Investing in commercial property: a tale of three markets

Student housing, care-home and self-storage owners are solid long-term growth stories in the commercial property sector. But is now the time to buy? Max King finds out.

Unite provides 75,000 beds for students across the country
(Image credit: Credit: Nick Maslen / Alamy Stock Photo)

Britain’s commercial property sector has traditionally been divided into three subsectors: industrial, offices and retail. In the 1980s and 1990s, retail outperformed while industrial properties struggled as consumer spending rose inexorably but the country deindustrialised. In the last ten years retail has lagged as household spending migrated online; industrial property, however, has outperformed thanks to the growth in logistics warehouses, notably to service online shoppers. But in recent years some of the best growth has come from three smaller subsectors: student housing, healthcare and self-storage – or beds, meds and sheds. Investors can gain access to each of these subsectors through real-estate investment trusts. Are they still worth a look?

The university boom

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.