From View From The Top, 10 December 2025
What 10 Editions Reveal About This Cycle
The Market, The Momentum, and The Moment We’re In
Over the past year of writing View From the Top, I’ve seen patterns have emerged that tell a bigger story than any single edition could. It’s been a challenging year by all accounts, weighed down by uncertainty and regulation. It’s also been not just about real estate or capital flows — but about how cycles shift, how risk moves, and how people adapt.
This Final Edition pulls together some of the strongest insights of 2025 I’ve written about into one cohesive highlight briefing. It’s part market analysis, part operator’s view, and part personal reflection — because for many of us, this year wasn’t just a market transition. It was a personal one, too. And one of rethinking old models versus old patterns we’ve grown accustomed to.
When you step back from the noise, certain truths become unavoidable.
The market didn’t break suddenly this year — it melted into a different shape. It kind of feels like death by a thousand cuts and I feel the old playbook… stopped working. The spreads stopped making sense in underwriting. Capital stopped behaving predictably or stopped completely. The risk stopped being something you could price politely and spreadsheets went wrong all year long.
The themes that kept resurfacing across each edition were not cyclical noise. They pointed to something structural; these being:
- Cheap liquidity is dead.
- Execution is scarce.
- Capital wants certainty, not creativity.
- Geography matters again.
- Lifestyle is becoming an investment driver.
- And the middle of the market — always the workhorse — has been abandoned by everyone except demand.
- Cheap liquidity is dead.
- Execution is scarce.
- Capital wants certainty, not creativity.
- Geography matters again.
- Lifestyle is becoming an investment driver.
- And the middle of the market — always the workhorse — has been abandoned by everyone except demand.
This recap edition is the full picture from my View.
1. The Macro View: UK, Europe, Southern Europe — A Market in Asymmetric Transition
The UK: A High-Pressure System of Uncertainty
The UK enters 2025 with more questions than answers. Political uncertainty, rule changes, regulations, and the new budget put everything into question. What you marked in your books as value has probably changed significantly were you to need to hit the bid. Some of the key drivers of this uncertainty are:
- An election cycle that froze decisions
- A planning system that has become adversarial
- Construction inflation that eased but never normalized
- A development market trying to deliver when nothing pencils
- An election cycle that froze decisions
- A planning system that has become adversarial
- Construction inflation that eased but never normalized
- A development market trying to deliver when nothing pencils
And yes, there’s liquidity, but it’s behaving like ice — present, but difficult to move.
Deals aren’t failing because of interest rates. They’re failing because viability no longer lives in the spreadsheet. It lives in delivery, cost control, and trust. Confidence has been lost these last few years and capital is moving to where its treated best.
Northern Europe: A Cautious Freeze
Germany, the Nordics, and Benelux remain trapped in a slow-moving reset. Nothing new here; much of the same, and returns are marginal at best.
- Negative pricing
- Tightening regulation
- High labour costs
- Institutional paralysis
- Negative pricing
- Tightening regulation
- High labour costs
- Institutional paralysis
No distress. No momentum. Just a slow exhale of conservatism across all of these markets, except maybe Poland.
Southern Europe: The New Growth Corridor
Across Spain, Portugal, and parts of Italy, the story is entirely different. These are becoming highly sought after and absorptive markets. This has also been fuelled by geopolitical risk coming out of CEE.
- Rising tech ecosystems
- Younger inflows (generational wealth transfer)
- Infrastructure investment
- Global lifestyle migration
- Meaningful tax competitiveness
- Chronic housing undersupply
- Rising tech ecosystems
- Younger inflows (generational wealth transfer)
- Infrastructure investment
- Global lifestyle migration
- Meaningful tax competitiveness
- Chronic housing undersupply
This is not a second-home boom. It is a structural reallocation of people and capital toward places that offer stability, climate, and quality of life.
The difference between North and South has never been more stark.
2. Lending Is Easy. Getting Paid Back Is Hard.
This phrase showed up early in the year, and it has become the defining truth of the cycle. A wave of PE capital shifted to private lending in the last five years creating a tsunami of capital to borrowers. The race was all about origination. But a confluence of events over the same period made all that spreadsheet underwriting practically worthless.
Today banks are still cautious but they are present. Challenger banks still lending but also equally cautious and building out their work out teams and alternative lenders are still active but defensive. Family offices have capital but don’t want the mess or headache.
The real issue? Delivery risk and price discovery at new levels.
A lender can model interest rates. They can’t model incompetence or 14 consecutive rate hikes, Brexit, a war, supply chain disruptions and a slow down in the economy. Talking about where cap rates will be in five years time belongs in a University lecture room.
Most failures we’ve seen in 2025 have nothing to do with leverage. They come from:
- poorly managed contractors
- unrealistic build programmes
- loose governance
- optimistic contingencies
- bad assumptions
- inexperienced operators hiding behind glossy decks
- poorly managed contractors
- unrealistic build programmes
- loose governance
- optimistic contingencies
- bad assumptions
- inexperienced operators hiding behind glossy decks
The market has decided: Money isn’t the problem. Who’s using it is the problem and what’s next on the political scene.
3. Capital on the Move: The New Geography of Wealth & Identity
Yet on of the biggest story of 2025 wasn’t macro at all — it was behavioural.
A lot of capital is becoming lifestyle-led. Not institutional capital but the capital that funds and acts as the backbone to our economies through smaller borrowers and equity.
Family offices, second-generation inheritors, and entrepreneurs increasingly decided that if their money is going to work for 10–20 years, it might as well be deployed somewhere they want to be for 10–20 years. This is happening now. A wave of capital and talent left the UK and shifted towards Dubai. But equally, that wave ebbs and flows and is emerging full steam into other markets as well.
here’s the broader thread:
- UK ➝ Spain
- US & Germany ➝ Portugal
- Nordics ➝ Spain/Marbella
- US/LatAm ➝ Spain/Málaga/Dubai
- Middle East ➝ Southern Europe/Spain
- UK ➝ Spain
- US & Germany ➝ Portugal
- Nordics ➝ Spain/Marbella
- US/LatAm ➝ Spain/Málaga/Dubai
- Middle East ➝ Southern Europe/Spain
This isn’t yield-chasing. This is identity and lifestyle allocation. A large portion of which comes from the transition of wealth.
People are investing where they feel alive — not just where the IRR says they should.
4. The Ticket-Size Void: Why GPs Are still Talking and No One Is Answering
If there’s one structural dysfunction holding the market back, it’s this.
Most deals sit in a dead zone:
- too small for institutions
- too big for family offices
- too complex or small for private wealth
- too operational for newcomers
- too bespoke for platforms
- too small for institutions
- too big for family offices
- too complex or small for private wealth
- too operational for newcomers
- too bespoke for platforms
No one “owns” the £10m–£40m equity cheque anymore.
This is why many GPs feel like they’re pitching into silence, into the void. They’re not imagining it. It’s real.
The solution — which we explored several times this year — is not better pitching. It’s better structuring and platforms with a credible execution and delivery team and a good story:
- aggregation platforms
- repeatable JV frameworks
- operator-led pipelines
- predictable oversight
- scalable partnerships
- aggregation platforms
- repeatable JV frameworks
- operator-led pipelines
- predictable oversight
- scalable partnerships
Capital doesn’t trust one-offs. Capital trusts systems and people they can trust more than ever before. I spent 30 years developing property across 6 countries and started cap in hand with one deal, loads of leverage in an up market being fuelled by liquidity, and then another deal and another; one at a time until we had by all accounts was a big platform. It was started by deal by deal, project by project with no real business plan. That eventual platform about 10 years later was then able to raise platform vertical capital for sector investment – but it was still deal by deal. Today it’s much different. The Opportunity Funds that drove that are mostly gone.
5. Development Finance Stress & the Squeezed Middle: Where Real Demand Lives
Every cycle has a pressure valve and this one is the squeezed middle — young professionals, families, and essential workers who cannot buy and increasingly cannot afford institutionally delivered PRS. This is not just across the UK but actually everywhere – esp in Southern Europe and the UK but equally in places like the Middle East.
On the supply side:
- viability broken
- planning slow
- construction costs are sticky
- risk premiums elevated
- debt margins wide
- viability broken
- planning slow
- construction costs are sticky
- risk premiums elevated
- debt margins wide
Yet on the demand side:
- occupancy near 100%
- migration driving household formation
- renters staying longer (rentals becoming a more accepted route for living in the UK).
- price points below luxury performing strongest
- occupancy near 100%
- migration driving household formation
- renters staying longer (rentals becoming a more accepted route for living in the UK).
- price points below luxury performing strongest
This is the deepest reservoir of unmet demand in Europe.
In the UK renting has had a stigma for a very long time. Renting meant you were just out of school living with a few buddies or you were unsuccessful. Successful people owned their own homes and got on the property ladder. Today that is shifting, albiet slowly. With the median salary in the UK of ~£37k per year it’s hard to buy and it’s even harder to rent. So where do you go? Rents today for ~ 40% of the population are over 50-60% of gross take home pay. That is unsustainable.
And I think where demand is deep, value is inevitable.
6. Construction Inflation & Liquidity: The Return of Real Work
Inflation made headlines, but the real story was operational.
This was the year when theory and narratives stopped working and execution mattered again.
We returned to:
- real procurement
- supply-chain discipline
- value engineering with substance, not spin
- cash flow management
- governance
- tight programmes
- hands-on leadership
- real procurement
- supply-chain discipline
- value engineering with substance, not spin
- cash flow management
- governance
- tight programmes
- hands-on leadership
Forecasts and spreadsheets no longer saved the deal. The operator did. Those that dug into their pockets, and managed difficult budgets and contractors going bust.
This theme ran through nearly every edition: The cycle is no longer rewarding financial engineering. It’s rewarding competence today.
7. Operator Advantage: Why This Cycle Belongs to the Experienced
Across the year, this narrative strengthened: We are in an operator-led cycle.
Capital is abundant. Competent operators are scarce. And while capital moves from the UK to places further, this becomes an even greater point. You need solid operating partners on the ground that know the markets, the rules, the nuances and how it works. Every market is totally different.
The differentiators today are not:
- yield
- leverage
- location
- or even design
- yield
- leverage
- location
- or even design
They are:
- ability to execute
- ability to communicate
- ability to de-risk
- ability to finish
- ability to manage people
- ability to control cost
- ability to say no
- ability to execute
- ability to communicate
- ability to de-risk
- ability to finish
- ability to manage people
- ability to control cost
- ability to say no
You don’t need to be the cheapest capital in the room. You need to be the grown-up in the room with the experience to manage through difficulty.
8. Spain Spotlight: Málaga, Marbella, Mijas — Three Markets, Three Realities
Málaga — Europe’s rising tech corridor – the European Silicon Valley
I’ve been tracking this trend all year from the ground:
- Amazon, Vodafone, Google
- STEM job growth
- younger demographic inflow
- infrastructure expansion
- thriving cultural scene
- Amazon, Vodafone, Google
- STEM job growth
- younger demographic inflow
- infrastructure expansion
- thriving cultural scene
This market is not priced like a tech hub yet — but behaving like one. And of course add on top of this demand the generational wealth shift.
Marbella — Global wealth, low elasticity
International capital. Limited land. Lifestyle premium. A supply side that cannot expand meaningfully.
A classic luxury scarcity market. Build Villas for the Scandis and wealthy Brits and US and that’s about it.
Mijas — The middle-market pressure valve
More infrastructure. More family buyers. More affordability relative to Marbella. More spillover from Málaga. And the mega-park bringing long-term amenity uplift.
This is the squeezed middle of Southern Europe — exactly where the deepest demand sits. East of Marbella.
9. What Developers & Investors Should Do Next
Across the year, several playable strategies became clear to me:
- Think platform, not project- find a story that works and really exists
- Institutionalise oversight
- Deliver for the middle market
- Price risk honestly
- Partner with capital that understands uncertainty and the value of long term
- Prioritise jurisdictions with structural supply constraints
- Build long-term capability, not short-term headlines
- Think platform, not project- find a story that works and really exists
- Institutionalise oversight
- Deliver for the middle market
- Price risk honestly
- Partner with capital that understands uncertainty and the value of long term
- Prioritise jurisdictions with structural supply constraints
- Build long-term capability, not short-term headlines
This is not a cycle for opportunists. It’s a cycle for professionals and patient capital that want to build and aggregate without beating the J curve.
The Hard Landing Reflection: The Pain & Certainty of Transition
Markets don’t transition alone. People do too.
This year forced many founders, operators, and investors — myself included — to re-examine old assumptions. The things that once mattered to me don’t anymore and I’ve reached a point where I done with competing and trying to participate if that makes sense.
There’s a space between the identity that once worked and the one you haven’t fully grown into yet. It’s uncomfortable. Uncertain. Sometimes embarrassing. But always necessary. I’m managing through that myself. I’m no longer the competitive young Wall Street guy that went and built a large scale platform in the CEE. That was then, this is now. No, I’m hopefully wiser, more calm, less competitive and more willing to share.
But the old ways still feels comfortable. But comfort doesn’t build the future. In the next twenty years, guys like me, those in the baby boom generation will retire, transition, pass on wealth to the next generation, and have to find new meaning.
Transition isn’t punishment. It’s a clearing out. A recalibration. A reintroduction to who you are now. You need to take inventory and throw out the old stock who’s shelf buy date has expired.
And every market cycle reminds us that we either adapt… or we get left behind by those who do. So markets and people are in my option about staying flexible, and adaptation.
