PrimeResi Interview: Priya Rawal, the Founder of The LPF
The Luxury Property Forum founder Priya Rawal was interviewed by PrimeResi Journal where she discusses the principals of networking, the story behind her business success, and shares sage advice for prime resi professionals.
Construction lawyer Priya Rawal created the Luxury Property Forum in 2019, as a networking platform for the UK’s prime resi industry. Despite interference from the Covid-19 pandemic, the venture swiftly became a staple of the sector, quietly bringing together specialists and leaders from across the development, design, sales and marketing arenas.
The LPF has grown significantly over the last seven years, including a recent expansion into the USA. Here, Rawal shares insights and reflections on how the business has evolved, and how the wider prime resi sector and even concepts of luxury have been reshaped…
What inspired you to launch the LPF, and how has it evolved to meet the changing needs of the prime real estate sector?
I launched The Luxury Property Forum (The LPF) because, as a construction lawyer working on complex super prime and major developments, I kept seeing the same pattern. When teams shared information early and worked well together, projects ran more smoothly. The programme stayed steadier, design intent held, risks surfaced sooner, and clients felt properly looked after.
Through that work, I also saw that in prime residential too many brilliant people were operating in silos. Developers did not always appreciate contractor constraints. Key design consultants were sometimes brought in too late to shape the decisions that matter. Advisors arrived after the big calls had been made. That fragmentation costs time and money, and it can dilute the end result.
I wanted a place where the full project team could sit together with purpose and without ego. Developers, architects, designers, contractors, project managers, engineers, investors, family offices, advisors, and specialist suppliers. I also wanted a platform where I could build relationships as a construction lawyer within the luxury property space. It did not exist, so I built The Luxury Property Forum and ran it alongside my legal career for five years because I cared deeply about both.
During the pandemic, shortly after having my first daughter, we moved swiftly online. Our first webinar on COVID’s impact on luxury property drew more than 350 viewers. That response told me the sector wanted clarity, shared insight, and support, not just networking.
Since then, we have grown to well over 200 members and strengthened the format. The rooms are practitioner led and focused on what matters in the industry right now, whether that is AI, sustainability, or shifting buyer expectations. We also make intentional introductions, so the right people can move from conversation into delivery.
You trained and practised as a lawyer before founding the LPF. How has that legal grounding shaped the way you negotiate, build partnerships, and navigate the complexities of prime resi real estate?
Honestly, it has shaped almost everything, but probably not in the way people assume. For me, being a strong lawyer is not about being super adversarial. It is about being commercial, staying calm, and getting to a clear outcome.
As a construction lawyer, you are constantly balancing different stakeholders. You act for your client, but you also know a project only succeeds if the whole team can work together, surface issues early, and keep moving. Prime residential is the same. Most problems do not come from bad intent. They come from misalignment, unclear roles, and decisions made too late, often when time and budgets are already tight.
Law also trains you to cut through the noise. It makes you ask what is actually material, and what is missing. A planning condition, a regulatory change, a contractual gap, or a scope ambiguity can have real operational and reputational consequences later, especially at the super prime end where clients expect a seamless experience.
That mindset shapes how I build partnerships and how we have built this community. I look for members with a strong reputation built on merit. People who follow through, not just people who are charming in the room. And when we connect members, it needs to be for a clear reason. It cannot just be a sales introduction. It has to be something that makes sense for both sides and can stand up over time.
In an era of hyper-segmented networks, what does “community” mean for prime resi professionals today, and how do you measure its value?
Where it lands for me is that community has to be intentional. It is the right people in the room, for the right reasons. When that is true, the conversation is grounded in real experience and what is actually happening on live projects.
Culture matters. The room, whether it be virtual or in person, needs to feel warm and grounded. People need to be excellent at their work and genuinely a pleasure to deal with. In super prime, timelines are tight and the margin for error is small. If people cannot work well together, the project suffers. Also, in terms of building a community, life is too short to be surrounded by people you cannot bear to work with.
A community is only as good as the people in it and their generosity and trust in each other. There has to be value in momentum and real results. Introductions are framed properly so people can move quickly and avoid wasted cycles. Two of my favourite examples this year were seeing an entire project team come together through introductions for a huge mansion on the Crown Estate, and introducing an interior designer to a major developer for a high profile site.
LPF events are a staple for the industry. How important is in person networking for building relationships, deal making, and sharing insights, compared with online or virtual connections?
In person is still where confidence gets built fastest. You can read people properly. You can hear how they think, how they respond under pressure, and whether their judgement is sound. When you speak to as many people as we do, you develop a feel for who will actually deliver. In prime resi, that matters because clients are not buying a service. They are buying confidence in the team around them.
I do not see it as in person versus virtual. The best model is blended, and that is how we run it. Our in-person events work because they are consistent. You see the same faces, you build on conversations, and relationships deepen. Then when something real comes up, a live project, a gap in a team, a tricky client situation, you already have the foundation to move quickly.
Virtual has been a game changer for knowledge sharing because it cuts out travel and removes the fluff. If you are deciding where to invest your time, think about return. An hour of structured discussion with the right people can move things forward faster than a longer social. It also matters that not everyone thrives on face-to-face networking. With virtual, you can get decision makers around a topic for an hour and keep it focused. I chair the sessions. We talk about what is working, what is not, and what is changing in the market. Our flagship webinars now attract over 500 senior leaders worldwide, and the quality of the content proves that the appetite for usable insight is only growing.
Then there is the member WhatsApp community. It is global, active, quick, and genuinely helpful. It is where a lot of day-to-day sharing happens, and it is often where the first spark of a collaboration starts.
The LPF recently expanded into the USA. Can you share your experience of scaling the network internationally, and are there plans for further expansion?
What I’ve seen is that the US has been a natural extension of what we have always done in London. We have always had international members, and most of them work across borders anyway. Over the last year, we have been more deliberate about formalising that, and we have focused on New York and Miami because the UK to US corridor is strong. Many of our members are already collaborating across that route.
Going to America has also been a reminder that you cannot build relationships from a distance. You have to show up, listen properly, and understand how decisions are made locally. The pace is different and the routes to influence can vary, but expectations around quality and discretion are consistent.
UHNW clients are operating globally now. They, their families, and their businesses are not in one market anymore. They might have a base in London, a place in New York, another in Dubai, something in Monaco, and sometimes a superyacht. That changes what it means to be a trusted adviser. You need strong counterparts across borders so you can point a client in the right direction quickly, with confidence. That is why it mattered for us to be able to offer that breadth across the membership.
Next, we are building towards the Middle East, specifically the UAE and KSA. We have already had virtual events bringing together 40 decision makers in the area and have brought on founding members for the region. But we will only expand at the pace that protects culture and quality. It is about excellence, not growth for the sake of it.
The LPF brings together people who are often competitors. How do you foster genuinely collaborative dialogue between parties with naturally conflicting commercial incentives?
The reality is we bring competitors into the same room all the time, and that is part of the point. In this sector, you rarely get the chance to sit with people who genuinely understand the pressure you are under. Most firms run their own events and would not naturally invite their closest rivals.
When we get people together, you will often see contractors comparing notes on build cost volatility, procurement headaches, and Building Safety Act delays. You will also hear agents being frank about buyer confidence, pricing sensitivity, and what clients now expect. A large proportion of our members are boutique businesses dealing with the same challenges around recruitment and pipeline. Having a space to talk about that openly matters. Those conversations land because they come from real experience, and people do learn from each other.
That said, it only works if the room is set up properly. We are clear it is not a pitch environment. If it turns into hard selling, people stop sharing. We also avoid oversaturating any one discipline, so it never feels combative. The mix keeps the tone constructive.
We also take impartiality seriously. Everyone is vetted and respected by their peers. When opportunities come in, whether from a UHNW client or a developer, we do not play favourites. We share relevant member options with enough information for the person making the request to choose well.
Is there a piece of advice you received early in your career that you still return to?
Keep going.
Early in my career, someone told me resilience matters most when you do not feel ready. You do not wait to feel confident. You take the next step anyway.
There will always be setbacks, delays, people underestimating you, and plans changing at the last minute. When that happens, I come back to something simple. Do the next right thing. Have the hard conversation. Send the email. Make the call.
And do not confuse resilience with repeating the same approach. Keep going, but adapt. Learn the lesson, adjust, and then go again.
Get in touch
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Email priya@theluxurypropertyforum.com for further information.