Making mental health a priority in real estate

Real estate has a significant role to play in improving mental health.

Right across UK plc, it affects employees and employers alike. One in four people has had to leave at least one job in the last five years because of pressure and the negative impact it had on their mental health. Meanwhile poor mental health costs employers between £33bn and £42bn a year, according to the Thriving at Work report, with low productivity, absenteeism, and staff turnover all affected by employee wellbeing.

As well as affecting individuals and businesses in real estate, the built environment also has a unique and vital important role to play in promoting positive mental health. Good quality residential is an established factor, with the role of effective placemaking also increasingly recognised.

That’s why EG is working with a number of partners to promote positive mental health – in property’s own workplace and in the buildings and places this industry creates.

We’ll be adding to this page over the weeks and months ahead and producing a special edition of EG focusing on the issue. We will also be addressing mental health at our Future of Real Estate event and at the landmark This Can Happen conference, both in November. In the meantime, if you need support please visit The Mental Health Foundation, Mind, Samaritans or the NHS.

Damian Wild, editor in chief, EG

Mental health awareness: Talk, listen and be patient

In this episode of the EG Property Podcast, EG editor Samantha McClary meets three mental health experts to talk about the role of the built environment in creating places and spaces that encourage mental wellbeing and finds out why this once hushed conversation is being talked about more and more in the context of business success.

Developing your career in a sustainable way

Natasha Collins had been working at a frenetic pace when she began to experience symptoms of burnout. A call to LionHeart helped her to regain her perspective and to make the necessary adjustments to her work/life balance. Hear her discuss the highs and lows of her career in property and how, ultimately, that telephone call was transformative in helping her to adopt a more sustainable approach to work.

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Rob O’Halloran speaks out to raise awareness of mental health issues



BAA Lynton property director John O’Halloran took his own life in 2015. In this video recorded for the John O’Halloran Symposium, organised by RICS charity Lionheart, John's son Rob talks about how his father developed a “public and private personality” to conceal his depression from the outside world.