Some of you will no doubt have received marketing emails, from property educators of late, proclaiming that we now have a marketplace for investor buyers which offers the best buying opportunities in over fifteen years.
Their predictions, alongside from those with vested interests to highlight that the ‘end is nigh’, might be taken more seriously, were it not for the fact that I’ve heard the same commentary at least three times in the last seven years from some of these organisations.
And yet, as I remind myself that a broken clock tells the correct time once every twelve hours, we do appear in many parts of the UK to now be firmly into a strong buyers market, for both commercial and residential property.
The primary cause is the sharp recent increase in lending rates and lenders reacting by withdrawing products and hiking mortgage rates to levels not seen for nearly twenty years. In the wider mainstream media we’ve recently seen some sensational headlines about a ‘housing crash’, but as you can read on page 31, the historically bearish Capital Economics are now expecting a decline in average house price values of around 12% by the end of 2024.
Given that we are experiencing ‘nominal’ annual inflation at just under 10% and with core inflation now around 7%, the implications from the forecast ‘real terms’ decline need careful consideration by long-term investors and landlords..
Our lead article on page 15 offers analysis and commentary from some experienced providers within the mortgage broking sector. We also have a number of articles in this issue from contributors looking at the options ahead for landlords and investors to consider, in what is without question a clear period of ‘uncertainty’.
My thanks to Richard Blanco for his frank assessment on page 46 of being a portfolio landlord in the London market and to Adam Lawrence on page 32 for his analysis of the main options that some readers may be considering.
Apart from the obvious reality that the ‘mortgage crisis’ does present genuine buying opportunities, there are, as our article on page 19 confirms, some big opportunities ahead within commercial property. On page 22, David Kemp highlights a recent case-study of the planning angles to re-develop public houses, and there are also opportunities for developers with brownfield land as Ritchie Clapson affirms in his article on page 28.
Our lead investor interview on page 25 this month is with Richard Woodstock, and his story underlines that whatever is happening in the broader market, adapting one’s strategy to the changing times and always being open minded to learn can lead on to achieving very healthy returns.
