Amid the sweeping prophecies that life will never be the same post-pandemic, it is refreshing to hear a more cautious view. “I am a slight sceptic of the widespread assumption of ‘a new normal’,” says Mat Oakley, head of pan-European commercial property research at Savills. “We see such forecasts in every crisis; change will happen more slowly.”
“Commercial property is a simple asset class,” he says. “In an expansion, we need more space. Currently, we are in a thumping great recession, but I expect a not-quite V-shaped recovery in which GDP recovers quickly but unemployment doesn’t return to 2019 levels for five years.”
Property investment, now past the nadir, was 43% below the five-year average in the first half of 2020. But it was 51% down in 2008 and “the recovery will be better this time”. In the office market, vacancy rates are rising, there is downward pressure on rents and development starts are being delayed, but “we are not at the end of the cycle: the medium-term fundamentals remain good”. Less development will reduce vacancy rates and the pressure on rents.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
What about the shift to working from home? Oakley points out that home-working is suitable for some tasks (reading documents, focused work and video or phone calls), but “a lot of things work better in an office so offices won’t disappear”. Offices are better suited to team management, meetings and the informal chats or chance encounters that can spark fruitful new ideas and strategies for the company, a key factor in services and creative businesses. Surveys show a marked swing in favour of working from home, but from one day a week or less to two or three days a week – not to full-time.
Retail parks have been more defensive than shopping centres, with weekly footfall down 20% rather than 60%. Retail parks are well suited to “click and collect” services and returns, while they also offer social distancing. In the industrial market, the take-up of logistics space in the first half was the highest for 15 years, but this type of property “is not as safe as it seems”. When vacancy rates rise above 12%, as they did in 2009, rents fall.
The best real-estate bets on the continent
Marcus Phayre-Mudge, manager of TR Property Investment Trust (LSE: TRY), is not ready to buy into the UK yet. Only 28% of his portfolio is invested in listed British shares; another 7% in directly held properties and 64% in continental shares. Of the latter, 45% is in Germany and Austria and nearly all the rest in France, Benelux and Scandinavia. He is cautious about Britain because since December 2015 European property shares have returned 45% in sterling, but British ones -20%.
Within the UK, favoured areas are “beds, meds and sheds”: student accommodation, healthcare property and self-storage, companies that are UK-listed but have their assets in Europe and two specialist real estate investment trusts (Reits), Supermarket Income and Secure Income. Student accommodation and Secure Income, owning hotels and leisure attractions, have been poor performers. Progress on the directly held properties may open the way to asset disposals.
Though the share price is down 32% since February, its European focus means that performance is far ahead of the UK property sector over three and five years. The shares yield over 4%, trade on an attractive 13% discount to net asset value and, with a market value over £1bn, are highly liquid. Phayre-Mudge is positive: demand from tenants, “excluding non-food retail, should prove stable while a lack of supply, due to the absence of a development cycle in 2008-2014 and the current development cycle being deferred, means that there is no surplus of new space to undermine rents... Real estate, particularly where income is long and strong, will be an attractive investment”.
-
8 of the best houses for sale for around £500,000Some of the best houses for sale for around £500,000 – from a 19th-century stone farm cottage in North Yorkshire and a two-bedroom apartment in Edinburgh’s New Town to a converted Methodist chapel in Norfolk
-
What will the unravelling of US-China trade mean for the economy?What will a US-China decoupling mean for the global economy?
-
Two ways to tap into monopoly profits from airportsMost investors can’t get their hands on airports. Here are two ways you can
-
Fat profits: should you invest in weight-loss drugs?The latest weight-loss treatments could transform public health and the world economy. Should you invest?
-
How investors could profit from Ramsden Holdings' four-part growth strategyRamsdens Holdings offers a diversified set of financial and retail services and a juicy yield, says Dr Michael Tubbs
-
How to invest in the booming insurance marketThe insurance sector is experiencing rapid growth after years of stagnation. Smart investors should buy in now, says Rupert Hargreaves
-
Out of America's shadow: Why Trump's tariff chaos may be good for non-US stocksOpinion Upending global investment and trade could benefit other countries at the expense of the US market, says Cris Sholto Heaton
-
BP's 'long, painful decline' – and why next year could be even tougherOpinion Long-suffering shareholders in oil giant BP have been pushing for change. It won’t come soon enough, says Matthew Lynn
-
Investment trusts tap the profits in exotic and obscure global marketsOpinion Peter Walls, manager of the Unicorn Mastertrust fund, highlights three investment trusts as he shares where he'd put his money
-
Falling revenues and mounting debt spell trouble for Jumia TechnologiesStruggling African e-commerce platform Jumia Technologies looks headed for the exit, says Dr Matthew Partridge.
