Commercial property people

I don’t know if it’s just me (I’ve been locked in meetings for much of the week and so may have missed some stories – I’m only human) but it seems to me that there have been fewer big property stories this week than normal.  The Dubai debt situation has been well documented elsewhere, so I don’t intend to repeat it here.

Anyway here goes with my completely personal roundup of the 5 stories in commercial property & construction that particularly caught my attention this week.

Schroders predict recovery a bit “V” a bit “W”

Schroders Property has predicted a double dip for UK commercial property in 2011 after double-digit growth next year. At the Schroders Property Media Roundtable briefing this week the fund manager forecast a spike in total returns of 18% in 2010 followed by a decline in 2011 of -2%.  William Hill, head of property atSchroders , said the recovery will be volatile and would be “a bit of V and a bit of W”. “A change in the flow of capital will take the market up and down but there is no way we will return to 61 quarters of successive growth” said Hill  (that’s probably no surprise).  He said the current momentum in the market will drive up prices and a combination of factors — including the UK’s slow economic recovery, the volume of debt that needs refinancing and the likelihood of distressed sales by banks — will result in a correction.

Conservatives and planning for major instrastructure projects

The Conservative Party has expanded on how it would speed up the planning process and work its pledge to abolish the newly introduced Infrastructure and Planning Committee (IPC).  Speaking in advance of the publication of the party’s Green Paper on planning to the Bow Group last night, Shadow Local Government Minister, Bob Neill, said that a Conservative government would turn round the “glacially slow” pace of planning decisions and return the decision making process to the local communities. Branding IPC as “an affront to democracy” and the IPC Commissioners as “unaccountable quangocrats”, Neill repeated his pledge that the Conservatives would abolish IPC and return the function to the planning inspectorate.  Under his plans, the Secretary of State would then have the final sign off, and would be subject to a statutory time limit to come to their decision in order to ensure they did not drag on.

Low carbon 2012 Olympics?

The commitment that London 2012 would be a low carbon games  is proving tricky to honour. According to a report to be published this week by the Olympic Delivery Authority, the games will produce about 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide — better, it will claim, than the 3.4m tonnes that would have been produced without the measures taken to cut emissions. Almost all the carbon dioxide, the authority says, will come from the construction of the games’ facilities. To put that into proportion, the UK produced 550m tonnes of carbon dioxide last year.

CBRE: Prime retail rents stabilise

Prime retail rents have begun to stabilise in many markets across the world in the third quarter of 2009, according to CB Richard Ellis.  CBRE’s latest Global MarketView shows economic and retail indicators have started to show signs of greater stability and retailer confidence.  Retail rents globally fell by an average of 1% from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2009.  New York’s reign as the world’s most expensive retail market continued in the third quarter despite a 25% rental decline over the past 12 months.

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