It’s time to sell property, not buy back in

As the commercial property market suffers, investors are piling out of property funds. But don't think for one moment that this situation represents a buying opportunity.

"If you want to know what's going on right now in the commercial property market, who do you ask?", says David Stevenson on Motley Fool. Banks and estate agents are hardly the most objective of commentators, "So why not go straight to the horse's mouth?"; namely, to the property companies that are buying and renting out office space across the country.

Shares in Land Securities and British Land are both down about 30% for the year, despite modest profit increases. Many analysts don't expect them to recover soon, which is unsurprising, given that recent figures from the Investment Property Databank (IPD) showed that the monthly return from commercial property in July fell to its lowest in 12 years. Average total returns (that's rent plus capital) came to 0.2%, with prices of shops and factories starting to fall.

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