Property: UK interest ‘drying up’

Tuesday 30th September 2008, 3:00PM BST.

THE stream of UK property speculators buying up premises in Jersey has all but dried up, according to specialists.

Jon Carter, senior director at CB Richard Ellis, said in recent months there had been a noticeable tail-off in interest from the UK, although there continued to be movement in the local market.

‘From the commercial side there has not been a downside in Jersey at all,’ he said. ‘We’re seeing a lot of private wealth, people using cash, making small investment deals. But we’ve not seen the interest from the UK that was there before.’

Mr Carter said that whereas a typical institutional investor from the UK or from Ireland would be looking for properties of £10 million or above, the local market ranged from half a million pounds to around £7 million. He said the reluctance on the part of UK investors undoubtedly stemmed from the current financial downturn, which had sent UK property prices on a downward spiral.

• Picture: Jon Carter, Mark McNicholas and Peter Damesick Picture by David Ferguson (00591046)

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Phil

September 30, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Property prices are bound to start to fall now – and the fall here will probably be faster than the UK as we have no safety cushion due to our heavy reliance on the Financial Services Industries.

Employees in the Financial sector are now having to face up to lower or no bonus payments, financial transactions will diminish in the legal sector and trust transactional charging models will become highly challenged as a result of client portfolio losses and a desire to guard cash.

Expect at least a 25 – 35% downwards correction, perhaps even more if local employment levels are also threatened through enforced “on-shore” consolidation, UK cost reduction activities, and potential knee jerk regulation that could impact here (Granite).

These actions are completely outside local control and would only increase rapid downward price pressure, and with the high salaries gone, who could actually pay the current inflated house prices anyway?

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