Stephanie McMahon
Head of Research
Stephanie McMahon, our Head of Research, summarises the key points of our annual property outlook event - Prospects for Property. You can also watch the highlights video of the event.
Stephanie McMahon, our Head of Research, summarises the key points of our annual property outlook event - Prospects for Property. You can also watch the highlights video of the event.
Each year Andy Martin, our Senior Partner, develops a theme for our major commercial client event, Prospects for Property, based on his eclectic and extensive love of music. This year the theme was “I’m a Believer” and it fitted neatly with the analogy put forward by Paul Ormerod from Volterra that the economy today is much like Tinkerbell. If you remember the fairy Tinkerbell only lives if the Lost Boys believe in her. They did and she did.
It is an important point for us at this stage in the recovery as we need to believe to have the confidence to invest both as individuals and as companies. The data to date would suggest that we are.
Andy assessed the macro markets, giving the view that property very much makes sense for investors with double digit returns predicted this year. Beyond returns though, he outlined the growth of UK companies and the expected occupational demand we will see outside London. On the capital markets side he assessed the level of interest we can anticipate from the overseas investors and particularly the diversity from both HNW individuals and sovereign wealth funds.
We were joined by Johan Ericsson and Diane Becker from Catella who gave a synopsis of the European markets. One theme that came through across all the markets, including the UK, was the continued weight of money seeking a home.
Finally, I took the audience through the UK sectors including offices, retail, industrial and residential. We had positive news across all sectors, pointing particularly to the changing industrial and distribution footprint of the UK driven by manufacturing investment plus the structural changes that are still taking place in retail.
You can watch more videos of Prospects for Property here.