Political risk factors have put the UK property market on pause, especially in London – but there are rewards to be had

Political risk factors have put the UK property market on pause, especially in London – but there are rewards to be had 

Spring shoots… signs of life… optimism in the air – these are the phrases we are hearing in estate agents’ market commentaries lately, but they’re about as far from the truth as the Brexit bus slogan or a Trump tweet. Whatever these realtors might say smiling sincerely, the market is grim for them, just as it is for any business dependent on transactions. It’s not moribund: deals are being done, particularly at the very top end, but they are thin on the ground and the wider property ecosystem that depends on them is feeling the pinch – removal companies, builders, decorators, furniture retailers, lawyers, surveyors, and the list goes on. Stamp duty has been part of the problem, but now it’s also Brexit – or more accurately the election that may accompany it. And even more precisely, the possibility of a hard-left government. 

Really it’s London I’m talking about – the country is different. It’s a reversal of the market that we saw from 2008 onwards, when London price rises were nearly doubling the country equivalent, which until then had matched them since the early 1980s. It became a self-feeding loop as buyers put off a move to the country, frightened they would never be able to return to the capital.