Acquisitions Manager - Residential Development

Acquisition Manager, Residential Development

Urban Splash, Manchester

Permanent position – c£50,000 plus package

The Company

Urban Splash – one of the property industries most recognised names having won over 400 awards since their inception. They have been a beacon for place-making for the last 25 years, and have an outstanding reputation for their creative, and innovative developments and regeneration schemes.

Headquartered in Manchester, they have a national remit with plans to expand their modular-housing offering “House”. This spacious, customisable range of House products are built using MMC off-site to fit the customers’ needs, improving cost efficiency, cuts down construction time and is more environmentally friendly than traditional housebuilding methods.

The business is very well-backed and has a very ambitious growth plan on the horizon across the whole of the country.

The Role

After recently announcing a partnership with Japan’s Sekisui House (one of the largest housebuilders in the world), the funding for House’s growth plans has been secured. This will allow the company to acquire land at an ambitious rate in line with the company’s business plan.

This role will work within the existing land team and reports to the newly appointed Land Director on the acquisitions team and will work closely with the business units’ Development Managers colleagues as well as a host of external consultants including architects, master planners, planning consultants, cost consultants, surveyors and other relevant professionals.

Being in one of the most forefront teams of the business, you will be acceded a certain level of autonomy at this level to work on your own acquisitions, identifying your own opportunities, leading tenders and land bids, throughout the whole acquisition life cycle,  whilst reporting back to the senior management team with regular updates.

Some of your responsibilities will include:

• Site finding and origination of land for development
• Securing new JV partners with landowners both public and private
• Working on numerous land bids tenders with strategic partners like Homes England, local authorities and other public sector entities.
• Build a network of strong relationships with key contacts within in the industry. The onus of the contact-base is not necessarily agents, but local councils, landowners, and housing associations due to the place-making nature of the product.
• Co-ordinate and assist with the legals, sales, commercial, technical and development teams across the business to ensure all bases are covered when doing due diligence.
• Facilitate smart land acquisition, making sure all angles are covered. Urban Splash have a track-record of buying land in nearly every method possible, so a creative solution can be the difference between securing the site or losing it.
• Drive development through the front-end and ensure a smooth handover to the development team that assume responsibility for the project post-acquisition.
• Preparation and production of regular updates/reports for the Land Director and company board.
• Maintaining regular contact with landowners and partners to ensure any queries or opportunities on are acted upon as quickly as possible.
• This is a very exciting opportunity to work for a high-quality developer where you will be an integral member of the team and will have an important role to play in the success of the business.

The Candidate

Urban Splash have a policy of “talent over experience” and this is a core value of the business. This means you do not have to have extensive property experience to apply and be considered – it would certainly help though.

The ideal background to “hit the ground running” would be a Land/Acquisition Manager with proven successful record in land acquisition and experience of residential and/or mixed-use transactions in both land and the private and public sector entities.

This is due to the bid process that Urban Splash have been going through on a large portion of potential sites – Experience of partnership arrangements and tendering would be very beneficial, and a knowledge outside of the north west is a great advantage. Being able to work in a team is important, as is managing a busy workload at a fast pace.

You will need to be open-minded and OK with change – Urban Splash have a very agile working environment and they are very good at sharing their resource across the business when needed. This means there will be varied elements to the role, and you may get involved with other parts of the business on certain projects.

We are looking for a conscientious, emotionally intelligent, commercially minded professional who is able to communicate at all levels and has a real desire to find the best possible solution for both parties.

For more information please visit www.alderpoint.co.uk/urbansplash to access full job description. If you would like to discuss the role further please contact Anthony Kaye, Director on either 07919 078769 or Anthony.Kaye@alderpoint.co.uk