2019 Review

First things first we were harsh on London. In our 2019 report, we reported London would fall. Now whilst we were correct that it fell, it didn’t fall as much as expected. We predicted a 3% fall and overall there was a 0.5% reported fall year on year to November.

For our two main markets, Manchester and Liverpool we predicted 4% and a 5% rise respectively. We feel proud that we were pretty much spot on with Manchester rising just over the 4.5% mark and Liverpool we were slightly overzealous as it was closer to the 4% mark.

However, all in all we were pretty close.

So again we look to do the same this year.

2020 Predictions

Now to the 2020 predictions starting with…

London

A lot of London depends on the overseas market which in turn depends on the exchange rate.

We feel that the pound will get stronger this year especially in light of the fact Brexit is taking place and a decision has been made. Due to this, we feel that overseas clients will rush to get investments done the first half of the year and this will tail off towards the second half.

Overall we predict a 1.5% rise in London property prices, however, what we do see are bargains to be had. We feel that with a number of the developers they have purchased land a number of years ago when London was booming and now that there has been a slowdown they will need to shift their units and move onto the next scheme. This, in turn, can create opportunities for investors which we will be keeping an eye out for.

Manchester

Again we feel it will be another bumper year for the North. This is for two reasons. The first is that the main reason the Conservative party won the general election is due to the fact they won in areas they would not typically win. Many of these were in the North and the Prime Minister has promised to repay them by boosting their economy which is going to basically mean an injection of funds.

The second reason is that I feel HS2 will be scrapped if the figure report is true. The cost has gone from £40bn to £106bn. There really can’t be a case for spending £106bn on a scheme which is delayed and by the time it is built will be 40 years behind the Japanese bullet train. It really is becoming a waste of public funds so again there is going to be a lot of money spare that was originally set aside for this.

If HS2 gets scrapped then again more money will head up to these cities thus boosting the economy, money in people’s pockets and make rents and property more easy to afford thus more house building will take place and so the cycle continues.

We feel that Manchester will again have a growth rate of between 4-5%.

Liverpool

As with Manchester, we feel that money will be sent to the region. However, we feel that Liverpool could have its own little surge.

Liverpool has dramatically changed over the years and to call it as it is the difficulty about finding a good development in Liverpool is finding a developer you can rely on. Many developments have slowed and this has put pressure on the city centre apartment whilst we are seeing no let up in rental demand.

Due to this, we feel that Liverpool can increase over the 5% mark this year and could be THE place to invest.