Overseas demand drives further recovery in UK commercial property
Suzanne Lovell
In this recent article REUTERS discusses how overseas investors are going to support British commercial property this year even as the UK prepares to leave the European Union, an industry survey showed on Thursday.
"The pound's slide continued to lure foreign investors over the final quarter of 2016.
But the quarterly survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors indicated negative growth expectations for London commercial property values amid fears the capital will bear the brunt of any Brexit-led departure of firms.
Over the fourth quarter, overall investment enquiries were flat in the London office sector and declined modestly in the London retail segment, in contrast to a second straight quarter of increase in inquiries for the UK, the survey showed.
Although the UK commercial property market has largely recovered from an immediate post-Brexit-vote slump, London has underperformed the wider market, with some projects being put on hold, property companies cutting rental growth forecasts and rents beginning to stagnate.
Prime Minister Theresa May's comments last week that Britain will leave the European single market has seen HSBC (HSBA.L) and UBS (UBSG.S) saying that they could each move about 1,000 jobs out of London.
The RICS survey showed that 18 percent of respondents reported evidence of firms looking to relocate away from the UK in response to Brexit, up from 14 percent seen in the preceding quarterly survey.
In central London, 32 percent respondents claimed to have seen evidence, the largest proportion of any single region".