Built on sand?

Commercial property is screaming "buy" to some investors, but those looking for a property fund would be wise to look carefully

Napoleon was right – we are a nation of shopkeepers, but we are also a nation of home-owners and, more than anywhere else in the world, the British love property. But this love affair has been tested over the last couple of years as commercial property investors discovered the truth in the old adage “everything correlates to one in a crisis”. The credit crunch destroyed liquidity and with it the prices of properties in the UK commercial sector. Between July 2007 and July 2009 the value of UK property declined by 42.4% (source: Jones Lang LaSalle UK Property Capital Return index). This co...