QUICKLOOK@ PROPERTY

A MUST READ...!

Quicklook@Property, an online book  by Charles Dixon (Exeter Office)

 "In today's information hungry, time poor world, most books are too long. Hundreds of pages, technical terms, footnotes and indexes can be great if you really seek to become an expert. Often you just want to know the basic points." This is the Quicklook principle by which the writers in this newly published series, all experts in their fields, are guided.

 The genre of the digest recognises what is important and what is not; its function is to shine a light through the surface of its subject matter and reveal its depth without getting in too deep itself. Mastery, therefore, requires a lightness of touch, precision and consummate knowledge of the material combined with the stylistic ability to marshal fact and opinion in an interesting way.

 Quicklook books are only available to purchase by downloading from the Quicklook website then reading from the computer or by transfer to an e-reading device now becoming more widely available.

 Charles Dixon's book takes a professional and, generally, a commercially orientated view of property beginning with a very basic look at what property is, and what are its public and private uses. In grounding the reader in this, it characteristically continues to make few assumptions yet at the same time gathers into its pacey narrative a plethora of interesting (and sometimes quite obscure) statistics and facts. Subsequent chapters cover the property market and business of property, where the author looks at the multitude of types of people involved in property. The book then looks at property regulation and development. The latter subject area provides an historical perspective our built environment as we know it today and discusses public and private sector involvement.

 Built property doesn't exist without people: cameos of the lives of significant people involved in property presents the human dimension, beginning with William Stern who made and lost a vast fortune in property in the 1960s/1970s. Better known, perhaps, are architects Foster and Rogers who get a mention as does one of  England's biggest and notoriously wealthy landowners Gerald Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster. Speculators, creators and inheritors, these men represent an iconic diversity of involvement in property.

 Quicklook@Property doesn't focus on any one type of property - houses, woodlands, farms, offices, shops, churches... rather the book shapes a contextual strength from the people, regulations, politics, institutions and law that affect most property types. If there is a centre of being to the 60 pages of the whole work, it is perhaps marked by the entertaining penultimate chapter entitled "Inside a Redevelopment", an imaginary, but vividly imaginable, description of a fictional development project in a fictional town. The carefully unfolded and wryly presented procession of events captures in living time the tortuous coming into being of a modest urban development project. As a culmination of the previous chapters, it articulates ultimately the highly regulated, involved and complicated business that is Property.

 For the general reader Charles Dixon's book will build on the foundations of a personal knowledge of property; for a student or someone considering a career in property, it is essential first reading; for anyone with any interest - commercial or intellectual - in property at all, the read is time well spent.

 You can download Charles Dixon's book at www.quicklookbooks.com