Property Watch - Our New Monthly Industry Roundup

We know our readers want to know all about **how the property market’s performing**. In our market insight blogs we give you all the **cold hard data**, and we want to paint a more optimistic picture of property than the negativity in the news. That’s why we’re launching our monthly ‘property watch’ blog - a roundup of recent success stories in the UK property market. ###Residential property As we’ve said before, PBSA and other forms of student property are doing extraordinarily well, with industry woes such as consumer confidence and Brexit barely *touching* the market, let alone troubling it. With the news that international students will soon be allowed to stay in the UK up to 2 years after they’ve completed their qualification, there will undoubtedly be increased demand in this sector, and there’s been some other exciting news: - Firstly, that the highly successful American property investment, management and development firm CA ventures is **entering the UK PBSA market**. This will be supported by the **£64 million loan** which will be Investec's **biggest ever** towards student accommodation. Even more interestingly, these developments are placed in the thriving Scottish and Northern markets, with beds allocated for properties in Glasgow, Edinburgh and in Sheffield in England. - A **new addition** to the PBSA market in Nottingham - a relative late bloomer for specialist student property - has also been proposed. If this new proposal gets the green light, it will offer up **180 studio flats by next year**. - Finally comes the news that Goldman Sachs plans to place the **iQ Student Accommodation company on the stock market** through an initial public offering. Even more intriguing is the fact that the company is likely to have **equity worth around £2bn**. This shows an **increasingly favourable environment for PBSA** after the London stock exchange welcomed GCP student living last year. If you’ve had any plans about moving into PBSA, then it might be best to leap into action while it’s still an incredibly hot market. ###Care and retirement property Retirement & care housing are also **incredibly resilient** areas of property - but large scale change has seemingly come to the sector all too slowly & usually in **select locations** . That could be **set to change** with the new joint venture that the Audley Group, the property arm of Schroders and Octopus real estate have developed to finance new luxury retirement villages. While most of these ventures, including developments in Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire, are in the South East, the joint venture funding is also going towards a **development in Yorkshire**. It might not seem like much, but take a look at the map of rival property developer Retirement Villages, and you’ll see why it’s a step in the right direction. Developers are finally waking up to the potential in the North - and we’re betting it’s not the last you’ll hear of retirement properties being developed outside the usual regions. In a similarly regional move, Puma Property finance has now granted £9 million of funding towards a care home **development in Manchester**. Puma is using the move to strengthen its position in the health and care property sectors, at a time when many other property investors are debating whether to inject these properties into their portfolios. This is a good strategic move, with Knight Frank having reported that an impressive **£1.49bn was invested** in UK healthcare property last year alone. We predict that when figures for this year are released, they’ll show a similar picture. Healthcare property will always be in big demand, and with an ageing population, smart investors are acting now to reap the rewards. ###Innovation Years after the financial sector developed means of shariah compliant trade, the property industry is now beginning to follow suit. **Offa is the first shariah compliant bridging lender in the UK**, with policies of lending up to 75% ftv for residential bridging, and 65% ftv for commercial bridging. They’ll also offer their introducers a 2% procuration fee. Offa say that they are catering to an untapped market and expect to see more Muslims entering the property investment industry. In **Proptech, office leasing platform Kitt has received £2m in seed investment**. The platform looks to transform the office rental industry for both tenants and landlords alike. The platform offers face ID entry into office buildings for extra security, on top of a full building management app which can help tenants transform small units into well managed and designed spaces, through their VR visualisation techniques. ###The top of the crop And finally, our favourite success story this time round is that Barrat homes has announced a record £910 million of profit. With some housebuilders faring badly on the stock market recently, this is a pleasant surprise that almost no one was expecting. We’re delighted to hear that talented house builders can still #getbritainbuilding, whatever the conditions of the market. For more market insights, follow the JaeVee blog.