You know, with experts, there’s always two sides, at least. Many times, multiple sides which explains why even for properties or cars, there are no such thing as the ‘perfect’ one. I am against Brexit. Remember Brexit? Yeah, the exit of Britain from European Union (EU). I think it will be bad for London because many of the roles it play could be replaced by other EU nations. Germany, France and even Holland could be the few countries which could benefit I think. Anyway, my ex-boss (higher authority than me) says he thinks Britain has made the right decision. Fortunately, we are still great pals today. Let’s run through the views about London’s property market due to Brexit shall we? First one is a positive one.
Gulfnews.com has this article: London realty remains red hot even with Brexit cloud. It says that when it comes to commercial property transactions. “turnover for London was approximately £17 billion, the third highest on record” in 2017, according to Chris Brett, Head of International Capital Markets at the consultancy CBRE. The (overall) UK turnover (for commercial) was in excess of £50 billion (Dh250 billion). For residential, the year was mixed — an ongoing under supply of housing continues to be the case and the PRS (private rented sector) market and BTR (build-to-rent) gather momentum all the time.” It also points out that the investors from the Middle East continue to keep the London property market flame burning brightly. It gave many examples and a prominent one would be Apple’s 500,000 sq ft UK campus which will start operating in 2021. (I think what he wanted to imply is that Apple would be huge catalyst to the area that it was moving into. According to some reports, there would be a total of 1,400 staffs in Apple Campus. Assuming half of them wants to stay nearby, that would translate to new demand for homes.)
Next one is a negative one. theguardian.com has this news: London property prices fall as much as 15percent as Brexit effect deepens. it quotes numbers from Your Move which is one of the UK’s largest estate agency shows that prices have dropped as much as 15 percent or £100,000 in value within the past 12 months. This is for an area known as Wandsworth. However in another area, Blackburn’s prices are up by 16.4 percent over the past 12 months. It gave many other examples to back up these claims but says that for many of the areas with fall in prices, it is also due to some huge speculative property developments too. It concluded the article with figures from Halifax which highlighted that the annual rate of house price growth has fallen to 1.8%, its lowest level for almost five years. Official data shows that earnings growth averaging 2.5% and this meant that salaries are now rising faster than house price. Full article here.
I am interested to know what happens when the negotiation between the British Prime Minister and the EU really starts to become serious. As of now, it’s all unclear and well, opportunistic for many sides. Some reports point out that the two beneficiaries if London’s financial market is affected would be New York and our neighbour, Singapore. Here’s that article. I suppose if it’s really Singapore, then some of these super-high income earners may buy vacation homes in Iskandar as well? Happy following Brexit news in relation to the property market.
written on 16 March 2018
Next suggested article: No more single market? Well, that’s to be expected
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