In conversation with Lisa Westerman

Asif (00:16):

Hello and welcome to another episode of the SOChat podcast with your host’s Amy Nettleton and myself Asif Choudry say hello, Amy.

Amy (00:22):

Hello Amy.

Asif (00:25):

Just back from holiday today or yesterday as well. So dedicated to the SoChat cause.

Amy (00:33):

I am.

Asif (00:33):

Today our guest is Lisa Westerman, who’s director at LWC and LWC Sales and Letting Limited and a regular to SOChat conversations. Lisa’s worked in the property and sales and marketing arena for 25 years, believe it or not. You wouldn’t tell from her looks. You look far too young, Lisa, and you’ve been in various positions including a group head of sales for great places, housing group, and many other roles as well. And Lisa, as for the last five years, run her own sales and marketing consultancy and property sales businesses that we’re going to hear about a little later in. But thanks for joining us Lisa, and it’s great to welcome you as a guest on the podcast.

Lisa (01:15):

Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me. Good to see you both.

Asif (01:19):

So we’re going to kick off with a little icebreaker. So you’ve been invited to a UK housing dinner party and you can invite three esteemed guests. So who are they, Lisa, and why?

Lisa (01:33):

I had a little think and just sort of off the top of my head kind of thing, Andy Burnham, obviously, Mayor of Greater Manchester. He’s so dedicated to the city and to Greater Manchester, I’m a Greater Manchester girl. Housing’s a basic human right, isn’t it? So his initiatives around the A Bed Every Night scheme that he runs, it’s so important. That’s providing support for homeless people and rough sleepers. So a really, really good, he’s a really interesting guy and I like him a lot. So definitely him and the new housing minister, maybe. Lucy Fraser, the fifth housing minister this year. [inaudible 00:02:21] Asif you’d like this, she’s from West Yorkshire.

Asif (02:23):

Of course she is.

Lisa (02:26):

I like her already.

Amy (02:26):

Tell you what, you just like someone based on where they live, irrespective of their talent or anything. “Oh, she’s from Yorkshire. We like her.”

Lisa (02:39):

No, I trust it her. I trust her already.

Amy (02:41):

Well there are studies, aren’t there, that say that Northerners are more trusted than anyone and I’ve got a lot of northern friends and I don’t know where that comes from if I’m honest.

Asif (02:50):

Absolutely shocking.

Lisa (02:56):

Yorkshire people are very straightforward where you are and I think I always have that sort of maybe misguided trust in Yorkshire people. So there you go. Half my family are from Yorkshire aren’t they, as you know Asif, or most of my family. So yeah, I trust her. So I’d like her to come along.

Amy (03:15):

And nice it’s a woman.

Lisa (03:17):

She’s a woman. Amazing. Amazing. So she’s bound to reduce planning delays and costs for house builders. So I’m keen to see what she’s going to change if she stays around for long enough. So let’s see, let’s see.

(03:32):

And then my final one is somebody we all know Mr. Jon Lord, MD of Metro Finance.

(03:39):

Bless him.

(03:40):

What he doesn’t know about the housing market at the moment isn’t worth knowing. So he’s a constant source of market information for us at LWC. He’s a great informal mentor as well to me, he has been over the years. I’ve worked with him for many, many years, so he’s a mate, he’s a good’un, he’s good to know. So he would be on my table, he’d cringe at that.

Asif (04:01):

Is Jon from the Yorkshire?

Lisa (04:01):

Of course he is.

Asif (04:01):

[inaudible 00:04:06] Right

Lisa (04:05):

He’s from Bolton. He works in Yorkshire. He’s actually from Bolton, which is down the road from me. So the Northerners sticking together again, isn’t it.

Amy (04:13):

I feel like I’ve just turned up at a dinner party with, “You can’t sit here because I’m not from the north.” I mean if you ask anyone in my team they would say I am from the north because anything north of Hampshire to them is north. I feel a bit left out at the minute [inaudible 00:04:33].

Lisa (04:34):

We love you Amy. You’re not left out.

Asif (04:37):

Just a reminder to our listening SOchat is inclusive. So if you are from anywhere other than the north of England, you are welcome to listen and join in as guests as well.

(04:46):

So let’s kick off. Just going to kick off with this first question I mentioned you’ve been in the sector for 25 years, so tell us about your shared ownership background, Lisa, and what LWC does.

Lisa (05:03):

Okay, I’ll just keep it quite brief, but I’ve personally been marketing and selling shared ownership properties since the ’90s, can you believe it? And at LWC we provide sales and marketing services to the housing industry, predominantly the affordable housing sector. So we help out lots of housing associations.

(05:24):

Our team, we’re a small team, there’s three of us who are permanent and we’ve got other of part-time staff as well. We’ve been delivering as a team, shared ownership programs for over 25 years. So lots and lots of experience in our little world, in our team. We do also provide full end to end services for providers from market appraisal reports to training to sales and marketing strategies and campaigns to onsite sales services. Anything basically that’s required in terms of delivering new build housing we can provide.

Amy (06:00):

Do you do it out the north?

Lisa (06:02):

Yes, yes.

Amy (06:05):

No, I know you do. I know you do.

Lisa (06:07):

Yeah, we do. We are predominantly the north, not just the northwest. We do operate in the Midlands and we have done work in the south as well. And we’ve got clients in Wales, in North Wales. So we are around, not just in the north.

Amy (06:27):

I just want to come in a bit on that, Asif, because I just think Lisa’s tenure in the sector has been legendary, I suppose. And like you say, you’ve been selling since the ’90s and Asif second question or come onto a bit more about that.

(06:42):

And obviously in your intro we know that you worked for a provider as head of Great Places. What do you prefer? Or are they both really different from a kind of consultantcy, what you deliver now really varied. Like you say one day you could be mentoring, I’ve just seen your Insta story on mentor one day. So one day you could be mentoring the next day you could be doing real back to basic stuff like sales training, then you could be doing launches and pushing the sales through and all of that. So is it very different in the landscapes or which one do you prefer? If you’ve got a preference?

Lisa (07:26):

It’s pretty much all the same, but some of the stuff that I get involved with day to day is now more back to the floor operational. I just explaining to Asif before, I don’t think twice about going doing a sales completion if I need to. We’re a small team and I’ll dip my toe in and provide whatever help we need for the wider team.

(07:45):

But in terms of that head of position, it was a fantastic opportunity. I built, basically my whole career was pretty much spent there and I loved it. But I’m a sales and marketing person through and through. So you’ll understand, you get dragged into all kinds of strategic things and as a leader of a business, you get involved in lots of things which are outside your core skills if you like.

(08:18):

I’m definitely a sales person. I much prefer doing what we do now and what we offer because there’s so much satisfaction, so variety. We’re working with tons of different clients. We do lots of markets [inaudible 00:08:33] stuff as well as the affordable stuff. We get involved in brand building, mentoring. There’s a real variety in what we do day to day and that’s what keeps me excited and that’s what keeps my interest.

Amy (08:46):

I think that’s so true, isn’t it? Because you probably lose the closeness to selling and you lose the closeness to your clients and the closeness to what’s going on on the ground. You can implement the strategy and you can be forward thinking like you always have been and influential, but it’s a case of actually what gets that heart rate going and what makes you smile on a Friday when you kind of sat at the pub after a long week and stuff and it’s, like you say, those completions and doing those bits in what actually at the beginning of your career was what brought the most joy.

Lisa (09:25):

Yeah, absolutely, and I’d say it still does. Selling homes, selling houses, seeing those move in, whether it’s obviously generally my team who are doing that day to day. But I do get involved in that. I do get those customer satisfaction surveys or emails from customers who are, it’s just literally changed a life moving into that home.

(09:45):

And most of that is shared ownership as well. We do quite a bit of market sale, but predominantly we are dealing with those customers who absolutely are thrilled at buying their first home. And how can you not be happy with that or get a buzz from that. It’s just the best feeling in the world to me.

Amy (10:03):

Absolutely. No, I get you completely. Sorry Asif, I interrupted your question.

Asif (10:06):

No, no, not at all. So in that 25 years, Lisa, you’ll only seen lots of changes. So we’ll focus on sales and marketing for the response. How has it changed how shared ownership sales and marketing changed during that time? Technology and things like that, customers. Just tell us from your experience.

Lisa (10:25):

Well there’s a lot that’s changed. Obviously more shared ownership than there ever was many, many years ago. There’s a bigger affordable housing program for starters. So it has become much more mainstream as a roots of home ownership for customers. But the customers have changed, everything’s changed.

(10:44):

In terms of customers, you’ve got a really broad range of households who access shared ownership now than what we used to see many years ago. It used to be quite marginal buyers, people who were only just able to afford to buy a home through shared ownership, fairly low incomes. That was at the very start. Now it’s dealing with young professionals on decent incomes. Lots of households have perhaps suffered a relationship breakdown and the splitting assets or moving on. We help lots of customers like that.

(11:21):

A much older demographic now accessing shared ownership for the first time. People in the sixties, even older, they’ve rented homes or they’ve sold it a larger property that’s no longer fit for purpose. They’re coming out of that and shared ownership suits them, suits them for a lot of reasons.

(11:43):

The customer base is totally different so our approach has to be a bit different. Who we attract and who we appeal to as market or marketing these homes for sale. But as Asif mentioned, marketing and tech and solutions, it is broadly changed, hasn’t it? Most people, we don’t look to newspapers or print media as much.

Amy (12:07):

Oh my god. Don’t tell Asif that it’ll like, “Geez”.

Lisa (12:11):

I was going to caveat that. Print media’s got, it’s good, it’s all good Asif, but in terms of it’s a lot digital for home owners. Now people looking to buy a home, they generally find it online. Being able to adapt to that and have the budgets to support that and how we communicate that message with our clients as well. Advising them about what sort of budgets they’re going to need to market their homes to make sure they are able to sell off plan and sell the homes ultimately.

(12:48):

The approach is massively changed over the years, but it’s all about market knowledge and having that knowledge of the market’s where you are working and know what’s going to work. You don’t have to spend crazy amounts of money to attract buyers. There’s so much demand for affordable housing that you don’t need to go bonkers on your marketing budgets necessarily.

Asif (13:07):

How would you say within, because we’re talking about the UK housing sector here, have they changed their attitude towards sales and marketing of shared ownership?

Lisa (13:19):

The clients as such. The housing associations.

Asif (13:21):

Yeah, the housing associations themselves.

Lisa (13:25):

I think the sector is definitely moving on. They are becoming much more commercially minded, but there are clients, perhaps those new entrants to the shared ownership market. They need handholding, they need to understand what is required in terms of marketing a new build, they don’t know necessarily, they don’t know what budgets they need. They don’t know what tools they need to market the home. So that’s all part of the work, that’s all part of the service that we provide our clients.

(13:54):

But on the whole, I think there’s some amazing work out there. Some of the larger housing associations and some of the southern based ones, they are literally flying, aren’t they, in terms of the campaigns that they and Aster are pretty amazing, aren’t they?

Asif (14:10):

Aster Group. What do you reckon, Amy? Where would you rate Aster in terms of the market leaders in shared ownership?

Amy (14:18):

No, I don’t think, and you’ll know, I don’t think we are. I think what, and Asif will know this more than anyone I suppose, I’m constantly pushing and what’s next, what’s next, what’s next? And I think the minute you lose that or the minute you lose your desire to be that little bit ahead or your desire to be giving a different journey or a different feeling, then you’ve got to ask yourself some questions.

(14:53):

I think the sector’s got a lot braver and a lot bolder in how we talk about it, how we sell stuff, I think. And that only in turn means that you have to constantly be upping your game but then upping your game in the right ways. I think sometimes we have to kind of consolidate and then go, “Right, okay, what’s important? What are we trying to communicate?”

(15:18):

And I think potentially we might see some different messaging coming out of the back of Thursday’s financial statement. Obviously it’s time of recording this, it’s the 14th of November, isn’t it? So it’ll be this week I think.

(15:34):

And around just the impact on people’s lives, people are struggling and actually real time struggling and I think we’ve just got to have mindful of that as well and mindful of our approach.

(15:47):

But I do agree and I agree with Lisa completely and I think as your career spanned as well, it’s interesting to see the different approaches and what’s changed. But fundamentally, not much has changed. The product’s still the same when the product, like you say, it’s opening up to different demographic, which is great. It’s what we always wanted, wasn’t it? You think when we chatted years, a decade ago, it’s what we always dreamed of and it’s doing it. It’s just to make sure that we give it the best support and press that we potentially can.

Lisa (16:20):

And obviously the national shared ownership campaigns really contributed, hasn’t it? Like exposure. And that was really fresh, wasn’t it? And it’s got to constantly be seeing what other opportunities are in the market to refresh my messages and engage with the target audience and, you’ve just got to have an interest in it, I think ultimately and be interested.

Amy (16:47):

Absolutely. What have been the key things that you and your LWC and your team have worked on with your kind of clients this year?

Lisa (17:01):

We’ve had a really good year. We feel really lucky to work with so many housing providers and we’re start starting to work with local authorities as well in terms of shared ownership and contractors who are looking to get into private work and private sales.

(17:23):

The variety’s been amazing. We’ve worked with loads of housing associations providing basic shared ownership training, even with teams that have got lots of experience, they still need that refresher. We provide lots of marketing support, literally leading on marketing strategy for clients, policies and procedures, particularly with the new affordable housing program, the new model lease we’re doing, the national sales group’s amazing at doing those workshops and everything online. There’s still that support needed from sales teams who want to have that conversation with somebody like our organization just to essentially check what they’re doing basically and make sure they’re doing it right.

(18:11):

We’ve done lots of work around that with housing associations, some of which are very new to shared ownership. So it’s all a bit of a mind field for them.

(18:22):

Obviously we’ve been busy with lots of sales completions across the northwest on half our housing association clients and we’ve been working on lots of branding and doing some different things with contractor clients and housing associations who have got private arm and to mobilize that.

(18:46):

We get involved in all sorts of things. Some of it’s quite small scale, but on the whole it’s really varied and exciting. We love it.

Amy (18:54):

And I think what’s really lovely in that and really, really important is the refreshers and the kind of going a bit back to basics with no matter how long you’ve been in the sector, how long you’ve been delivering it. Because the further away you get from it, you miss the nuances. It’s like anything, is it, the less you practice it, you know it but it probably takes a little bit longer to recall and you need to work through it.

(19:26):

I think too many people don’t go and go actually do what actually does things like the capital funding guide say, or what does that mean? What does the lease mean or what is the impact of that? And have that safe space to ask those questions that probably people would assume that you should know. And it’s fine that you might just need a bit of a refresher on it. Or sometimes I know that I think Kelly McCabe and I sat the other day and we were like, “Oh my god, we should know that.” And when you kind of go and then you have to take a minute to work it through. But I think that’s important that the sector does more of that. Teach me a little bit more or refresh me. And I love the fact that you are doing a lot more of that.

Lisa (20:14):

Yeah, we are. And we get approached to provide that regularly, but it’s not so much, I mean obviously there’s lots of information available out there and you’ve got the capital funding guide and you’ve got different workshops available, but when clients come to deliver it, actually they’re dealing with their first new model scheme. They panic. They panic. And we’re on our, I think seventh or eighth scheme now so it’s second nature to us, but having to coach our clients through that process is labour intensive. So if we can share our working knowledge of that process and our experience, I just think it helps and reassures them that actually either on the right path or the things that they need to do that they perhaps weren’t.

Amy (21:02):

I think what’s great about you doing it is that you’ve got such a kind of length of service knowledge in the sector that you’ve got reference points back to the old model, you understand why the changes have been made and I think to a little bit of a profile for your services and stuff, but I do think employing a consultant such as yourself gives that customer such the rounded knowledge of you’ve been there and you’ve done it, you understand what happens, you understand the old model, you understand why changes were made and you understand what it took to get there and potentially what’s going to happen on the back of that. And I think it’s so important because there are so many offerings out there and selling homes, especially in this sector is a definite skill and comes with a lot of knowledge that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Lisa (22:00):

Absolutely. I agree with all that.

Amy (22:04):

I suppose we record this and I’m not up north, I’m sat in Wiltshire somewhere and it’s raining and cold and grey and miserable. So we are definitely on the run up to Christmas, not long, only a few weeks. So we’re definitely seeing 2022 out.

(22:24):

What’s the outlook for you guys for next year from an LWC point of view and what do you think your clients are going to be setting up for next year as well?

Lisa (22:37):

It’s really difficult, isn’t it? Because that’s constantly changing.

Amy (22:40):

Have you not got a crystal ball, Lisa?

Lisa (22:43):

No, no. What I have got, I’m always, ever the optimist really, even when things can potentially be looking a bit troublesome ahead. But overall, I do think that shared ownerships likely to continue to perform pretty much as we’ve seen over the last few years because we’re a relatively small sector or really small part of the housing market where we’ve got so much demand, there’s not enough supply, ever. And we are definitely seeing now from our own sales, from knowledge of what’s going on in the wider market that shared ownership is now seeing customers come from the private market. So people who would ordinarily be buying on the open market are now thinking, considering shared ownership as an option for.

(23:37):

So in terms of that demand, I think that demand will continue and there’s just going to be potentially even more demand for tenures like shared ownership.

(23:50):

Obviously it’s going to present challenge over the next couple of years in terms of that mortgage affordability supply, mortgage supply and lending criteria, talks about down valuations and all sorts going on at the moment. But I think we’ve all got to take care not to talk the market down on necessarily, because for every shared ownership property we have, we’re absolutely inundated with inquiries and demand for every single home.

(24:24):

Private sales probably are going to be impacted more than our little sector, but I think there is broad agreement that house prices are going to drop. I think Lloyds have said up to about 8% next year, but I think on the positive shared ownership is absolutely designed for times like this. I just think, “This is where we come into our own.”

Amy (24:50):

I do agree and I think we just have to settle in. I suppose you get this a lot from your clients as well who are probably getting pressure from their exec teams when they’re reading the newspapers and seeing the headlines and what does this mean, what does this mean? But I think what we need to equally put out there is that yes, we are seeing increases in mortgage interest rates, which yes is very kind of out of the blue feeling, but it shouldn’t be really because we’ve been in such unprecedented low times. It’s not like we’ve just kind of shot up from 5 to 10%. We’ve been at 0 or 1% above base rate for as long as I can remember, which is just unprecedented.

(25:37):

And I think what we’ve got as a sector to do, and this is where people like you will lead the charge on it, is educating our clients around that actually a mortgage valuation around where we sit now or where it should level out between the kind of four and a half, 5% is pretty normal. And again, like you say, it’s where the shared ownership offering really does step in for that kind of affordability piece, what it was designed to do.

Lisa (26:06):

Absolutely. And I think it is just educating the market. People like Metro and TMP obviously provide lots of good information as well about what’s going on in the market. But it’s us communicating that and communicating our thoughts on that. What we get asked all the time from our clients, what’s going to happen? They’re getting provide reports to, I haven’t got a crystal ball. All I can do is provide the facts as we know them now and have the confidence. I don’t see that it will change in terms of demand. It’s going to be tricky. We’re going to have little more hoops to jump through on occasion, but we’ll do it.

Amy (26:43):

We absolutely will. And I agree with you. I think like you say, we don’t know what it holds and services like you and what you deliver for the sector and stuff is so important because we might be in a position where sales teams have never been in the position, they’re newer teams and they’ve never probably experienced a more difficult market and how to move about in that and how to create leads rather than just farm leads and all of those things. I think this is why if you need a consult using somebody like you is just invaluable because of your experience and just handholding them and navigating them through what a difficult market or a more difficult market than they used to looks and feels like.

Lisa (27:36):

Yeah, it’s been easier, hasn’t it, to now pretty much. But yeah, absolutely. We know how to equip people with the right strategies to sell homes and that’s it.

Amy (27:49):

Thank Lisa.

Lisa (27:49):

You’re welcome.

Amy (27:49):

Have you got anything else to ask Asif?

Asif (27:49):

No, I think that Lisa, you’ve just given a good insight and if people are out there struggling with shared ownership, they know who to contact now, don’t they, Lisa? Because we’re going to share all your details in the show notes. So lots of advice.

Amy (28:05):

Or if you just just want to follow Lisa because she puts some real cool pictures of her dachshunds up. So that’s always good content.

Lisa (28:14):

Yes, absolutely. Don’t want us everywhere.

Asif (28:17):

So it’s been brilliant Lisa, and I really appreciate you sharing your advice and pearls of wisdom, which you’ve accumulated over a long time in shared ownership. So definitely a focal point and people need to connect with you. So like I say, we’ll share your details in the show notes and you’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our website, sochat.co.uk. Please do leave a rating and review if you do listen and you can follow us on Twitter @SOchathour.

(28:52):

Lisa, thank you so much for your time. It’s always a pleasure and look forward to seeing your predictions for 2023 come to fruition.

Lisa (29:01):

You’re welcome. Thanks guys. It’s been great.

Amy (29:02):

Thank you.