Income over growth

Steady capital growth in the commercial property market may be on hold until 2010, but there are still many interesting investment opportunities to be had in the next six to 12 months

For investors in commercial property, 2008 has been a very difficult year. As the dramatic events in the financial markets unfolded, most investors avoided the asset class amid falling capital values, negative sentiment and a lack of available and affordable credit. Although a correction in the real estate market was long overdue (and forecast), the speed of the decline has been surprising nonetheless. To put this in context though, since the start of 2008 total returns from the UK commercial property market have been -12.4%, compared with 2.7% from the UK bond market and -31.3% from UK equ...