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Huge jump in interest for overseas property

Posted by Richard in Property News, 28th April 2010, 5:51pm

A  recent survey by Reits Real Estate Investment Trusts suggests that the recovery enjoyed by the property sector over the last six months is set to continue, with 70 per cent of respondents saying that values would stabilise in 2010 and a further 10 per cent expecting them to continue to rise.
The latest Reita Expert Panel survey showed that only 15 per cent had reached a firm view about the shadow chancellor. With 45 per cent of respondents not convinced by the shadow chancellor and a further 35 per cent saying they ‘could be’ convinced. In a different question, only 5 per cent said they were confident the Tories would be significantly better for the property industry.
There has been a debate over whether UK Reits should concentrate more on delivering income returns to investors rather than a total shareholder return approach. 55 per cent said that the UK sector generally strikes the right balance, with 35 per cent wanting to see a reduced focus on developing new properties.
With development now beginning to restart across key development sites, 65 per cent of respondents believe that a return to speculative development is either already happening or imminent. The government’s cut in business rate relief for empty properties was seen as a massive blow to the development of space without pre-lets, and speculative development has all but halted over the last couple of years.
However, as the country emerges from recession, reduced supply and rising occupier demand are encouraging selective speculative development again..
Peter Cosmetatos, director of Reita, said “It’s understandable for markets to be so jittery around an election, but while the prospects for who will be governing us remain uncertain, what is crystal clear is that there will be cuts and spending constraints in the public sector. Where big regeneration schemes are concerned this will have an impact on Reits as far as development is concerned since it will be harder for them to make schemes stack up and projects that may have happily commenced back in 2007 will continue to gather dust.