Damian Wild is Editor of Estates Gazette – the weekly magazine that has been reporting on the UK property market since 1858. After nearly five years of firing questions at the property great and good, we turned the tables and asked him to answer ours.


If you could change one thing about the property business what would it be?


That test is about to come, and it’s as much a test for the finance business as it is for the property business. Property can be visionary, responsible and genuinely engaged with stakeholders. Sometimes, like the finance industry, it can be short- termist, cavalier and blinkered.


Favourite holiday destination?


Somewhere in South East Asia. I spent five years as a child in Singapore and worked on the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong during the handover. I love going back to the region. Last year’s trip to Borneo and Cambodia will be hard to top.


What makes you laugh?


Twitter. And the latest Viz annual every Christmas morning. Yes, still.


You look like a fit bloke: how do you keep in shape? Genetic luck.


Who’s there when you get back home?


Why journalism?


The slightly glib answer is that many years ago it dawned on me that it was easier to ask questions than answer them, but I think it was always there in the back of my mind. My dad was a journalist and that planted the seed.


What difference does Estates Gazette make to our business?


I think – I hope – it provides information that helps keep property’s wheels turning. That said, news of what’s happened is no longer enough. We have to provide the context and explain the consequences of the news. And we have to do this accessibly. Our words describe, our data informs while images, infographics, video and audio explain. Our main competitor is people’s time, and we mustn’t forget that.


Will it still be a printed magazine in five years’ time? Yes. It will be a different magazine but it will still be there in printed form, backed


up by a more intuitive tablet edition, website and perhaps other formats not even yet conceived. Continuous evolution is the way forward.


Your proudest achievement?


Putting together a really strong edition of the mag each week is still a cause of collective celebration. Making it available each week on iPad 36 hours before print lands is also an achievement I’ve been pleased to see acknowledged. Going back a little further I have stood up for journalism twice in the High Court and won. I’m not looking for a third visit.


Any property heroes?


I’m not sure I’ve ever had heroes. There are plenty of people I admire. In this industry those who survived the downturn and have genuinely learned lessons should be the next generation of heroes. They may be few in number, I fear.


There was too much of the latter in the last boom, there needs to be more of the former this time around.


It’s holiday time: are you a beachcomber or cultural explorer?


I’m not very good at lying on a beach for long, though I do like to try. Culture, colour and heat is my ideal holiday.


Two children, a glass of wine and the guilty feeling that I can’t rely on genetic luck for much longer. So to tick another box on the middle-aged male stereotype checklist, I’ve bought a bike.


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