Savills chose the longest day of the year to launch its latest research in Nottingham at last night's Summer Solstice themed event.
The potential rewards of investing in commercial, residential and rural property were brought under the spotlight as the Savills team, comprising Steven Lang, Yolande Barnes and Ian Bailey presented their analysis of the property market.
According to commercial research analyst Steven Lang, recovery in commercial property will continue to be slow and the aim of the market should be capitalising on slow growth over no growth. He identified the office sector as one performing particularly well in Nottingham and pointed out that investment in prime properties remains supportable and popular as yields continue to remain low.
With total office stock estimated to be around 7.9m sq ft, Nottingham is ranked as the 14th largest office centre out of 60 outside Greater London (source: PMA). The city centre has around 1.1m sq ft of office space available, however much of this is second hand, grade B space. Smaller suites of sub 10,000 sq ft dominate. There is very little grade A space available, accounting for approximately 12% of total supply.
Meanwhile, in the residential sector, equity has become the most dominant source of funding for house purchases, says residential research director Barnes. House price trends were also examined and in the East Midlands, growth in 2011 was at -1.5%, however Savills research predicts growth of 9.2% in the region over the next five years.
Ian Bailey, head of rural research then discussed the rise of farmland values over the past decade and the fact that farm land as an investment continues to outperform gold. He also explained how the UK and East Midlands farmland markets are diverse and how demand for large commercial arable farms is creating a wide range of values and growth rates across the region.
Picture via Flickr.com courtesy of bandarji
