London is at the top of Eastdil Secured’s hit list, thanks to the UK’s openness and “geographically desirable position”, the adviser’s chief executive said last week.
Speaking to Estates Gazette at the British Council for Offices conference in Chicago, Roy March added that the UK was also “less xenophobic than the US”.
He said: “As central London becomes more constricted, you will see the city’s outer loops, where transport infrastructure is developing, become locations for the next generation of office users and tenants. And so workers will migrate to new 24/7 live-work-play suburban markets, specifically in the east.”
On the global economic cycle, March added that a slow recovery has resulted in optimum market conditions for US and UK real estate. He said: “This is a Goldilocks period. Not too hot, not too cold. Just right. I see that lasting for the next three years.”
On the possibility of another recession, he said: “Leverage played a large role in collapse of financial services in the last recession. And while that level of leverage is available again, fewer people are deploying it.
“Plus, recessions are usually supply-driven and this time the market has grown substantially with little new supply.”
