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North West property investment
experts optimistic about post Brexit outlook
RESEARCH by property consultancy
Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) shows a surprising result following the recent
Brexit vote with investment activity in the North West remaining robust.
In contrast to expectations that investment activity would drastically slow down
in Q2 in the run up to the referendum, LSH's quarterly UK Investment
Transactions report showed there was a 42% uplift to £501 million compared with
the same period in the previous year of £353 million. The research has however
shown that investors have now turned their focus on defensive assets to counter
the volatility in the market.
Abid Jaffry who heads up the northern capital markets team at Lambert Smith
Hampton, said:- "It is a surprising result and we need to treat the
increase in the context of just one quarter and a couple of large acquisitions
which can skew the figures somewhat. There's no doubt that the Brexit result has
had an effect on the investment market with a downturn in pricing, but the
amounts feel like a pricing correction rather than the widescale adverse price
drops predicted, which should give investors confidence. Sales of assets in the
regions by some of the retail funds have, by and large, transacted or surpassed
book values. It has therefore been somewhat of a false dawn for some of the
equity houses that anticipated significant price drops. However, the level of
economic uncertainty still prevails but solid performance, low interest rates
and an attractive exchange rate have meant we're still seeing a lot of investor
appetite. It will be interesting to see the volume and pricing of new stock as
we enter the September period." |
