Brexit uncertainty, higher taxation, and stricter lending criteria are the biggest challenges the property market is currently facing.
That’s according to a national survey of investors, landlords, owner-occupiers, and insolvency practitioners conducted by John Pye Property.
In it, 38% of respondents identified the uncertainty around how Brexit will impact the property market as one of the biggest challenges to be overcome by the property industry.
This echoes the sentiments of other major players in the industry including Winkworth estate agents and Landsec, as we reported recently.
As well as Brexit, 24% of the respondents to the John Pye survey highlighted higher taxation an issue, with 17% claiming stricter lending criteria was likely to subdue demand for property.
Richard Reed, head of the property division at John Pye said “Our survey is a useful way of engaging with existing and new clients and determining what they’re looking for.
“Some of the results weren’t surprising as Brexit uncertainty remains a challenge for many and investors are choosing to diversify their portfolio as a result of taxation changes. We were interested to gather insight on investor behaviour and increasing confidence in the regional markets.”
Despite the headline stats that indicate the challenges ahead, it should be noted that the survey also discovered that a large proportion of respondents had a positive outlook for the future of the property market.
In fact, some 44% felt that more property is being sold now than five years ago, and, 56% felt that regional markets were experiencing growth.
The overall feeling from those that took part in the survey was also that there were more opportunities available to investors than five years ago.
As a response to the current market conditions, 82% of respondents felt that investors were increasingly diversifying their portfolios.
This could be a sure sign that in the face of challenges such as Brexit, investors are responding by buying more property in order to spread their risk, rather than reducing their exposure.
