More and more real estate funds are reporting on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in their annual reports, because investors consider the non-financial performance of these funds to be important. To map this development, BDO has analysed the ESG reporting by listed real estate companies in their FY2022 annual reports. The analysis shows that […]
Recent European valuations data from MSCI for Q2 confirmed that capital values are still falling, but at a slower pace than they were last winter. This raises the question as to whether we have reached a turning point in this downturn. Our view is that European commercial real estate (CRE) is not out of the woods yet, despite things […]
I enjoy reading good journalism, whether it chimes with my political view or not. Sometimes, however, I wonder whether I am reading something which is deliberately misleading – “we send the EU £350 million a week – let’s fund our NHS instead” – or just plain ignorant. Like many others, I also worry about irrational […]
The Bank of England (BoE) has been strongly criticised for failing to predict the surge in inflation. Had it done so, it could have reacted more quickly and prevented inflation from rising as high as 11% in autumn 2022. The bank acknowledges this failing and has asked former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to lead a review of its forecasting models […]
Summary of Yolande Barnes’s contribution to “Where Next for House Prices” (with some additions) at FT Weekend Festival, 2 September 2023. Where will house prices be this time next year? I think it’s inflation that’s going to strip out the value of housing over the next year by about 5%, and indeed, it already has […]
“Class is the basis of British politics; all else is embellishment and detail.” So wrote Peter Pulzer, the former Gladstone professor of politics at the University of Oxford in the 1960s. Nowadays, however, it is age, not social class, that is the biggest demographic division in Britain’s electoral politics. According to the British Election Study, at the […]
Gavin Williamson once said that Russia should ‘shut up’ and ‘go away’. I must confess to feeling a similar sentiment whenever Liz Truss tries to re-enter public life. Yesterday, our former Prime Minister and future pub quiz question answer made a speech to the Institute for Government. One year on from her premiership, Truss sought to defend […]
The property media grows in reach and influence as time ticks by. Headlines would have you believe that crashes are coming but at the same time housing is more and more unaffordable. In reality with recent wage inflation at 8.2% and CPI at least on its way down under 7% – the peak has happened […]
This article was originally published August 2023. The coronavirus pandemic inevitably prompts thoughts of previous pandemics that have afflicted this country. In terms of the proportion of the population that died, and its social, economic, and psychological impact, the most devastating of these was undoubtedly the Black Death of 1348–9. Known to contemporaries as the […]
Our planet has just seen its hottest month on record, with many places on fire or flooded. Few events can be directly attributed to climate change, but the likelihood of extreme weather keeps increasing – and people are noticing. However, not everyone notices or feels this threat to the same extent. Our new research shows there is a contrast in how […]
