Good morning. Here is your AM bulletin with the latest news and views from EG, along with a few of the best bits from the daily papers.
Landsec and British Land have teamed up to show how encouraging brownfield urban regeneration could boost growth, fix the housing crisis and basically make the world a better place.
Landsec boss Mark Allan and his British Land counterpart Simon Carter have also penned a joint piece in The Telegraph (£), adding to their call for the government to stop focusing on the fringes of planning and “unleash the potential of brownfield”.
Lease lengths are shorter than ever and rent collection is at its lowest levels since the depths of the pandemic, writes EG’s editor. But Gary Neville and Mike Hussey’s big bets show that not everyone is talking down the office sector. Perhaps we just have to have a little faith?
Indeed, demand for office space, notably from the legal, professional and financial services, has been building in Manchester.
Foreign investors in UK property could take flight, causing values to fall further, the Bank of England has warned in its 115-page Financial Stability Report.
But its latest stress test shows lenders could withstand a combined hit of £125bn on their loan books, including a further 45% fall in commercial property values.
Meanwhile, house prices have been cut as buyer enquiries fall, the RICS has said, with rising mortgage costs putting a choke hold on the residential market.
Incidentally, Winkworth has issued a profit warning(£), sending shares down by 15%.
Luxury health club operator Third Space has signed a 25-year lease at the £1bn regeneration of the former Whiteleys department store in Bayswater, W2. A swimming pool will form the “centrepiece” of the lower ground floor.
Brookfield’s Center Parcs – currently for sale with a £4bn price tag – has said it will continue searching for a site in the south east of England after being forced to scrap its Gatwick plans.
A return of shoppers to the high street has lifted Superdrug’s profits by more than 70%.
And HS2’s chief executive Mark Thurston has quit after more than six years in charge of the high-speed railway project.
Ministers must “go further and faster” on UK flood defence spending, the outgoing chair of the country’s flood reinsurance scheme has warned.
And while inflation in the UK remains stubbornly high, the global picture is shifting. Inflation has eased to its slowest pace in more than two years in the United States(£), while China is now flirting with deflation(£), with confidence in the real estate sector once again sliding.
