Isn’t it always the way. You wait weeks for a white paper and then four come along at once.
This week saw the government deliver its industrial strategy and commit, reluctantly, to providing some detail about its plans to withdraw from the EU. Landing, almost simultaneously, was a policy missive from the British Property Federation and a similar combined paper from the City and Westminster Property Associations. None, you will have noticed, was the government’s long-awaited and still-unseen housing white paper. For that, it seems, we will have to wait until next month.
So we are clearer on Brexit and still fumbling in the dark on housing. One out of two is better than none.
As the prime minister prepares to show more of her hand on EU withdrawal, this industry showed its own. The BPF’s demands are straightforward: maintaining business confidence; tax and planning stability; further infrastructure investment; access to construction skills; and supporting housing supply across all tenures. Little to argue with there.
The City and Westminster property associations warned government that London must “up its game” and respond with “urgency and boldness” to mitigate risk and competition in the months and years ahead. They want to see continued access to global talent, passporting rights for financial services and legal equivalence with the EU for financial and insurance activities. Few in property would argue – subject to the important caveat that London’s interests are not advanced at the UK’s expense.
All of the above will mitigate against economic headwinds, and appear even more necessary after a BPF/Grosvenor survey showed property’s confidence in the UK economy had “dropped significantly”.
But sentiment, while important, matters less than activity. And there is comfort in recent figures.
After a dire Q2 and Q3, 2016 was rounded out with a strong fourth quarter, according to EG’s London Offices Market Analysis. Take-up of 3.5m sq ft was 62% up on Q3, and 16% down on Q4 2015 – respectable given that in truth the slowdown had already begun in 2015. Positive GDP figures on Thursday offered further encouragement.
Of course, when it comes to economics, we are not an island. Here we might be helped by events abroad. Or to put it another way, David Hanrahan, director and co-head of London offices at Colliers International, said: “It seems to me that if the world is willing to join us in being a basket case, we remain in our pre-eminent position.”
• So what’s next for the London market? You could do worse than #AskJohnSlade. The chief executive of BNP Paribas Real Estate will be in the hotseat for a live interview on Twitter next Friday. Use that hashtag and I will put your questions to him at 11.45am on 3 February. Do so ahead of time and watch it unfold live. Go to www.egi.co.uk/news/askjohnslade for details.
• Happy Chinese New Year. Today marks the beginning of the year of the rooster and West End stores are hoping for a sales uplift. Chinese shoppers are up by 121% on 2016 in the week prior (note that domestic and European spend were up by just 10.2% and 12.6% respectively).
Figures released this week by what is still known as DTZ/Cushman & Wakefield, show that in 2016 China’s total overseas investment into commercial real estate reached a new high of $38bn (£30bn), up by 49% on 2015. The UK attracted 32% more investment than in 2015.
But with investment into the UK still a fraction of the capital flowing into the US, there is plenty of opportunity to attract more on the back of sterling’s weakness. DTZ/Cushman expects outbound capital flows to stay strong in 2017 despite China’s central government tightening controls on overseas investments. Nevertheless, despite a need for Chinese companies to spread risk and go global, given the changed climate it is hard to imagine a repeat of 2016’s record-breaking performance.
• To send feedback, email damian.wild@estatesgazette.com or tweet @DamianWild or @estatesgazette
