In this episode of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Podcast, Will Kinnear MRICS (HEWN) joins Nadia de Klerk MRICS (Turner & Townsend) to explore the latest trends in the commercial property sector, with particular focus on trends in workplace flexibility, occupier preferences and ESG initiatives.

Will Kinnear from HEWN shares how flex space businesses can build more successfully using lessons from the last few years’ ups and downs.

In short they are sticking to your strategy and business model (and agreements you fully understand how to operate within), avoiding over-extension through unsustainable growth and looking 6x at potential new locations.

Tom Sleigh from Colliers shares a post about how pension funds turned student accommodation into a cash cow, posing the question whether the flex office sector will ever be accepted by investors like student housing is. Tom makes a great point and highlights the many parallels between the two short-term real-estate sectors.

The comment thread includes posts from industry heavyweights like David Kosky (Work.Life), Zac Goodman (TSP), Will Kinnear (HEWN) and Lisa Cations (IWG) and all seem to say a similar thing, "it’s coming".

From what I’m seeing across the industry, it is coming, but many are waiting for certain PE firms to sell their flex space portfolios, defining "officially" how much above zero dollars per sqft an activated flex space is worth to investors.

Ana Sousa (Vertical Coworking), Tina Wolder (T Form Spaces) and Will Kinnear (HEWN) join George Sell on the Urban Living Webinar Series to discuss the flex workspace industry, WeWork’s shadow, and more.

Helena Young interviewed a few industry insiders about what could be next for WeWork (and the wider coworking industry). Whilst the CRE and coworking market watches what will happen to the firms 777 leases amounting to over $13B in obligations.

Will Kinnear from HEWN notes the brand changed the perception of flex space, even as the sector watched them do deals that didn’t stack up – most notably due to being able to raise capital fairly "easily". Jacob Fisher from Runway East noted how the flex market is very unfriendly to companies who scale too quickly, and that they’ve seen clients jump over to them for more certainty.