March 19, 2008
UK Property Market Recovering
From my predictions in January I stated that 2008 would be a year of 2 halves for the UK residential property market. The first 6 months would not be too inspiring whilst the global credit crunch took its effect and was fully understood by the financial institutions. The second half, however would show sogns of a recovery with modest gains.
Robert Houston, CEO of ING Real Estate Investment Management said that his company was poised to make further investments in the UK now that "Value" had returned.
It has been mainly equity rich investors such as German Funds and the brave hearted, that have continued to take advantage of the current market conditions.
With that said, we are now beginning to see manistream investors return to the market with many predicting property prices rises during the second half of 2008.
Houston satated that now yields of the IPD index had reached 5.25% he felt that it represented the UK markets "fair-value" and felt that prices were set to rise over the next 6 months.
My personal view is that the last quarter of 2008 and 2009 will show gains and mixed with the potentially lower cost of borrowing it offers investors a truly "Golden Opportunity".
Investors who are obsessed about picking the exact tops and bottoms of a market will always miss the boat. Property, as the saying goes, is not just for Christmas……
