Whatever might be said about the planning system and property developers, someone has been doing something right
This summer my holidays included a commitment to visit parts of Ireland I had missed in my youth. Apart from filling in gaps of my knowledge of the country, what struck me most forcefully was the growth, prosperity and quality of the towns and villages I passed through. True, it was summer, with trimmed grass and flowers, but our provincial towns and villages have moved from being the poor relation of western Europe to being up there with the best.
There are some awful cases of design and ribbon development (east Galway) and there is the occasional ghost estate but, whatever might be said about the planning system and about developers, somebody has been doing something mostly right; indeed an awful lot of right things have been done. My wife commented on how vibrant and busy rural Ireland was and contrasted it to rural France. We toured the Cognac region some years ago and saw many boarded-up villages and derelict houses.
Back in the office I decided to look at the statistics to see if the growth I saw on my travels was real or imaginary. It was real: the non-Dublin population grew by 16%, or 357,000 people, from 1996 to 2006.
I shudder to think what that growth might have looked like if planning had been based on a laissez-faire arrangement, as in parts of the USA. It would have been ribbon development everywhere, garish advertising hoardings, few of the new bypasses that speed up journey time and, of course huge amounts of pollution, not to mention the visual impact of self-designed houses. Bad and all as planning might be, non-planning would be much worse.
So we have been doing something nearly right, but not perfectly. The 2010 Planning Act will make some improvement by bolting on an "evidence-based system" dimension to the present system, but it will not eliminate the oversupply/ undersupply issue. This is because the planning system was designed fundamentally to control and direct development, not manage its execution. Under our system, initiating development is left to the market, with some small exceptions. Building and selling is left to developers who seek to make a profit by buying land and constructing buildings – and getting their timing right and taking associated risks.
The planning system is not a land management system. The planning authorities could acquire land, zone it, plan it, service it and then pass it on to builders. Such systems exist in other countries such as Holland and Finland. The planning authorities have the power to do this but they don't, for a variety of reasons not least funding. It would also require a new mindset among the planning authorities (and their political masters) whereby they would identify demand five to 10 years before it arose.
In theory it could work. Each planning authority would become the equivalent of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority or Ballymun Regeneration. In addition to its development plan, each would prepare its land acquisition plan. This would be linked to an infrastructure plan which would be linked to a funding plan which in turn would be linked to an environmental plan. Of course all would be driven by the national spatial strategy and transportation plan – green, of course. It could work like oiled clockwork.
Would it be doable? The answer is 'yes but' and the 'but' is that this is Ireland, with a public administration system designed to manage each council area in accordance with the will of the people via their elected councillors, and a funding system run by the department of finance. This system has lots of political agendas with a scarcity of money and of professionals who understand the property market and can think like developers, not civil servants.
But stand back and imagine what would have happened if we had had such a system between 1996 and 2007? Would such a system have reacted to the sudden property needs of the economy to meet a 10% annual growth in economic activity and more or less satisfied that need? Or would the economic tiger have been stillborn because the plans for new offices, factories and houses were stuck in the department of finance or local government awaiting clearance from a minister, like the Poolbeg incinerator and all the new schools that the department of education was supposed to have built this year?
In reality, if we had such a system, the Celtic Tiger would never have happened. The economic growth of that time needed new buildings fast. Foreign direct investment went mainly into speculative buildings. The Googles and Microsofts and the international banks are nearly all in speculative buildings, along with the supply of housing stock for their workers. Without those new buildings that investment would have gone to another country, one that did not tie its property industry up in red tape and prevent it reacting quickly to market demand. Had we had a land management system focused on supply management by local authorities – the only way to stop the over-building that produced the ghost estates – then we would probably not have had a Celtic Tiger. Take your choice: Celtic Tiger or occasional conspicuous oversupply?
So we have a planning system that fundamentally works but has made mistakes and can only indirectly control supply of new buildings. The primary tool available to planners for managing demand is zoning in the development plan, which is a political function. The second tool is the granting or refusal of planning permission. But if a planning authority refuses permission on land that is zoned and serviced on the grounds that the building may not be needed, they risk a big claim for compensation.
The key tool of land zoning as a means of controlling supply continues to be debased by local political interests. To them, the next local election is more important than the risk of a ghost estate. The new act seeks to rebalance the influence of politicians but not remove it.
So we have a choice: accept and try to improve a human and democratic system that more or less works, or move to a land management system which will almost certainly not work in this country.
Could we please escalate the debate about overbuilding to look at the fundamentals of our system (most of which are good) and stop blaming planners for mistakes made by their political masters by overzoning in the wrong places?
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
When will market go back to normal?
Nama has probably already put a floor to the market prices for commercial property
THE ARRIVAL of autumn and the approaching first anniversary of Nama has forced me to change my focus from thinking about the present state of the Irish property market to try and picture what the property market will look like when “normality” returns. What will be the route from here to there?
Normality will be a marketplace where houses, offices and shops let and sell in volume and at prices which no one gets excited about and everyone takes for granted. It will be like the mid-1990s, where deals were being done, but took a little time and effort, and rents and prices were stable, only rising gently with inflation (low). Credit was available, but limited.
It will take time to get there but when this new normality arrives, estate agents will be doing their thing, valuers will be confident of their pricing and bankers will again rely on property as good security for their loans.
Development projects will have started again but only on schemes that are clearly viable and based on current prices and letting levels – no more blue-sky schemes supported by blue-sky prices and bankers.
This normal property market will be a dull place – a dull place that true property professionals feel comfortable to operate in, collecting rents, arranging viewings, organising contracts. No Get-Rich-Quick-Harrys relying on yield compression and ever-rising prices to justify their existence and scoffing at the old hands. Property will not be the subject of chat in the pub or the taxi.
Three things are stopping us getting to this new marketplace. Firstly, we have a semi-dead economy with little new demand for our big stock of vacant buildings. Secondly, there is little or no credit available to enable transactions to happen. No bridging loans, no mortgage loans for housing. Thirdly, confidence is missing. Everyone is afraid of paying too much, of grabbing a falling knife.
All of these contributed to the downward spiral which was acute during 2009 but eased off in the early part of this year. The graph will flatten out and reach a bottom – that bottom will be in different places in different markets and locations.
But the bottom will arrive and it will arrive quietly – it may have arrived in some places.
We will know the bottom has arrived firstly when vendors refuse to sell (or let) at prices that are patently silly and secondly when buyers with funding have the confidence to sign contracts.
What is a silly price? It is hard to define what a silly price is but measures of prices will include replacement cost and recent lettings or sales (however limited), the availability of some credit and/or equity buyers, and also the gut feeling of grey-haired property professionals. But vendors need really to be able to say no to silly offers and not have bankers or other creditors forcing them to accept that price.
There must be some sort of realisation across the board by bankers and receivers/creditors that it is better to hold on to the asset and wait than sell at that “silly” price.
The most important participant in the Irish market is Nama. It has acquired or is acquiring all its assets based on property valuation levels set as of last November. In recognition of the fact that valuation levels at that date were significantly depressed (being about half what they were at the top of the boom),
Nama are paying a small mark-up, averaging about 10 per cent, known as long term economic value.
It is highly unlikely that Nama will sell assets at below its buy-in price and this, in my view, gives us a major yardstick as to what is a possible floor to the market and an indication of what is or is not a silly price. This is not public knowledge but it is not hard to make an educated guess.
Nama is now working through the business plans for its clients and these will provide for sales of the underlying property asset over a period of years. It is highly unlikely that Nama will approve any disposals in these business plans at prices below its buy-in price plus long-term economic value margin.
So Nama in practical terms has probably already put a floor to the market prices for commercial assets. We may be at the floor for Nama-type properties. The same cannot be said for the residential market where prices continue to sag as it is a totally fragmented market with no key player. I will come back to the residential market later.
Two things could upset the floor set by Nama in its marketplace, which is mainly the commercial market: first, disposals by non-Nama banks and their receivers could force down values below those of last November; second, if Nama does not have the patience or the capacity to delay disposals by its clients until the market can absorb those sales at their buy-in prices.
This will be a hard one to call for the Nama board who will want to start getting money back asap. On the other hand, its annual cost of funds is low and the ECB is patient.
With this unofficial floor to the market set by Nama, is now a good time to buy?
With a yield spectrum of 7 per cent-plus on quality Dublin city buildings and reflecting rents that are below replacement cost, I think there is now good value out there for long-term commercial investors.
Putting my money where my mouth is I have personally transferred a chunk of my (depleted) pension fund into quality Irish property both directly by participating in the purchasing of an individual office building and indirectly by acquiring units in unit- linked property funds.
I am advising my risk-tolerant clients to follow suit and some of them are acting on that advice. There is a risk that we may not be quite at the bottom but history shows it is impossible to get timing perfect and one has to take a view. If there is a fall ahead it will not be a big fall and I am quite happy to take that chance with quality Dublin property as time will undoubtedly cure any premature acquisitions.
Turning to the residential market the big issue is that no one is setting any kind of floor – there is no Nama effect. The determination of what is a “silly” price is left to the individual. If he or she wants to sell simply for personal convenience then they may choose to postpone that sale.
But in some cases they may not have any choice but to sell so as to meet other liabilities. Again, if it is a family home there may be some protection but if it is a second home or a holiday home it is likely to be a forced sale with a ripple effect on the rest of the local market.
I would personally be a slow buyer in the residential market unless I was very focused on a particular market segment and could identify value there. The Government should do something to assist confidence in the residential sector such as putting a temporary moratorium on stamp duty to reduce the huge transactional costs associated and encourage individuals to trade up or down. The revenue lost would be small in relation to the positive impact of getting the market moving and the flow through to the overall economy
THE ARRIVAL of autumn and the approaching first anniversary of Nama has forced me to change my focus from thinking about the present state of the Irish property market to try and picture what the property market will look like when “normality” returns. What will be the route from here to there?
Normality will be a marketplace where houses, offices and shops let and sell in volume and at prices which no one gets excited about and everyone takes for granted. It will be like the mid-1990s, where deals were being done, but took a little time and effort, and rents and prices were stable, only rising gently with inflation (low). Credit was available, but limited.
It will take time to get there but when this new normality arrives, estate agents will be doing their thing, valuers will be confident of their pricing and bankers will again rely on property as good security for their loans.
Development projects will have started again but only on schemes that are clearly viable and based on current prices and letting levels – no more blue-sky schemes supported by blue-sky prices and bankers.
This normal property market will be a dull place – a dull place that true property professionals feel comfortable to operate in, collecting rents, arranging viewings, organising contracts. No Get-Rich-Quick-Harrys relying on yield compression and ever-rising prices to justify their existence and scoffing at the old hands. Property will not be the subject of chat in the pub or the taxi.
Three things are stopping us getting to this new marketplace. Firstly, we have a semi-dead economy with little new demand for our big stock of vacant buildings. Secondly, there is little or no credit available to enable transactions to happen. No bridging loans, no mortgage loans for housing. Thirdly, confidence is missing. Everyone is afraid of paying too much, of grabbing a falling knife.
All of these contributed to the downward spiral which was acute during 2009 but eased off in the early part of this year. The graph will flatten out and reach a bottom – that bottom will be in different places in different markets and locations.
But the bottom will arrive and it will arrive quietly – it may have arrived in some places.
We will know the bottom has arrived firstly when vendors refuse to sell (or let) at prices that are patently silly and secondly when buyers with funding have the confidence to sign contracts.
What is a silly price? It is hard to define what a silly price is but measures of prices will include replacement cost and recent lettings or sales (however limited), the availability of some credit and/or equity buyers, and also the gut feeling of grey-haired property professionals. But vendors need really to be able to say no to silly offers and not have bankers or other creditors forcing them to accept that price.
There must be some sort of realisation across the board by bankers and receivers/creditors that it is better to hold on to the asset and wait than sell at that “silly” price.
The most important participant in the Irish market is Nama. It has acquired or is acquiring all its assets based on property valuation levels set as of last November. In recognition of the fact that valuation levels at that date were significantly depressed (being about half what they were at the top of the boom),
Nama are paying a small mark-up, averaging about 10 per cent, known as long term economic value.
It is highly unlikely that Nama will sell assets at below its buy-in price and this, in my view, gives us a major yardstick as to what is a possible floor to the market and an indication of what is or is not a silly price. This is not public knowledge but it is not hard to make an educated guess.
Nama is now working through the business plans for its clients and these will provide for sales of the underlying property asset over a period of years. It is highly unlikely that Nama will approve any disposals in these business plans at prices below its buy-in price plus long-term economic value margin.
So Nama in practical terms has probably already put a floor to the market prices for commercial assets. We may be at the floor for Nama-type properties. The same cannot be said for the residential market where prices continue to sag as it is a totally fragmented market with no key player. I will come back to the residential market later.
Two things could upset the floor set by Nama in its marketplace, which is mainly the commercial market: first, disposals by non-Nama banks and their receivers could force down values below those of last November; second, if Nama does not have the patience or the capacity to delay disposals by its clients until the market can absorb those sales at their buy-in prices.
This will be a hard one to call for the Nama board who will want to start getting money back asap. On the other hand, its annual cost of funds is low and the ECB is patient.
With this unofficial floor to the market set by Nama, is now a good time to buy?
With a yield spectrum of 7 per cent-plus on quality Dublin city buildings and reflecting rents that are below replacement cost, I think there is now good value out there for long-term commercial investors.
Putting my money where my mouth is I have personally transferred a chunk of my (depleted) pension fund into quality Irish property both directly by participating in the purchasing of an individual office building and indirectly by acquiring units in unit- linked property funds.
I am advising my risk-tolerant clients to follow suit and some of them are acting on that advice. There is a risk that we may not be quite at the bottom but history shows it is impossible to get timing perfect and one has to take a view. If there is a fall ahead it will not be a big fall and I am quite happy to take that chance with quality Dublin property as time will undoubtedly cure any premature acquisitions.
Turning to the residential market the big issue is that no one is setting any kind of floor – there is no Nama effect. The determination of what is a “silly” price is left to the individual. If he or she wants to sell simply for personal convenience then they may choose to postpone that sale.
But in some cases they may not have any choice but to sell so as to meet other liabilities. Again, if it is a family home there may be some protection but if it is a second home or a holiday home it is likely to be a forced sale with a ripple effect on the rest of the local market.
I would personally be a slow buyer in the residential market unless I was very focused on a particular market segment and could identify value there. The Government should do something to assist confidence in the residential sector such as putting a temporary moratorium on stamp duty to reduce the huge transactional costs associated and encourage individuals to trade up or down. The revenue lost would be small in relation to the positive impact of getting the market moving and the flow through to the overall economy
Monday, June 21, 2010
It's easy to find the price of everything except property
We urgently need a property price database so buyers and sellers don't have to rely on biased figures supplied by vested interests
If you want to find the price of an air ticket to Timbuktu or anywhere else in the world all you have to do is to Google it and hey presto, you have at least five or six competitive prices. However, if you want to find the sale price of a house in your street last month or last year, it is virtually impossible to get accurate information.
The best you can do is look up Daft.ie or similar websites for current properties for sale or to ask a local auctioneer for a valuation.
The media used to publish auction results and get details of deals from estate agents but this has effectively stopped due to the Data Protection Act, the theory being that the detail of a deal between two parties is private and can only be released with their permission. The result is that we have a very imperfect method of accurately knowing actual transaction prices.
Asking prices are no substitute for knowing what the deal was signed at, particularly in a falling market.
Thus, in Ireland we have full information for the most mundane of transactions such as booking air travel, selecting a restaurant or buying a car but for really serious transactions like buying a house, a farm or a business premises, we have to rely on biased information provided by estate agents acting for vendors or pay for a valuation. Very anti-consumer!
This is in marked contrast to other countries. In the UK, by simply going to the Land Registry website and typing in an address, you can ascertain the sale price of all transactions in that location over the past 10 years. Not only will you have prices but also the size of the unit, number of bedrooms, whether it is terraced or detached and also what properties are for sale in the location and their asking price.
This is information to kill for if you are thinking of buying a house or indeed selling one. It is putting really powerful information into the hands of the consumer.
In the UK, the Land Registration does this by gathering data on individual property sales through questions on house sizes, number of bedrooms and type of premises etc.
In the US, the system is older and not as detailed as in the UK but again the information on all property transactions is available to the public.
So ingrained is the availability of information on transactions in the US system that the valuation profession there operates not by giving a simple personal opinion or market value, as in Ireland, but by listing and then analysing all the recent transactions and then giving a reasoned opinion about the value of a particular property based on this public information. If you were buying a car, or even having a house built, you would get this kind of information but it is simply not available here for the biggest purchase most people make in their lives.
It is not as if the information on transaction prices does not exist in Ireland. Indeed, it has been a legal requirement that the sale price of all property transactions is made available not only to the Revenue but also to the Valuation Office whenever a transaction takes place. The Revenue needs the information for stamp duty and other taxation purposes and the theory is that the Valuation Office requires the information so that it can keep rating valuations up to date – that was the concept anyway back in 1837 when the obligation to give the price originated. One suspects that the Valuation Office information goes into a big box and nothing is done with it. It would be an easy thing to put it on a database and make it accessible through the web.
There are about 500,000 property transactions every year, which could be used to create a most useful database not only for the average punter wanting to buy or sell a house but also for urban planners and population and economic analysis.
It seems crazy that in 2010 we are relying on information for new house completions from the ESB's meter connections. It is equally crazy to be dependant on mortgage firms such as Permanent TSB to know the trend in house prices.
We should know the facts – not shadowy trends which are way out of date and which ignore a significant number of deals not involving mortgages.
The task of compiling a property database should be specifically given by statute to the Land Registry.
The Land Registry has been making huge strides in improving its services. It now has a most impressive data-management system and its services to the legal and allied professions are becoming world-class. It could quite easily extend its services, if it was so empowered, to make the same information public as is available from the UK Land Registry.
The failure to match international standards on property information is blamed on the data commissioner and the provisions of the Data Protection Act. This is just not good enough. This is a system failure of government.
The Data Protection Act was enacted in Ireland as a result of and based on an EU directive. So how come the UK and other European countries which operate under the same EU directive can publish such information?
Either our act goes further than it needs to and should urgently be amended or the data commissioner needs to look at the real world. We need to grasp this nettle and accept that such information be made available in the public interest.
If we aspire to be a world-class economy we need world-class information and a good place to start is with our information on property transactions. Small-minded privacy for no obvious benefit versus public interest?
If you want to find the price of an air ticket to Timbuktu or anywhere else in the world all you have to do is to Google it and hey presto, you have at least five or six competitive prices. However, if you want to find the sale price of a house in your street last month or last year, it is virtually impossible to get accurate information.
The best you can do is look up Daft.ie or similar websites for current properties for sale or to ask a local auctioneer for a valuation.
The media used to publish auction results and get details of deals from estate agents but this has effectively stopped due to the Data Protection Act, the theory being that the detail of a deal between two parties is private and can only be released with their permission. The result is that we have a very imperfect method of accurately knowing actual transaction prices.
Asking prices are no substitute for knowing what the deal was signed at, particularly in a falling market.
Thus, in Ireland we have full information for the most mundane of transactions such as booking air travel, selecting a restaurant or buying a car but for really serious transactions like buying a house, a farm or a business premises, we have to rely on biased information provided by estate agents acting for vendors or pay for a valuation. Very anti-consumer!
This is in marked contrast to other countries. In the UK, by simply going to the Land Registry website and typing in an address, you can ascertain the sale price of all transactions in that location over the past 10 years. Not only will you have prices but also the size of the unit, number of bedrooms, whether it is terraced or detached and also what properties are for sale in the location and their asking price.
This is information to kill for if you are thinking of buying a house or indeed selling one. It is putting really powerful information into the hands of the consumer.
In the UK, the Land Registration does this by gathering data on individual property sales through questions on house sizes, number of bedrooms and type of premises etc.
In the US, the system is older and not as detailed as in the UK but again the information on all property transactions is available to the public.
So ingrained is the availability of information on transactions in the US system that the valuation profession there operates not by giving a simple personal opinion or market value, as in Ireland, but by listing and then analysing all the recent transactions and then giving a reasoned opinion about the value of a particular property based on this public information. If you were buying a car, or even having a house built, you would get this kind of information but it is simply not available here for the biggest purchase most people make in their lives.
It is not as if the information on transaction prices does not exist in Ireland. Indeed, it has been a legal requirement that the sale price of all property transactions is made available not only to the Revenue but also to the Valuation Office whenever a transaction takes place. The Revenue needs the information for stamp duty and other taxation purposes and the theory is that the Valuation Office requires the information so that it can keep rating valuations up to date – that was the concept anyway back in 1837 when the obligation to give the price originated. One suspects that the Valuation Office information goes into a big box and nothing is done with it. It would be an easy thing to put it on a database and make it accessible through the web.
There are about 500,000 property transactions every year, which could be used to create a most useful database not only for the average punter wanting to buy or sell a house but also for urban planners and population and economic analysis.
It seems crazy that in 2010 we are relying on information for new house completions from the ESB's meter connections. It is equally crazy to be dependant on mortgage firms such as Permanent TSB to know the trend in house prices.
We should know the facts – not shadowy trends which are way out of date and which ignore a significant number of deals not involving mortgages.
The task of compiling a property database should be specifically given by statute to the Land Registry.
The Land Registry has been making huge strides in improving its services. It now has a most impressive data-management system and its services to the legal and allied professions are becoming world-class. It could quite easily extend its services, if it was so empowered, to make the same information public as is available from the UK Land Registry.
The failure to match international standards on property information is blamed on the data commissioner and the provisions of the Data Protection Act. This is just not good enough. This is a system failure of government.
The Data Protection Act was enacted in Ireland as a result of and based on an EU directive. So how come the UK and other European countries which operate under the same EU directive can publish such information?
Either our act goes further than it needs to and should urgently be amended or the data commissioner needs to look at the real world. We need to grasp this nettle and accept that such information be made available in the public interest.
If we aspire to be a world-class economy we need world-class information and a good place to start is with our information on property transactions. Small-minded privacy for no obvious benefit versus public interest?
Timing is everything in property investment
Income production rather than capital value potential must become the focus on property investment.
RECENT STATISTICS show that the value of my house, together with most other property, is back to the value it was in 2002 which is just half its 2007 value.
The national average house price today, according to the Permanent TSB/ESRI House Price Index Q1 2010 at €204,830, shows a fall of 34 per cent from its peak value in Q4 2006 (numerically a 33.3 per cent fall equals to a 50 per cent rise).
For Dublin houses, this fall is even greater at nearly 42 per cent from their peak in 2007. Such a fall means that any capital gains made since 2002 have been completely wiped out. As a result, anyone who made a capital gain out of property over the last eight years is offset by someone who has lost an equal amount of money – a zero sum game.
For example, if I had sold my house in 2007 for nearly double the price I paid for it in 2002, I would now be able to buy it back for half that figure.
The same concept applies to all houses, offices blocks, shopping centres, etc, throughout Ireland. So, for the past 10 years property has been a rotten investment of capital and a poor producer of income. Unless, of course, you were lucky enough to buy before 2001 or sell before 2006/7.
This must question the inherent belief that “property is a good long-term investment” which seems an intrinsic part of the Irish psyche.
Have we been fooling ourselves? If we look back at the IPD and TSB statistics for the period before 2000, we can see an interesting argument to say that property might be a good long-term investment – but only if you have to get your timing right. Most investors don’t.
By looking at these statistics, we can see the importance of timing plus the role of income. Had I bought property in any of the years between 1986 and 1996, the capital value would have remained almost static up to 1996 but I would have had a high income yield of close to 7 per cent per annum.
All the focus over the period between 2000 and 2010 on capital gain misses a key factor in property investment which is the income side of the equation. When I started in the property business in the 1960s, property was then regarded as being all about income. Capital gain was only a “kicker” to compensate for inflation. Over the past decade the income side of the equation has been downplayed and regarded only as the means to pay interest on borrowing while capital values (supposedly) grew and grew.
The belief being that the leveraged equity would make millionaires out of investors. Those (few) who sold before 2007 fulfilled this dream – but left the purchaser and his bank (plus the taxpayer) with a hole in the bucket.
So property can be a good form of investment but with a key qualification – you have to get your timing right. So what about the next decade. Will we see values recover back to 2007 levels? In my view the answer is yes – eventually, but not for a very, very, long time – say 10 years give or take. The focus on property must change to its income-producing characteristics rather than its capital value potential. History and its statistics tell us why. Let me look at the period from 1996 to 2000.
In 1996 the economy was recovering from a long period of stagnation. Rents had remained almost static for over 10 years, inflation had been pushing up construction costs and it was not viable to build new commercial buildings as values were below cost.
However, new buildings were scarce and were needed to house the emerging service industry. To overcome this problem, the Government introduced double rent tax allowances for selected sites and in particular the IFSC. This effectively gave a subsidy for property development by making the space cheaper to occupy for tenants and allowing rents to rise to levels which made development projects viable. It was a good idea.
It kick-started the development industry which then flowed out beyond the selected designated sites. The economy boomed and rents doubled in that period. Prime office rent in the central business district of Dublin moved from £14 to £28 per square foot.
The interesting thing about that period is that property yields did not change significantly. The average income yield for an institutional property portfolio for that period was close to 7 per cent. The real rot set in about 2002 when values started to be driven by yield compression and not rental growth. Average office portfolio yields fell to 5.2 per cent by the end of 2002 and down to 3.8 per cent in 2007 which was the zenith of the market. It is back to slightly short of 8 per cent today.
One consequence of this artificial rise in property values linked to the availability of money was the speculative-driven growth in the supply of floor space.
By way of example, the vacancy rate (or supply) of Dublin offices rose from just under 5 per cent in 2000 to 14 per cent in 2006. The current office vacancy rate in Dublin is estimated at 23 per cent.
The vacancy rate in a major international metropolitan area would range from 6 to 8 per cent in normal times. We have enough offices in Dublin to take us well into the next economic recovery.
However, every property bust contains the seeds of the next recovery. Due to the fall in values it is not economically viable to build new commercial buildings. Thus, over time, a shortage of space will emerge and sooner – but probably later – we will have the same thing happen as occurred in the period 1996- 2000, a real growth in values driven by fundamentals.
My belief is that property is a safe buy today because we are at, or close to, the bottom. But remember, property investment is primarily about income and long-term inflation protection. Only the very skilled or the very lucky can achieve quick capital gains. A lot of people recently learned this lesson the hard way but will the punter remember? Investing in property is not a zero sum game provided you focus on the income and also get your timing right..
RECENT STATISTICS show that the value of my house, together with most other property, is back to the value it was in 2002 which is just half its 2007 value.
The national average house price today, according to the Permanent TSB/ESRI House Price Index Q1 2010 at €204,830, shows a fall of 34 per cent from its peak value in Q4 2006 (numerically a 33.3 per cent fall equals to a 50 per cent rise).
For Dublin houses, this fall is even greater at nearly 42 per cent from their peak in 2007. Such a fall means that any capital gains made since 2002 have been completely wiped out. As a result, anyone who made a capital gain out of property over the last eight years is offset by someone who has lost an equal amount of money – a zero sum game.
For example, if I had sold my house in 2007 for nearly double the price I paid for it in 2002, I would now be able to buy it back for half that figure.
The same concept applies to all houses, offices blocks, shopping centres, etc, throughout Ireland. So, for the past 10 years property has been a rotten investment of capital and a poor producer of income. Unless, of course, you were lucky enough to buy before 2001 or sell before 2006/7.
This must question the inherent belief that “property is a good long-term investment” which seems an intrinsic part of the Irish psyche.
Have we been fooling ourselves? If we look back at the IPD and TSB statistics for the period before 2000, we can see an interesting argument to say that property might be a good long-term investment – but only if you have to get your timing right. Most investors don’t.
By looking at these statistics, we can see the importance of timing plus the role of income. Had I bought property in any of the years between 1986 and 1996, the capital value would have remained almost static up to 1996 but I would have had a high income yield of close to 7 per cent per annum.
All the focus over the period between 2000 and 2010 on capital gain misses a key factor in property investment which is the income side of the equation. When I started in the property business in the 1960s, property was then regarded as being all about income. Capital gain was only a “kicker” to compensate for inflation. Over the past decade the income side of the equation has been downplayed and regarded only as the means to pay interest on borrowing while capital values (supposedly) grew and grew.
The belief being that the leveraged equity would make millionaires out of investors. Those (few) who sold before 2007 fulfilled this dream – but left the purchaser and his bank (plus the taxpayer) with a hole in the bucket.
So property can be a good form of investment but with a key qualification – you have to get your timing right. So what about the next decade. Will we see values recover back to 2007 levels? In my view the answer is yes – eventually, but not for a very, very, long time – say 10 years give or take. The focus on property must change to its income-producing characteristics rather than its capital value potential. History and its statistics tell us why. Let me look at the period from 1996 to 2000.
In 1996 the economy was recovering from a long period of stagnation. Rents had remained almost static for over 10 years, inflation had been pushing up construction costs and it was not viable to build new commercial buildings as values were below cost.
However, new buildings were scarce and were needed to house the emerging service industry. To overcome this problem, the Government introduced double rent tax allowances for selected sites and in particular the IFSC. This effectively gave a subsidy for property development by making the space cheaper to occupy for tenants and allowing rents to rise to levels which made development projects viable. It was a good idea.
It kick-started the development industry which then flowed out beyond the selected designated sites. The economy boomed and rents doubled in that period. Prime office rent in the central business district of Dublin moved from £14 to £28 per square foot.
The interesting thing about that period is that property yields did not change significantly. The average income yield for an institutional property portfolio for that period was close to 7 per cent. The real rot set in about 2002 when values started to be driven by yield compression and not rental growth. Average office portfolio yields fell to 5.2 per cent by the end of 2002 and down to 3.8 per cent in 2007 which was the zenith of the market. It is back to slightly short of 8 per cent today.
One consequence of this artificial rise in property values linked to the availability of money was the speculative-driven growth in the supply of floor space.
By way of example, the vacancy rate (or supply) of Dublin offices rose from just under 5 per cent in 2000 to 14 per cent in 2006. The current office vacancy rate in Dublin is estimated at 23 per cent.
The vacancy rate in a major international metropolitan area would range from 6 to 8 per cent in normal times. We have enough offices in Dublin to take us well into the next economic recovery.
However, every property bust contains the seeds of the next recovery. Due to the fall in values it is not economically viable to build new commercial buildings. Thus, over time, a shortage of space will emerge and sooner – but probably later – we will have the same thing happen as occurred in the period 1996- 2000, a real growth in values driven by fundamentals.
My belief is that property is a safe buy today because we are at, or close to, the bottom. But remember, property investment is primarily about income and long-term inflation protection. Only the very skilled or the very lucky can achieve quick capital gains. A lot of people recently learned this lesson the hard way but will the punter remember? Investing in property is not a zero sum game provided you focus on the income and also get your timing right..
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Docklands planning model produced the goods
The development of Dublin's docklands is testament to how an integrated social, economic and physical development agency with planning scheme capacity works.
The approach to planning in Dublin’s docklands is not flawed but the DDDA would have benefited from a performance review.
IT’S HARD TO see how the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) can recover from its predicament.
It has finished up in a very bad place with potentially huge liabilities and not even enough cash to keep up the maintenance of the place. Perhaps it is about to pass away and be forgotten?
However, its immense legacy – and of the Custom House Docks Development Authority before it – cannot be ignored. Anyone who visited Sheriff Street, the North Wall or the Dublin Gas Works on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in the mid-1990s will tell you how much and how quickly the place has changed.
From being a post-industrial economic wasteland it is now an ultra-modern mixed-use extension to the central business district of Dublin. Some argue that it is the new central business zone with such a concentration of banking, financial services and almost all the main legal firms based there.
Since the DDDA was set up in 1997 there must have been over 929,030sq m (10 million sq ft) of development along the river. The population of the area is up by 6,000 and the number of jobs has increased by 20,000.
The physical legacy of the docklands initiative also includes the riverside campshires, the conversion of the contaminated gas site into Grand Canal Square, the National College of Ireland campus, the soon-to-open National Conference Centre, the O2 arena, the Grand Canal Theatre, the Seán O’Casey Bridge, the Samuel Beckett Bridge, the restored Spencer Dock and the docklands Luas extension.
The DDDA has invested huge resources in educational and other social development programmes and, by the operation of the Docklands Council, kept a close relationship with community and other stakeholders while all this was happening.
The DDDA didn’t do all of this itself: there was a development strategy it managed against a masterplan vision which made the various elements viable.
It may be that you wouldn’t need a DDDA-type of organisation for every large scale regeneration project but the value of having the DDDA is that the vision of the original 1997 masterplan is substantially achieved and, up until the disaster of the Glass Bottle site, the DDDA hadn’t cost the taxpayer a cent.
I’ve read reports that the planning system in the docklands was unfair because it didn’t allow third party appeal. That is a misunderstanding of the planning process. The point of docklands planning was to plan an entire area in a transparent and predictable way. The DDDA had to work up its planning schemes and go through all the advertising, consultation and public meeting processes, including close liaison with Dublin City Council.
After that, the council of the DDDA had to be satisfied that the planning scheme was appropriate in its social, economic and physical proposal before it was put to the minister for approval. That was, in effect, the planning application.
The subsequent Section 25s were only notes to confirm that a building design conformed to the planning scheme and there was no need to waste time going back through all the consultation processes a second time. The quick turnaround of these Section 25s was the key to the rapid development of the docklands. Without it we would only have half a docklands and it may even have been too slow a process to give the level of confidence to achieve even that.
When mistakes are made recriminations will follow. But, even if the DDDA lost its way and blew everything on a high-risk land deal, we should not rush to conclude that the concept of an integrated social, economic and physical development agency with planning scheme capacity – as laid down in the DDDA Act of 1997 – is flawed. It is not, and the output of the docklands project is testament to that.
Perhaps, before 12 years of operations expired, the DDDA might have benefited from a performance review. But let’s not suggest that the model must be wrong because we waited until the engine blew up before checking the oil.
The approach to planning in Dublin’s docklands is not flawed but the DDDA would have benefited from a performance review.
IT’S HARD TO see how the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) can recover from its predicament.
It has finished up in a very bad place with potentially huge liabilities and not even enough cash to keep up the maintenance of the place. Perhaps it is about to pass away and be forgotten?
However, its immense legacy – and of the Custom House Docks Development Authority before it – cannot be ignored. Anyone who visited Sheriff Street, the North Wall or the Dublin Gas Works on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in the mid-1990s will tell you how much and how quickly the place has changed.
From being a post-industrial economic wasteland it is now an ultra-modern mixed-use extension to the central business district of Dublin. Some argue that it is the new central business zone with such a concentration of banking, financial services and almost all the main legal firms based there.
Since the DDDA was set up in 1997 there must have been over 929,030sq m (10 million sq ft) of development along the river. The population of the area is up by 6,000 and the number of jobs has increased by 20,000.
The physical legacy of the docklands initiative also includes the riverside campshires, the conversion of the contaminated gas site into Grand Canal Square, the National College of Ireland campus, the soon-to-open National Conference Centre, the O2 arena, the Grand Canal Theatre, the Seán O’Casey Bridge, the Samuel Beckett Bridge, the restored Spencer Dock and the docklands Luas extension.
The DDDA has invested huge resources in educational and other social development programmes and, by the operation of the Docklands Council, kept a close relationship with community and other stakeholders while all this was happening.
The DDDA didn’t do all of this itself: there was a development strategy it managed against a masterplan vision which made the various elements viable.
It may be that you wouldn’t need a DDDA-type of organisation for every large scale regeneration project but the value of having the DDDA is that the vision of the original 1997 masterplan is substantially achieved and, up until the disaster of the Glass Bottle site, the DDDA hadn’t cost the taxpayer a cent.
I’ve read reports that the planning system in the docklands was unfair because it didn’t allow third party appeal. That is a misunderstanding of the planning process. The point of docklands planning was to plan an entire area in a transparent and predictable way. The DDDA had to work up its planning schemes and go through all the advertising, consultation and public meeting processes, including close liaison with Dublin City Council.
After that, the council of the DDDA had to be satisfied that the planning scheme was appropriate in its social, economic and physical proposal before it was put to the minister for approval. That was, in effect, the planning application.
The subsequent Section 25s were only notes to confirm that a building design conformed to the planning scheme and there was no need to waste time going back through all the consultation processes a second time. The quick turnaround of these Section 25s was the key to the rapid development of the docklands. Without it we would only have half a docklands and it may even have been too slow a process to give the level of confidence to achieve even that.
When mistakes are made recriminations will follow. But, even if the DDDA lost its way and blew everything on a high-risk land deal, we should not rush to conclude that the concept of an integrated social, economic and physical development agency with planning scheme capacity – as laid down in the DDDA Act of 1997 – is flawed. It is not, and the output of the docklands project is testament to that.
Perhaps, before 12 years of operations expired, the DDDA might have benefited from a performance review. But let’s not suggest that the model must be wrong because we waited until the engine blew up before checking the oil.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Planning must be for people, not developers
The Irish Planning Institute, of which I am a founder member, is focused on improving the art and science of town planning. Next Thursday and Friday the institute holds its annual conference in Tullamore, with the theme 'Planning for a Smarter Ireland'. It will focus on smart enterprise and the green new deal. It will suggest solutions to 'ghost estates', deal with the development of town centres and discuss smart travel. Planning overseas will be examined, with a case study of the city of Helsinki.
Speakers will include planners, property specialists and the chair of An Bord Pleanála. The conference will be attended by county councillors, county and city administrators, planners, designers and other urban professionals. I will be speaking to my planning peers about the challenge of ghost estates.
You might ask, 'What has planning got to do with property?' The answer is, quite a lot. Planning is the process of orderly management of urban growth and change. The output of good planning is good cities and towns. A quality community with good infrastructure is a good place in which to invest in property, to live and to run businesses. Well-managed towns with good environments are recognised as growth centres by business residents and investors. Property investors have long appreciated that well-planned and well-managed cities attract investment, while those that are badly planned or managed do not. For example, not long ago I invested in the town centre of Bath, England, which I regard as a very safe long-term urban environment, and I am hopeful of a good long-term return.
Back to this week's conference. We now have somewhere between 100,000 and 170,000 surplus housing units in estates which range in location and specification from excellent to awful. Some of the estates are incomplete to one degree or another. The dilemma considered on Wednesday will be: who does what about this situation? Planners? Government? Developers? Bankers? Nama? County councillors?
Our conference will look rationally and without emotion at the property and planning issues. The good news is that the market will – eventually – solve the problem in the majority of situations. The bad news is that the cost of maintaining a unit in good order is about €1,500 each year, or much more if there are infrastructure deficiencies. If these costs are not paid by someone, then both buildings and infrastructure will disintegrate, leading to a risk of slum estates. This situation is very hard on buyers who acquired units at full market prices, and they must be built into the equation.
Many of the developers controlling these estates are insolvent and owe more than they can expect to realise from low-price sales. Their motivation to find a solution may be impaired as a result and we may have to focus on banks, Nama and liquidators. Many professional builders who hope to be in the game in five years may stay involved, but where amateurs are involved as developers, they will just want out.
When liquidators are appointed in insolvency cases, their statutory duty is to realise liquid assets for their banking clients as quickly as possible and to as great an extent as possible. They have no community-focused remit. This results in fire sales and further falls in prices, as witnessed by the recent sale of apartments in Mullingar for about €70,000 – less than 50% of what they cost to build, well below the original pre-sales price and probably less than the original land cost.
Some ghost estates will come into the Nama remit. Those that do may be the lucky ones, because Nama will go about managing its loans and related assets in a structured and responsible way. Nama has a long-term remit and will have funds available in suitable cases to maintain these assets pending market recovery.
One of the past problems of Irish town planning was that it did not encompass the full gamut of stakeholders necessary to build a proper urban environment. Education is planned by the Department of Education, health by the HSE, transport by the RPA, etc. Heretofore there has been poor coordination (and indeed sheer stupidity) as agencies competed at political, regional and administrative levels. Various legislative and administrative steps are currently being taken, including giving teeth to regional planning authorities. These hoped-for solutions are in the Planning Bill currently before the Dáil. Undoubtedly many of these issues will also be debated in Tullamore.
The really hard cases will be those estates that have little or no prospect of long-term demands and are apart from Nama.
Speakers will include planners, property specialists and the chair of An Bord Pleanála. The conference will be attended by county councillors, county and city administrators, planners, designers and other urban professionals. I will be speaking to my planning peers about the challenge of ghost estates.
You might ask, 'What has planning got to do with property?' The answer is, quite a lot. Planning is the process of orderly management of urban growth and change. The output of good planning is good cities and towns. A quality community with good infrastructure is a good place in which to invest in property, to live and to run businesses. Well-managed towns with good environments are recognised as growth centres by business residents and investors. Property investors have long appreciated that well-planned and well-managed cities attract investment, while those that are badly planned or managed do not. For example, not long ago I invested in the town centre of Bath, England, which I regard as a very safe long-term urban environment, and I am hopeful of a good long-term return.
Back to this week's conference. We now have somewhere between 100,000 and 170,000 surplus housing units in estates which range in location and specification from excellent to awful. Some of the estates are incomplete to one degree or another. The dilemma considered on Wednesday will be: who does what about this situation? Planners? Government? Developers? Bankers? Nama? County councillors?
Our conference will look rationally and without emotion at the property and planning issues. The good news is that the market will – eventually – solve the problem in the majority of situations. The bad news is that the cost of maintaining a unit in good order is about €1,500 each year, or much more if there are infrastructure deficiencies. If these costs are not paid by someone, then both buildings and infrastructure will disintegrate, leading to a risk of slum estates. This situation is very hard on buyers who acquired units at full market prices, and they must be built into the equation.
Many of the developers controlling these estates are insolvent and owe more than they can expect to realise from low-price sales. Their motivation to find a solution may be impaired as a result and we may have to focus on banks, Nama and liquidators. Many professional builders who hope to be in the game in five years may stay involved, but where amateurs are involved as developers, they will just want out.
When liquidators are appointed in insolvency cases, their statutory duty is to realise liquid assets for their banking clients as quickly as possible and to as great an extent as possible. They have no community-focused remit. This results in fire sales and further falls in prices, as witnessed by the recent sale of apartments in Mullingar for about €70,000 – less than 50% of what they cost to build, well below the original pre-sales price and probably less than the original land cost.
Some ghost estates will come into the Nama remit. Those that do may be the lucky ones, because Nama will go about managing its loans and related assets in a structured and responsible way. Nama has a long-term remit and will have funds available in suitable cases to maintain these assets pending market recovery.
One of the past problems of Irish town planning was that it did not encompass the full gamut of stakeholders necessary to build a proper urban environment. Education is planned by the Department of Education, health by the HSE, transport by the RPA, etc. Heretofore there has been poor coordination (and indeed sheer stupidity) as agencies competed at political, regional and administrative levels. Various legislative and administrative steps are currently being taken, including giving teeth to regional planning authorities. These hoped-for solutions are in the Planning Bill currently before the Dáil. Undoubtedly many of these issues will also be debated in Tullamore.
The really hard cases will be those estates that have little or no prospect of long-term demands and are apart from Nama.
Seeds of the next property cycle are germinating
All indications are that the market will bottom out in 2010 followed by a slow recovery in values in the years ahead
We all know property values have crashed but the anatomy of that crash has become clear with the recent publication of the Society of Chartered Surveyors/Investment Property Database (SCS/IPD) figures and in particular those for the past two years. This is a database of institutional properties and their valuations from a number of banks and pension funds going back for nearly 30 years.
The first most striking feature is that for the typical institutional property portfolio, values are back at where they were in September 1999. That value would have risen to almost 2.25 times its September 1999 value by December 2007 before crashing back over the past two years. In other words, if it had been possible to invest €1,000 in a typical fund, that €1,000 would have reached a value of €2,250 in 2007 but would be back to being worth only €1,000 today.
The second most striking feature is that if €1,000 had been invested at the height of the boom in September 2007, it would be worth only €447 today. (All figures are without any gearing/borrowing).
So, with hindsight, it is easy to see why many people and the banks have a problem. They would have bought and borrowed right through the build-up of the bubble and few would have got out before the bubble burst in 2008. Much of the buying was done in the period 2003-2006.
Further analysis of the SCS/IPD figures shows that the technical driver of the price bubble was what property professionals call yield compression. This is the process whereby buyers are prepared to pay more and more for the same income. In 2002, the typical yield on an office block would have been about 6.4% but by 2007 this yield had fallen to less than 4.3%. This yield would move the rent multiplier from about 15.6 to 23.3, resulting in a 50% increase in the value of the property. Rents did move upwards but not anything like the same rate – with the exception of retail, where rents rose very significantly.
The third important message from the SCS/IPD figure is that what is bad for capital values is good for the income of acquiring investors. The figures show that income yields fell from just over 6.5% in September 1998 to 3.8% in 2007 but are now back to about 7% and still rising. This is because as yield compression reverses and values fall, then income yield increases.
The fourth striking feature of the IPD figures going back to 1983 is how clearly they depicted the property bubbles over that period. The first up to 1990, the second up until 2001 and our current one just ended (peaking in September 2007).
In reality, the current boom began in the early 1990s, was temporarily interrupted by 9/11 and the dotcom bust and finished in 2007, almost 14 years later.
But if property cycles are normal phenomena, can we use this cyclical pattern to predict when we might get out of the current depressed situation?
I believe we can if we understand the elements of a property cycle. Each property cycle is self-correcting. The normal process is that in recession, rental levels fall to the point that the market accepts the new 'norm'. Then yields rise to levels that are also accepted as the new 'norm'. This norm is set against yields from other forms of investment such as shares, bonds, deposits etc, adjusted of course for the normal property risks and cost factors. As values and rents fall, then new development becomes uneconomical because the cost of new development is more than the value of the finished buildings. This chokes off the new supply of buildings.
At this point, the fall in values generally bottoms out. The property market bumps along the bottom while the economy gradually absorbs the oversupply of built space. Those adjustments have been happening in Ireland for the past two years.
The big question is, are values at the bottom or have they further to fall? This is where I move from being an analyst to being a forecaster.
I believe we are almost at the bottom. Yields have reached a new level where investors are prepared to buy quality property let at market rents. The fall in rentals has slowed down and in some sectors, such as quality offices, is levelling off.
One has to look at what is happening in the real economy. The demand for floor space comes from business. While long-term property investors are patient and usually prepared to invest ahead of a recovery, the issue of their confidence in an economic recovery is critical. We may have reached a valuation floor but this will only hold for as long as investors and businesses believe that there is a real recovery in prospect.
I have to add a second caveat, which is that there is good, bad and ugly property out there as a result of the banking and development excesses. The IPD index has an in-built bias toward institutional or quality property so the messages from this database only apply to good property.
With these caveats, I believe that we will see a further fall of 3% to 5% by year-end before a bottoming out of property values in 2010. However we will see a slight recovery in values in the next few years of about 3% to 5% a year.
But remember, property investment is, or should be, more about income than about capital appreciation and definitely will be for the next few years.
Real property investors, as opposed to property speculators, are focused on income. Reliable income will be the key focus of the new breed of investors. Such investors, many from overseas, are currently watching Ireland and are ready, willing and able to do deals.
The seeds of the next property cycle are in the ground and slowly germinating as the detritus of the last boom are cleared away.
We all know property values have crashed but the anatomy of that crash has become clear with the recent publication of the Society of Chartered Surveyors/Investment Property Database (SCS/IPD) figures and in particular those for the past two years. This is a database of institutional properties and their valuations from a number of banks and pension funds going back for nearly 30 years.
The first most striking feature is that for the typical institutional property portfolio, values are back at where they were in September 1999. That value would have risen to almost 2.25 times its September 1999 value by December 2007 before crashing back over the past two years. In other words, if it had been possible to invest €1,000 in a typical fund, that €1,000 would have reached a value of €2,250 in 2007 but would be back to being worth only €1,000 today.
The second most striking feature is that if €1,000 had been invested at the height of the boom in September 2007, it would be worth only €447 today. (All figures are without any gearing/borrowing).
So, with hindsight, it is easy to see why many people and the banks have a problem. They would have bought and borrowed right through the build-up of the bubble and few would have got out before the bubble burst in 2008. Much of the buying was done in the period 2003-2006.
Further analysis of the SCS/IPD figures shows that the technical driver of the price bubble was what property professionals call yield compression. This is the process whereby buyers are prepared to pay more and more for the same income. In 2002, the typical yield on an office block would have been about 6.4% but by 2007 this yield had fallen to less than 4.3%. This yield would move the rent multiplier from about 15.6 to 23.3, resulting in a 50% increase in the value of the property. Rents did move upwards but not anything like the same rate – with the exception of retail, where rents rose very significantly.
The third important message from the SCS/IPD figure is that what is bad for capital values is good for the income of acquiring investors. The figures show that income yields fell from just over 6.5% in September 1998 to 3.8% in 2007 but are now back to about 7% and still rising. This is because as yield compression reverses and values fall, then income yield increases.
The fourth striking feature of the IPD figures going back to 1983 is how clearly they depicted the property bubbles over that period. The first up to 1990, the second up until 2001 and our current one just ended (peaking in September 2007).
In reality, the current boom began in the early 1990s, was temporarily interrupted by 9/11 and the dotcom bust and finished in 2007, almost 14 years later.
But if property cycles are normal phenomena, can we use this cyclical pattern to predict when we might get out of the current depressed situation?
I believe we can if we understand the elements of a property cycle. Each property cycle is self-correcting. The normal process is that in recession, rental levels fall to the point that the market accepts the new 'norm'. Then yields rise to levels that are also accepted as the new 'norm'. This norm is set against yields from other forms of investment such as shares, bonds, deposits etc, adjusted of course for the normal property risks and cost factors. As values and rents fall, then new development becomes uneconomical because the cost of new development is more than the value of the finished buildings. This chokes off the new supply of buildings.
At this point, the fall in values generally bottoms out. The property market bumps along the bottom while the economy gradually absorbs the oversupply of built space. Those adjustments have been happening in Ireland for the past two years.
The big question is, are values at the bottom or have they further to fall? This is where I move from being an analyst to being a forecaster.
I believe we are almost at the bottom. Yields have reached a new level where investors are prepared to buy quality property let at market rents. The fall in rentals has slowed down and in some sectors, such as quality offices, is levelling off.
One has to look at what is happening in the real economy. The demand for floor space comes from business. While long-term property investors are patient and usually prepared to invest ahead of a recovery, the issue of their confidence in an economic recovery is critical. We may have reached a valuation floor but this will only hold for as long as investors and businesses believe that there is a real recovery in prospect.
I have to add a second caveat, which is that there is good, bad and ugly property out there as a result of the banking and development excesses. The IPD index has an in-built bias toward institutional or quality property so the messages from this database only apply to good property.
With these caveats, I believe that we will see a further fall of 3% to 5% by year-end before a bottoming out of property values in 2010. However we will see a slight recovery in values in the next few years of about 3% to 5% a year.
But remember, property investment is, or should be, more about income than about capital appreciation and definitely will be for the next few years.
Real property investors, as opposed to property speculators, are focused on income. Reliable income will be the key focus of the new breed of investors. Such investors, many from overseas, are currently watching Ireland and are ready, willing and able to do deals.
The seeds of the next property cycle are in the ground and slowly germinating as the detritus of the last boom are cleared away.
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