As the wartime poster said – Keep Calm and Carry On
With uncertainty the main result from yesterday’s General Election, some City analysts are warning Building that a hung parliament implies that recovery in the construction sector will be delayed.
However, Paul Griffiths, head of investment at BNP Paribas Real Estate, has told Property Week that people are still buying commercial property regardless of the election outcome, and that the main issue is “getting new developments financed so that we can start building again”. He says the investment market has been driven by cash buyers and institutions and it is important that the banks “look at financing projects quickly”.
“It remains to be seen whether a coalition government will have an agreed policy to incentivise banks to lend again,” he notes.
The weak pound and current low interest rates have in recent months boosted the attractiveness of the UK commercial property market to international investors, and this remains the case today, with sterling coming under renewed pressure overnight in anticipation of a hung parliament.
Financial markets were already weaker – sharply so, in some cases – as voters went to the polls, as worries about the Greek economic crisis intensify and fears grow about contagion spreading elsewhere in the eurozone and possibly also affecting the UK.
But while political leaders attempt to sort out the future shape of the UK government, the FT’s Lex column has comforted readers this morning with its opinion that there is no need to panic, not yet at least: “Britain is not Greece”.
