Filtered by Subscriptions: UK Commercial Property Use setting UK Commercial Property
Overview – The economic outlook has worsened over the past couple of months, which supports our call that the recovery in commercial property will be modest by past standards. Admittedly, interest rates are set to fall back. But with the spread over gilts …
19th February 2025
Overview – The fiscal loosening announced in October’s Budget means inflation and gilt yields are now set to be higher than previously expected over the next few years. And with the spread of gilt yields over property yields currently narrow, that implies …
22nd November 2024
Overview – Commercial property yields and capital values have stabilised in recent months, which has encouraged investors to dip their toes back into the sector. But the recovery is set to be a weak one. Admittedly, we expect rental growth will be a …
22nd August 2024
We still think that a fading in services inflation and below-target CPI inflation will prompt the Bank of England to cut interest rates from 5.25% now to 3.00% by the end of 2025, rather than to 4.00% as investors anticipate. That explains why we think …
31st July 2024
Overview – Capital values for most property sectors are now close to bottoming out, but with yields set for a period of stability the recovery will be modest by past standards. We expect all-property total returns to average 7.5% p.a. over 2024-28. That’s …
30th May 2024
While expectations for interest rate cuts in the UK have been pared back in recent months amid growing inflation concerns in the US, we think the markets have gone too far in concluding that UK interest rates will still be as high as 4.00% by the end of …
29th April 2024
Note: We’ll be discussing the UK commercial property outlook at a Drop-In on Wednesday, 28th February. Register here Property Drop-In: UK commercial property’s muted recovery | Capital Economics for the 20-minute online briefing. Overview – With property …
23rd February 2024
Our forecast that CPI inflation will fall below 1.0% later this year suggests that Bank Rate will be cut from 5.25% now to 3.00% rather than the low of 3.50-3.75% priced into the market, 10-year gilt yields will decline from 3.90% now to around 3.25% by …
30th January 2024
Overview – Property yields rose further in Q3, but with risk-free rates now falling back, we think they will peak by the end of 2023. That will help stabilize capital values, but, given historically narrow yield spreads, we doubt we will see much yield …
24th November 2023
While we think sticky core inflation will mean that the Bank of England keeps interest rates at their peak of 5.25% until late in 2024, we think the markets have gone too far in concluding that rates will still be as high as 4.50% by the end of 2025. We …
30th October 2023
Overview – After a brief respite earlier this year, property yields are once again on the rise, driven by a further increase in gilt yields. We don’t expect a repeat of the surge seen last year, but we also think any compression beyond this year will be …
21st August 2023
Our forecast that in late 2024 and 2025 the Bank of England will cut interest rates further than investors expect suggests that UK gilt yields will fall and close the current gap with US yields. Admittedly, there’s still a risk that inflation in the UK …
25th July 2023
Overview – Higher-than-expected core inflation means interest rates are now set to be higher for longer and we still think the economy will enter a mild recession later this year. That’s not a great backdrop for commercial property and yields will need …
30th May 2023
The recent resilience in economic activity and stubbornness of inflation is raising market rate expectations, gilt yields, UK equities and the pound. And there is a growing risk that interest rates rise above 4.50% and/or stay high for longer. But we …
26th April 2023
Overview – The surge in yields seen in 2022 will not be repeated in 2023. With much of the repricing occurring last year we think all-property equivalent yields will see only a modest rise of 30bps this year. But rents will be hit, as the dual drags of …
24th February 2023
While an improvement in appetite for risk has fuelled a strong start to 2023 by UK equities and sterling, we doubt this will remain a source of support as recessions in the US, the UK and the euro-zone economies take hold. We anticipate the FTSE 100 …
30th January 2023
Although we agree with the markets that the Bank of England will be patient and won’t pivot from raising interest rates to actually cutting interest rates until 2024, we think that fading inflation will force the Bank to cut rates quicker than investors …
30th November 2022
Overview – The surge in interest rates in recent months has quickly been reflected in property yields, and as a result we have brought forward some of our forecasted rise in yields from 2023 into 2022. But with gilts yields set to fall back next year we …
28th November 2022
Our forecast that the energy crisis will push the euro-zone and UK economies into recession while the US gets away with a milder slowdown suggests that the euro and the pound will weaken further against the US dollar. We think the pound will fall from …
31st August 2022
Overview – Surging inflation and the upcoming recession will cut real household disposable incomes, which are set to see their largest fall on record. That drop in spending power will hit demand for all property sectors, but consumer-facing sectors …
23rd August 2022
If we are right in expecting inflationary pressure to stay strong even as the economy gets dangerously close to a recession, then the prices of gilts and UK equities will probably fall further over the next year. Our forecast that the Bank of England will …
26th May 2022
Overview – The worsening monetary outlook is expected to weigh on property performance. With inflation set to peak at 10% y/y that will force interest rate to 3.0% next year. This will reverse the recent momentum in the commercial property sector, as …
20th May 2022
Our forecast that lingering price pressures will prompt the Bank of England to raise interest rates from 0.50% now to a peak of 2.00% next year suggests there is little scope for market interest rate expectations to rise further. Even so, we think that an …
24th February 2022
Overview – The worst of the Omicron wave appears to have passed and we expect growth to rebound later this year, albeit weighed down by weak consumer income growth. But persistently high inflation is now set to bring a concerted tightening in Base Rate, …
18th February 2022
Although the economic backdrop has recently become less favourable for UK asset prices, we expect that the economic recovery will regain some vigour in the second half of next year, that CPI inflation will fall close to the 2.0% target in late 2022 and …
22nd November 2021
Overview – The economic recovery has stalled and the near-term outlook is softer. Meanwhile, higher inflation is expected to bring interest rate hikes as early as December 2021, though we think that the pace of tightening will be fairly gradual. The …
19th November 2021
Overview – The economic recovery has lost some momentum over the summer, but we expect that this will be a temporary setback and the backdrop will be strong into the medium term. There is growing evidence of a sustained commercial property upturn, albeit …
25th August 2021
The recent downward revision to our GDP growth forecasts and the recent hawkish signs from the Bank of England which prompted us to bring forward our forecast of when monetary policy will be tightened means the economic backdrop is a bit less conducive …
9th August 2021
Our forecasts that the Bank of England won’t tighten monetary policy until much later than the markets expect and that when it does it will unwind some quantitative easing (QE) first (perhaps in 2024) before raising interest rates (perhaps in 2025) is …
24th May 2021
Overview – The easing of restrictions is good news for the economy, but some commercial property sectors will be slower to benefit than others. Encouragingly, the property downturn was not as bad as we anticipated and the data for Q1 suggest that we may …
21st May 2021
Overview – Effective vaccines provide a path out of the COVID-19 economic slump, but commercial property will be slow to benefit. On the bright side, the real estate downturn has been milder than expected and we appear to be past the worst. But we think …
19th February 2021
UK assets are well placed to shake off their underperformance since the 2016 Brexit vote by outperforming global assets over the next couple of years. All risky assets will continue to be buoyed by the combination of a rapid global economic recovery from …
15th February 2021
After having been hit particularly hard during the COVID-19 crisis, UK assets are well placed to perform much better now that COVID-19 vaccines are brightening the economic outlook. Indeed, the combination of a decent economic recovery and continued …
24th November 2020
Overview – The outlook for most commercial property sectors was already fragile and this has only been dampened by the second lockdown. Although transactions are set to pick up next year, we think property yields will edge higher and that all-property …
20th November 2020
As the differences between a Brexit deal and a no deal are not as big as they once were, the economic costs of a no deal have diminished. The bigger risk is that relations between the UK and the EU deteriorate to such an extent that both sides start to …
1st October 2020
Overview – The near-term outlook for most commercial property sectors is poor despite the early signs of economic recovery. Although transactions are set to pick-up post-lockdown, we think property yields will rise further as the rental outlook …
19th August 2020
UK assets may outperform overseas assets over the next year or two even though the UK’s economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis may take longer. We think that a larger expansion in the Bank of England’s quantitative easing (QE) programme than the …
13th August 2020
Overview – The coronavirus outbreak has transformed the economic outlook and is expected to hit commercial property hard. In the near term, we expect transactions, which are already slowing, to collapse and property yields to spike, as uncertainty over …
22nd May 2020
As a protracted economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis will force the Bank of England to keep interest rates close to zero and further expand its quantitative easing programme (QE), gilt yields will probably stay very low for many years. And …
14th May 2020
Overview – A subdued economic outlook and continued contraction in retail are expected to weigh on all-property rents and returns this year. In the near-term, rising property yields will be the result of the ongoing correction in the retail sector this …
20th February 2020
We think the financial markets will be caught out this year by a decent acceleration in the quarterly rate of GDP growth preventing interest rates from being cut below 0.75%. And if we are right to assume that the UK and the EU will reach a fudge or …
12th February 2020
Overview – Regardless of the outcome of the election and Brexit, we expect all-property returns to be weak over coming years. Indeed, even if a deal is secured and economic growth picks up, we expect weakness in the retail sector to weigh on all-property …
13th November 2019
As the markets have not fully priced in the Conservatives winning the general election on 12 th December and securing a Brexit deal, if that were to happen we suspect the pound would climb from $1.28 now to $1.35, 10-year gilt yields could rise from 0.76% …
Overview – Regardless of the Brexit outcome, we expect all-property returns to be squeezed as a result of weakness in the retail sector. However, as Brexit could dramatically alter the near-term outlook for the economy and UK commercial property, we are …
15th August 2019
The global shift away from risky assets and towards safer ones that seems to be underway will either be exacerbated by a no deal Brexit on 31 st October or cushioned by a deal or a delay. Although a lot of bad news has already been priced into UK gilt …
12th August 2019
