A study has recently revealed that investment activity has remained strong in England’s North and the region’s property market is still as robust as ever, despite the Brexit vote during the referendum.
The report by Lambert Smith Hampton showed that regardless of any expectations of investment activity drastically slowing down in the second quarter of the year, there was a 42% uplift to £501 million. This compares to an investment of £353 million during the same period one year earlier.
LSH’s quarterly UK Investment Transactions has , however, also revealed that the investor focus is now shifting towards more defensive assets to counter the volatility of the market.
Abid Jaffry, who heads up the northern capital markets team at LSH, 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.”
