We speak to Andrea Fawell, sales and marketing director for Kebbell, about their three 2025 WhatHouse? Awards wins, and overcoming a challenging market.
Best Small Housebuilder, plus Best Luxury Development and Best Interior Design – that’s an impressive hat trick!
We won in every category we entered! I think the first thing to say is that we know of WhatHouse? Awards as the Oscars of the industry and therefore there’s an element of vanity within the industry. There is some collateral when it comes to selling, but I think amongst our peers, it’s really important.
The development we focused on was Cholbury Place in Ascot, which we’ve been building for the last three years, and finally last year we had product to show. And I would defy anyone to go there and not have an emotional reaction to how fantastic it looks. We just wanted finally to be able to unveil to the world, to the industry, to our peers, how great it is and that it’s been worth waiting for.
Awards entries need to be ready to view by the judges in August and September – it sounds like the timing was just right.
The imagery whets the appetite of the judges and what’s so great about a November ceremony and a July cut-off is that we’ve got the best months of the year to do the photography. We thank you for that! If the Awards were in February, it would be a different story. With luxury and interiors, it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Purchasers really do their homework, online and visiting sites – they are super savvy. I’m always making myself busy seeing other people’s products. It always surprises me how infrequently other developers want to come and see us. They might be coming undercover, but I’d like to think my staff would suss them out! But anybody who wants to come and see Cholbury Place, I’ll meet you there. I love showing it off. I find it interesting when I extend the invitation, I’m rarely taken up on it. We’re all busy, aren’t we, but sometimes it’s nice to see what each other is doing.
When it comes to familiar and unfamiliar faces, how did you find the 2025 Awards?
It’s bonkers, isn’t it? 1,300 people in that room and you’re never going to be able to hug everyone you’ve seen. It was nice to be chased down by the sponsors, and they went out of their way to find me. That was quite endearing and it made me realise it’s an important event for them. They’ve invested and they want to get the most out of the day.
For someone like me – I was at Linden with Philip Davies back in the 90s – it’s great to see my peers who have all come up through the ranks with different companies. It’s great fun. I particularly went to find Emily Armstrong. She’s now with Hill Group. She and I worked together when she was in agency, so it was great to find her. And then I made a beeline for the Berkeley team, looking for Alan Dearing. I looked out for ex-colleagues, and I particularly looked out for our agents, who are busy selling for us at the moment. It was nice to acknowledge our successes.
What winners were you were impressed by at WhatHouse? Awards 2025?
I think I’m always impressed by Berkeley and certainly their Sunningdale Park development, because I think they’re creating fantastic homes and they seem to have the charge to net zero 2050 well embedded in their practices.
The companies who are doing really good stuff around energy efficiency and net zero targets are the ones I was really watching. Interestingly, with some of the developers that are doing really well with net zero, it was almost who wasn’t there, and maybe they’ll be there in future years.
Some of the urban schemes are really leading the charge but if we’re not careful, we’ll be left behind. And if I come at it from a purchaser’s point of view, at what point in the next 10, 15 years will purchasers be saying, ‘well, you’re not a net zero house, I’m not buying you.’?
How’s 2026 been for Kebbell so far?
I would say the market for houses – relatively modest, middle-market houses – has really taken off. We’re quite bespoke and niche, but we sell everything from a two-bed house at £190,000 in Scarborough, to a four-bed detached in Petersfield at £950,000. Both of those sites have really taken off, with sales every week.
Where it’s trickier is with apartments. Whether it’s a modest one-bed apartment in Chiswick at £500k, or £2.5-3million in Ascot, things are much slower. Whether it’s because of the leasehold media chat, and people don’t get it, I don’t know. But there seems to be a real split between the tenures.
I think there has been pent-up demand from the last six months of 2025. People moving up market for those houses, have another child on the way, or a job move or promotion, they have to move and they are moving. Maybe the apartment movers are thinking, well, let’s see if they continue to fall this year.
And looking ahead?
It’s about selling stock. For the first time in a number of years, we have got a lot of built, finished stock. There’s been a change in focus, based on the marketing, the advertising, and what we’re doing as a company at the grassroots. Looking after that stock and selling it is a whole new set of circumstances we find ourselves in that we haven’t been in before.
We’re out in the land market because once that stock has gone this year, we’ve got new sites starting to provide us stock for ‘27 and ‘28. So I think there will be a bit of a resurgence in the land market.
Within the last couple of years, with the sad loss of some of the really high-profile, excellent-product companies like Octagon and Millgate, and with new companies like Nomad coming through, and other high-end niche developers such as ourselves, I’m really interested in where the crown is – who’s going to get that new reputation, who will deserve it? I wouldn’t say we’re in competition, but I think we’re all jostling in the same product market.
Our third generation at Kebbell, Hamish and Thomas, are now working at middle management level and it’s interesting to see a new generation come through.
Finally, putting reality aside a bit, who would be your preferred host at the WhatHouse? Awards 2026?
The one I would want is Margaret Thatcher and I’ll tell you why. If we go back to Right to Buy in the 80s and to that Loadsamoney deregulation, the ideology of homeownership and all the things that are related to that – I wonder if she would look at the state of the housing market in the UK and think, ‘Oh crumbs, I got it wrong’. Or would she go, ‘That’s fantastic, that’s exactly what I wanted to happen.’ So, although I’m a product of hers from the 80s, I’m confused really and I’m conflicted about whether it was a good or a bad thing. ‘Look what you’ve created. Is this how it was meant to be?’
