meet the budget and the requirements. And you know, companies like Silverdoor Booking Agency, they're pretty much one of the biggest global booking agencies they've got, you know, big global supply chain. Uh, and they'll they'll go and handle your needs and uh you know provide provide a good service with it as well and sort of demystify the whole process.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:That's what you want. You want you don't want to have I mean, I like I said, I spent as an exercise, I just spent like probably 30 minutes, and I still didn't get to the point where I was like, yep, that's the one. So I can only imagine that if you if you're if you've got you know a corporate team or if you're again somebody like myself, it's gonna be difficult. But I I've noticed as well. I mean, there's again, there's so many different options. We talk about up heart hotels, all these different kinds of variations. Have you uh uh Ben, have you seen the needs of professionals and businesses change over over the years? I mean, even since I I mean I've noticed it, but I I I don't necessarily know what it is, if that makes sense. But I've noticed that there's there's more it's more in your face a bit more in terms of your ability to go to a co-living place or your ability to go to a service department. Is that something that is is you notice as well? I'm well I'm sure you have.
Ben Davis:I mean, like what's in a name, I guess, like service department. What is a service department? It's an apartment being service, but what does that really mean? You know, service department, the service department of sector is a bit of a capsule for you know corporate housing, apartment hotels, and you know, in its purest form, a service department generally would be like an operating company who probably signs a lease on a building, uh, decorates it beautifully, nice furniture, uh, provides cleaning once a week, bundles in the bills, and then makes it available for periods of weeks and months to corporate guests. An apart hotel may be more relatively new here in the UK, though being actually quite popular in places like Australia uh and elsewhere in the euro and Asia for, I don't know, maybe 20, 30 years, believe it or not. And but an apartment hotel is essentially, you know, maybe 50, 100 units in a block. So more hotel kind of volume of units, each unit being kind of like a self-contained studio one bed or two bed flat, probably a bit smaller than a regular home, uh, still with that service element, housekeeping bills included, normally with a front desk. So you kind of walk through it, has that sense of security that when you walk through the door and you you might see somebody, uh, there might be a gym, it might be a cafe or something, and then you can rent these flats for periods of a night or maybe three months or four months. And so that's a more sort of I guess sort of sanitized corporate version of the service department, if you like. Right. And and led your guests will choose that because they, you know, everybody likes the idea of an Airbnb, but sometimes the reality falls short, like you know, it looks beautiful pictures, and then the reality that you're in somebody's home kind of you know doesn't work for a lot of people. Uh or you know, maybe maybe they're inexperienced travellers and they just like the this notion of security where they go in through the front door and they go upstairs and then you know they there's not a door onto the street. So apart hotels work for that reason. A lot of groups of you know, friends and leisure guests might book it over the weekend because they can, you know, they've got, you know, dare I say with the party pad or somewhere to get get ready before they go out, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're fun.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:So yeah. Are they normally do they normally have like communal spaces in the part hotels as well? Because that that's something I'm noticing a lot. People are sort of demanding more, is sort of if they're especially like you said these groups people get together, they have one of these communal spaces. Is that something that's Cameron?
Ben Davis:It's always a challenge when you're a developer because you know you're looking at you know revenue or development costs on a price per square meter. So if it's non-revenue generating space as a developer, you've got to kind of ask yourself, why is it why is it there? But you know, you you you tend to find you certainly find communal spaces within co-living developments. You know, co co-living is essentially residential rather than hospitality, but there are elements of hospitality that are creped crept into co-living and to make it a more interesting rental product, you know, co-living in its purest form is essentially you know, it's built around accommodation. It's residential accommodation for people staying, you know, certainly three months, but probably 12 months. They probably have a little, I guess nearest thing I could describe it as if you think of purpose-built modern student accommodation, but they're available to non-students. Uh maybe the design is slightly more or less student-y. Instead of having a common room, you're going to have maybe a co-working room where the residents can come down from their probably tiny flat, but come and enjoy some convenient. And these communal facilities are active to value add on the rent because you know, maybe somebody's paying an all-inclusive rental upstairs that might be proportionately slightly higher than it would be if they were renting a room in a share flat. But actually, when you've bundled in your bills and when you've added a gym, a cinema room, you don't have to take that gym membership. Yeah. It actually kind of makes sense. The communal aspects are effectively the hook for upstairs. But in an apartment space, normally the communal spaces would be, you know, maybe more minimal, again, because of development costs, and it's probably reserved to be things like co-working or maybe even a coffee shop.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:Got it. You've actually answered my next question, actually, quite quite a lot, which is good because uh obviously when you're booking, you obviously expect good Wi-Fi, but apart from that, you're gonna have a cinema. Well, I wouldn't mind a cinema room, actually, but that that'd be more in a car a co-living space, as you're saying. What other sort of default facilities should uh especially as a corporate, would you would would you sort of expect? Because I know I'd want a desk at least.
Ben Davis:Well, uh yeah, like I think let's just say most of the corporate focused service department companies generally post-COVID, post-lockdown, really, they they they had to find ways of cramming desks in the flats because actually a lot of people that were booking them were either not in an office or they were thinking, or maybe they were you know self-employed people. And I thought, but you know what, rather than booking a hotel and get a co-working space, I need to be in this town or this city for a week or a month visiting clients. I'm just gonna book a service department, but I need this to be my office as well. So a lot of these companies were making sure that they can put a desk in there. I guess you know, some were just uh I don't know, saying, Oh, well, you can work at the dining table, but actually that's not really very comfortable when you're so yeah, no a lot of the good corporate housing companies I know uh would would make sure that they have a desk, work, work, work table in there, uh work work chair, sorry. Obviously, good good strong Wi-Fi uh or the ability to upgrade that Wi-Fi to something slightly stronger for a cost. But you know what? Apart from that, there aren't really many work or specialist work provisions put into the plan. Um you know, they have a coffee machine, but you kind of expect that anyway, you know, an espresso or something. There are there is yeah, there was one company I came across that actually was very focusing their service departments very much on the worker where they would uniquely they would put a desk in there and they would put like dual screens in there, so you could just go and put it up in company in London, can't quite remember the name now. Uh and yeah, they're called Remote Lease. Uh and they kind of grow throughout London, good company. But yeah, so it's maybe if you're a tech person, you don't want to have to take all that paraphernalia with you to you.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:Yeah, exactly. But I I guess then, because you talked about your your relationship, your your uh intermediary landlords, investors, etc. Are they sort of open and adapting to this new wave of professionals? Because I can only imagine if somebody's if there's a landlord looking to rent their premises, they're thinking, I just want a tenant in there, I want a tenant, but are are they sort of open now to sort of different types of tenant? And are agents the same?
Ben Davis:Yeah, I mean, I guess it's getting there. I feel like maybe things are coming full circle now. I mean, there was there was a time where you know, when I first set up the business, you you're contacting, so generally you we I would speak to landlords that have multiple dwellings in one building, so like a whole block of ideally, you know, one-bed flats, because these would be quite popular for corporate guests. And you we would speak to these landlords and say, look, you know, put some decent furniture in there, you know, you'd specify what that's like, and then the operator would give you know maybe a five-year or a 10-year rental agreement, and the owner would think, well, that's great, because they've got a secure tenant for the next five years, can look after the building, maybe take care of light repairs, and all they have to do is put some furniture in it. Obviously, you know, after Airbnb came about, you know, every every man of his dog's doing short bets, and then for very short periods to probably a lot of the time people that hadn't really been vetted. So landlords then became very, very wary of these properties being used or misused by by the by the operator. So a lot of landlords and the stage at Asians kind of pulled back for offering these buildings. But I would say it's coming back full circle. Why? Because, well, you know, we had an interest rate shock, you know, a couple of years ago. Uh, and what that did was that made it increasingly difficult for private buy-to-let landlords to actually make any money or really to stay in the game because a lot of buy-to-let landlords, you know, they they just wanted a good tenant to pay their rent. They didn't often didn't enjoy being a landlord. Uh, they were holding it for capital growth. Um while they made some money and they weren't being taxed too much, they kept it. But then obviously the the incentives were removed, the taxes increased, the interest rates went up, and a lot of buy-to-let landlords got out of the game. So, you know, what's replacing those buy-to-left landlords is often more commercial landlords or landlords with more commercial aims. Uh, and that, in conjunction with the recent thing that's gone through Parliament, which is called Rent's Rights Bill, is making it less exciting for private individuals to buy buy buy-to-left properties and rent them to the average go. So, what we're seeing is having it coming full circle where you've got more commercial parties going into investments, buying or redeveloping blocks of 5, 10, 15, 20 flats, maybe even a whole apart hotel, and then finding corporate tenants to sign a long-term lease agreement. Uh, because obviously they're you know, their return requirements probably slightly some respects, you know, they're looking for a good income guarantee, they're not looking to deal with private tenants.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:And I I are remote, I mean, I don't, this is the remote worker podcast, I've got to ask some remote specific questions. Are remote workers digital nomads? Are they sort of becoming more into the mix of those seeking the you know those types of accommodations? Whether that be people who are, I don't know, the solopreneur or the the digital nomad or even the corporates who are seeking you know stays for their for their teams. Is that is that coming into the mix more?
Ben Davis:I mean, I guess there are like there there are so many like if if you've got like a a I don't know a pie chart of demand for like who who stays in a service department, it's just so varied. You know, that that would be maybe the the the biggest slice of that pie would would be would be business travel, and it would be business travel that is booked for or by blue chip organizations and their relocation companies. And so so in that case, that demand hasn't really changed, other than maybe the length of stay might have changed. Like uh, you know, originally businesses might relocate somebody for a long period, a senior, that they give them a flat for three, six, nine months, give them a flat for 12 months to see how the project works out and to help with the costs. And now a lot of that has kind of been reined in, you know, mainly in line with a lot of corporate sort of uh EHD and carbon, you know, trying to meet carbon neutral targets, reducing travel and all that kind of good stuff. So wanting to travel less, but still I would say the majority of the demand for service accommodation is is that sort of corporate white collar stuff. Then you you've got you've got construction workers, right? You've got people, blue-collar work. So, you know, there could be a project where they're gonna be building for the next 18 months and they've got to get a workforce into a place because you know they haven't got everybody there, they're coming in from wherever it is, Ireland or Scotland or around the country. They've got to be able to accommodate a whole bunch of brickies or construction people or structural engineers in chairflats, so that's one type, right? And that they can stay for months on end, there's leisure guests, and you mentioned about you know digital nomads, and that's a that's a whole other sector. And I think a lot of the time, I mean, I I'm not one of those, so I can't speak with confidence about it, but I'd like to think that if I could go anywhere in the world as a digital nomad or someone like, would I would I come to London? I don't know. Is this somewhere warmer, nicer, less expensive, safety? Yeah, exactly. So you you basically when you were an individual entrepreneur, solo entrepreneur, you actually mentioned it's like you know, you've got choices, haven't you? But when you work for a corporate, you you go where you're put.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:This is it. And actually last time we spoke as well, because I re I recently moved out of London to kind of get away from the from the hustle. And I I at the time I didn't really think about uh like service accommodation, short-term accommodation. All I was thinking about was actually I want to kind of get out of London. I want to sort of a bit more greenery, a bit more sort of, you know, I don't had I thought had I probably put more thought into it, it was such a stressful time, period of time movie. We were just thinking about getting somewhere to get what we probably should have done is like get sort of like a service accommodation.
Ben Davis:Because the that's the thing with relocation, like you've got you know relocation firms out there that deal with you know the needs of employees, and you know, imagine imagine you know you work for medical medical company and you have to uh and they and they and and you live in the States, but they've said look you've got this senior job in in uh in Oxford, for example, and it's a nice place, and you're thinking, okay, well, I probably won't want to buy in Oxford. Last thing you want to do is buy somewhere now before you even know what it's like to live there. So rent service department for a couple of months, two, three months gives you a chance to actually get a feel for specific areas. You might say, actually, I'm in the city, but I don't want to live there because I don't know, it's uh convenient or it's noisy or whatever, and then you get to work out where is good, and then you can finally put down routes.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:Yeah, precisely that I uh we've just sort of we signed ourselves into a nice 12 contract. Yeah. I mean, we we got lucky because we were in a nice, nice location, but it doesn't always work out that way. I had a story of uh one of my friends, he actually moved, he's probably he's moved twice now, and again he signed this long-term accommodation when what really what he should have done, you should have got something a bit more short-term, you know, with his kids and uh something. And you can get quite nice places as well. That's another thing I didn't realise. I I I just assumed in my ignorance that you know, short-term accommodation is just an apartment, apartment, apartment. When now it's kind of you know, houses, you know, you've got four or five bedroom houses as short-term accommodation, which would have been for me. I've got three kids, so there's five of us, so that would have been ideal for us again. So I've learned a valuable lesson, uh, an expensive lesson. Well he has anyway. So, what's on the horizon then for for you, Ben, and any exciting projects that you're working on? You know, anything exciting in the world of of short term accommodation that we need to be aware of?
Ben Davis:Um maybe exciting for me. So a big area for my business, if I'm starting this year from January, we we We launched a development advisory service. And what that is in its purest form is we noticed speaking to developers, investors, and landlords across the country, that a lot of commercial landlords were perhaps struggling to work out what the future held for their block, meaning commercial values or commercial yields have moved out, making things and interest rates have gone up and bill costs have gone up, making it more difficult for commercial landlords to build properties. And this development advisory syllabus helps landlords understand that they could take the building into more defensive territory. I'll give you an example. But actually that building will convert quite well into something else. And maybe the natural uh route might just say, okay, well, let's let's build, let's convert it to residential. But with no guarantee of what the exit is, because you know, imagine you take an office block and you convert it into 50, 60 very similar flats, you're holding quite a liability there to sell 50 or 60 flats. So the idea of perhaps creating something more hospitality shaped is quite appealing. Um, and the developers don't have to go through the whole affordable housing kind of question that building, they're going from commercial to commercial. They're able to build something apart hotel shape. If only they knew what an apart hotel really looked like, what were the characteristics of it, what would the layout be, what would the PL look like, you know, what's it going to cost the developer? Who are the good architects? So it's all that that knowledge gap that we seek to bridge with the development advisory service. So we offer that to commercial landlords up and down the country from Edinburgh to Brighton and everything in between, anywhere where it might be viable or sensible to operate uh to open an apartment hotel. We go through those feasibility scenarios. And then very quickly, developer or investor can work out is this viable? And if it is, we can take it to the next step, which is uh they'll then obviously go and get planning, and then we can look to identify an operating solution. So bring it to market, getting an operator in there to sign an agreement of 25 years to give them that exit, to give them that long-term guarantee, maybe introduce funding solutions. So that's something we've been working on since January with my colleague Andrew Shaw. And we've got some really interesting, exciting projects because you can imagine there are a lot of redundant assets out there that need new life breathed into them. And so that's really what we're helping these commercial landlords do, helping them understand that you know there's a whole asset class and type of use out there that they might not have considered or maybe have considered, but just don't quite know how to get there. So that's a that's a big area for us.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:It sounds like the landscape of you know those business areas is gonna change, you're gonna see a slightly different type of uh accommodation. Do you think that will spread then beyond the set you know the more business areas into sort of like I know you've got a viability is a big thing, but do you see it sort of catching on elsewhere?
Ben Davis:Well, the thing is, and uh not necessarily for corporate housing. Look, corporate corporate housing or service departments for corporates, it's led by a specific demand. Uh, and more often than not, there are it's either you know a CBD district like like London, where there are, you know, there's there are there are thousands of businesses there that will uh have a requirement for employees coming in there, big and small. And then there'll be pockets of demand across the country, like you know, a manufacturing plant, uh, an aerospace demand, a uh an industrial complex or some maybe an Amazon uh office. But other than that, a lot of the demand that will be around the country will be just, I don't know, leisure or sporadic demand. And it's often these service departments they operate from purely residential buildings, sometimes in shared blocks, sometimes private homes. You know, how viable is that long term? Because ultimately we have a housing shortage in the UK. Uh, the government's doing everything they can seemingly to solve it. You know, certainly talking a good game. And, you know, uh one thing that they're bringing in is or looking to bring in will be registration and effectively use classes for service accommodation that kind of identify what it is rather than say residential building being operated for short, that's either in breach of planning permission or with consent of local authority. So I think you know, with with regulation, I guess comes a more sort of solid industry, and with companies like the ASAP, the Association of Service Department providers doing what they can to legitimise the sector, it can only really be a good thing.
Alex Wilson-Campbell:Sounds good, it sounds exciting. Ben, it's been it's been great speaking to you, it's been insightful. I mean, I've got more questions, you know, but you answered the main one. So thank you for your time. And yeah, it's been really good to speak to you.
Ben Davis:Thank you. Thanks for inviting me.
