By: Carolyn Cohn
LONDON: British commercial property capital values fell 2.4 percent in 2016, hurt by changes to stamp duty tax and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, real estate firm CBRE said on Tuesday.
Retail property capital values saw the largest fall, declining 5 % from a year earlier, while offices dropped 2.5 %, CBRE said in a statement. Industrial property capital values rose 1.5 percent compared with 2015.
Capital value refers to the probable price that would have been paid for a property at the date of valuation.
Rental values rose 1.7 percent on the year but remain below pre-Brexit vote levels, CBRE said. The annual total return for UK commercial property investment was 2.7 percent.
Capital values rose 0.6 percent in December from the previous month, while rental values gained 0.2 percent.
“The traditional end-of-year surge in property markets delivered some good news in monthly valuations… in contrast to the somewhat unstable summer and early autumn,” Miles Gibson, head of research at CBRE UK said.
“For occupiers across all sectors, 2017 will not be without its challenges.” (Editing by Simon Jessop)
Source: Reuters