In the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis it was often said the only certainty was uncertainty. As we head in to 2017, the degree of uncertainty across the globe can sometimes seem off the scale. My last missive made reference to the impossibility of avoiding any mention of Brexit, as we start the new year this looks like being trumped (apologies for that). By the second half of the year we may well be fixated on the Eurozone, or , God forbid, something bigger. Sometimes you feel like drawing the curtains and reading a good book or watching a movie, one of my favourite Sunday afternoon films is ‘It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world’…..just saying. Understanding, let alone predicting, the property market presents quite some challenge these days. This isn’t to say the property market is any more uncertain than other markets or investment sectors. In fact it is perhaps a little easier to understand as I would argue history has shown us a couple of clear patterns over the past few decades. Firstly, when it comes to the broad domestic market, it is above all about interest rates and how the market responds accordingly as these rise […]

As far as the property market goes, 2015 was dominated by politics. The year started in trepidation of the May election outcome and ended with bewilderment that the supposed best case scenario of an outright Tory victory has proven likely to be more painful than a victory by Ed Miliband’s Labour party. Taxing times Despite the Government facing little in terms of true opposition and thus having the supposed freedom to do as they will, the Tory party is far from behaving as one might have expected. Much is made of the Chancellor’s austerity measures, yet the national debt keeps rising and he flunks the truly tough decisions on welfare etc. With cuts in spending only able to go so far, it comes as little surprise that the rich (a precise definition open for some debate) would be paying more through increased taxes as illustrated below. An often quoted statistic is that one third of all income tax is paid by the top 3,000 earners (29.9 million pay income tax in the UK) When it comes to property, it seems the market is not to be trusted and Government intervention the order of the day with a big slug of […]

This year has been more or less dominated by the general election which was held back in May. The ramifications of which continue as we head deep in to the second half of the year. In my last comment I reported that there had been no post election bounce in the prime London residential market and with the autumn market well upon us, that hoped for bounce still remains elusive, but there are at least some stirrings afoot. As far as the politics goes, things are far from being boring. The Tories surprise victory has provided much needed stability with cautious optimism for a continued economic recovery. The opposition’s implosion leading to their choosing an old fashioned Trotsky rebel who can’t bring himself to sing the national anthem is simply bewildering. The Liberal democrats, traditionally the third party and previously on an upward trajectory, have only 8 members of parliament or 1.2% of the total. The new third party are the Scottish nationalists whose dream of full independence from the UK is only matched by their desire for ever closer union with Europe. Property however risks being quite dull by comparison and the reasons for this are more due to […]