Good morning. Here’s your daily round-up of the latest news and views from EG and a collection of industry-relevant headlines from the nationals, all perfectly curated to set you up for the week ahead.
Investors in real estate funds got a bit jittery ahead of last week’s Budget, according to the team at Calastone, which recorded an uptick in outflows in October.
It found that investors withdrew a net £45m from their property fund holdings during the month, up by more than half from September’s £29.7m net selling. Calastone said the larger number of sell orders was unusual, with net outflows more typically driven by buying behaviours.
Overall, some £75m of sell orders were placed last month, against a buy order total of £31m.
Less jittery, but a perhaps a little disappointed in the Budget, was British Property Federation chief executive Melanie Leech. Writing in EG this week, Leech says she wanted to see a bolder Budget for property that could have set the sector up for greater delivery.
“It seems almost churlish in a Budget that was both radical and far-reaching, to describe it as having not gone far enough, but that was our general reaction on Wednesday,” says Leech. “The real estate sector is vital to driving local and national economic growth and, to echo Rachel Reeves own words, is primed to ‘invest, invest, invest’. Yet the announcements that were made could have been bolder and gone further to unlock investment, support the revitalisation of our high streets and turbo-charge the delivery of more homes.”
The Green Finance Institute, working with banks Lloyds and Natwest, believes it has a new solution that could unlock billions of pounds of private investment to decarbonise the UK’s built environment.
The group is proposing the establishment of a new property-linked finance scheme, similar to the Property Assessed Clean Energy scheme in the US. It believes the mechanism, which links financing to the property, rather than the owner, could catalyse as much as £70bn of private investment into decarbonising the residential sector alone.
The GFI is now keen to launch a pilot programme for the commercial property sector to understand better how the system could raise the estimated £360bn needed to decarbonise the UK’s real estate.
Elsewhere, PRS REIT has appointed Singer Capital Markets as it seeks to sell itself, GPE is seeking to double down on its flex offices push after snapping up a British Land Storey last week, residential developer Hub is on a mission to grow its portfolio to £4bn and Cushman & Wakefield has raided Gerald Eve for a new head of central London development.
And don’t forget, if you need to stay one step ahead of the competition this week, EG has you covered with a look ahead to what to expect in UK real estate with the EG news agenda.
All of the news from EG, plus a selection of headlines from the nationals:
MADE jv secures first project with Manchester garden village
PRS REIT appoints adviser for sale process
GPE doubles down on flex offices push
NAO report on cladding calls for greater onus on developers
Resi developer Hub sets sights on £4bn portfolio
Pre-Budget jitters drive increased outflows in property funds
New green finance scheme could unlock £70bn to decarbonise UK real estate
Cushman raids Gerald Eve for new head of central London development
Greencore selected for £45m Buckinghamshire housing plan
EG’s news agenda: What to look out for this week
COMMENT: A radical and far-reaching Budget that could have been bolder
M&G buys stake in European property firm as it bets on turnaround
Blackstone in advanced talks to buy property owner (£)
Construction giant ISG went bust with debts of £1bn (£)
‘This takes the biscuit’: Bear Grylls’s mum and the nimby battle (£)
Revealed: the property empires that make Charles and William millions (£)
Australian sleepwear giant Peter Alexander opens three UK stores (£)
The luxury US hotel groups jumping on Europe’s all-inclusive craze (£)
Business uncertainty blamed for glut of profit warnings (£)
Landlords face record £1,200 licensing fee in Britain’s most deprived areas (£)
The former PwC partner trying to reinvent the West Midlands (£)
Send feedback to Samantha McClary
Follow Estates Gazette
