Samuel Horti

Since moving to Toronto nine months ago, I’ve found serendipity hard to come by. I’m only here for two years, so if I’m going out to eat, or grab a coffee, or meet a friend, I’ll look up endless lists of the ten best restaurants or pubs in the area, trying to make sure no trip is wasted. I plan my journey door-to-door using local transport app My TTC, leave my flat so that I’ll arrive at the bus stop just as it pulls up, and, when I hop off again, I walk the route I’ve memorised, head down.

Google has unveiled ambitious plans to transform Toronto into a smart city, complete with delivery robots and autonomous vehicles. Samuel Horti finds out how the plans are going down with the locals.

BTR sector set to benefit from billions of pounds worth of investment Some of the world’s largest real estate investors - including Mitsui Fudosan, Pimco and the Korean Investment Corporation (KIC) - are lining up to plough billions of pounds into the UK’s burgeoning build-to-rent (BTR) sector, Property Week can reveal.

Five local authority pension funds in the Midlands clubbed together at the end of last year to invest £100m in Hearthstone’s new private rented sector (PRS) fund . The decision to join forces was prompted by plans to merge the investments of the UK’s 91 local government pension funds into eight pools, which formally launch this April. “With the onset of pooling, Nottinghamshire began looking at opportunities to co-invest with other funds that form part of the LGPS Central pool in order to shar

There’s confident and then there’s Andrew Waugh. “I think timber will replace all other materials for construction, without a doubt,” proclaims the founder and director at Shoreditch-based Waugh Thistleton Architects (WTA).

Nearly four in every 10 homes in the developed world are built – or at least commissioned – by individuals rather than housebuilders. In Austria and Australia, a whopping 80% of all new homes are self-built. Yet, in the UK, that number stands at just 7%.

As the causes of the fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington last week begin to become clearer, government bodies and the property industry are asking themselves some searching questions about how to prevent tragedies like this in future.

Communities secretary Sajid Javid’s speech at last week’s Conservative Party conference was far less scathing of developers than the one he made just one year ago. Last October, Javid told “big developers” to “release their stranglehold on supply… [and] stop sitting on land banks and delaying build-out”. But last week, Javid made no mention of land-banking. Instead he placed the blame for the “broken housing market” on the shoulders of people who oppose development, and warned that his party ma

It’s been more than a hundred years since Ruth Cadbury’s ancestors built Bournville, a model village to house the workers of their now famous chocolate factory just outside Birmingham. But the shadow housing minister is still hoping to harness their legacy to solve Britain’s housing crisis from Labour’s frontbench. “It’s part of what drives me,” she tells The House. “I suppose the Cadbury genes partly contribute to my passion for good-quality affordable housing, because it makes not just social

Tim Henman, new ambassador for property investment fund The Hideaways Club, tells Property Week about his first flat and his love of bricks and mortar.

The Government Property Unit (GPU) has selected the 300,000 sq ft Atlantic Square development in Glasgow for the first phase of its regional hub in the city as it nears the completion of its national relocation plan.

On a building site in north London, a crane whirs into action. A ‘module’ is lifted off the back of a lorry, hoisted high into the air and swung across the sky. Then, after much twisting and turning, it is guided into place by the site crew. One down, 678 to go.

Chinese property giant Country Garden has set its sights on building tens of thousands of homes in London as it looks to take advantage of the “golden opportunity” political uncertainty provides for overseas capital, Property Week can reveal.

Housing association Peabody is working up plans to develop 1m sq ft of commercial property as part of an 11,500-home regeneration scheme in south-east London and will launch a search for development and investment partners later this year.

At a time when property investment in Scotland appears to have slowed, one sector is speeding up its rate of activity: the university sector.

The Silvertown Partnership plans to build a 300,000 sq ft hub for competitive video gaming as part of the first phase of its £3.5bn regeneration project at the Royal Docks

The government will use a new £2bn housebuilding fund to step in and buy homes that developers cannot sell in a drive to speed up housing delivery and reduce construction risk, Property Week can reveal.

The Collective’s scheme at Old Oak has become the first substantial co-living development to hit the investment market. It has emerged that the 323-flat property is officially up for sale through JLL and Savills.

“It looks like a spaceship has landed in Dundee.” That’s how Nick Penny, Savills’ head of Scotland, describes the futuristic V&A Museum of Dundee, which opens next year.

A large Chinese investor is in negotiations with Barking and Dagenham council to deliver a landmark development of at least 1m sq ft of commercial space and up to 5,000 homes in the borough, Property Week can reveal.