The Tour de France may have moved on to more familiar territory but Yorkshire’s two-day involvement in the event will attract property investment interest for years to come, according to one expert.
Xavier Adam — whose company AMC Network UK is bidding on four major Leeds deals backed by a £1bn war chest — says the build-up and coverage of the world’s biggest spectator event has “dramatically altered” the way business sees the North of England.
“A year ago it was hard because there wasn’t a lot of interest in the North from investors, but suddenly there was a tipping point. The Tour de France put Yorkshire out there,” said the managing director. “A lot of overseas investors didn’t really know about the region unless they had been to university in one of its cities — now they are seriously interested in what it has to offer.”
The AMC Network is an international team of over thirty marketing, property and finance professionals working across Europe, the USA, and the Middle-East. Its UK division, working from offices in London, claims the majority of its clients are based overseas with the 20 biggest hitters coming from Malaysia, Singapore and China.
So far Adam’s company has specialised in tenanted properties across the industrial, office, healthcare and retail sectors and is currently building portfolios for three different clients with more than £1bn to spend.
Although he expects about £200m of the money will be spent on properties in Spain, Italy, France and Germany about half of the remaining cash will be invested in the UK regions. “Yorkshire is very big for our investors at the moment,” he admitted. “We are currently considering six or seven Yorkshire properties between £20m and £30m each.
Adam admitted that some vendors have unrealistic expectations about international money flooding the UK commercial market. “These people have money, but they aren’t stupid. They will pay a fair price, but they aren’t going to be ripped off.”
And, he said, because it is increasingly difficult to make a profit in central London, overseas investors are looking at Yorkshire cities like Leeds and Sheffield.
Adam believes the property investment market will almost certainly cool a little over the next year following the last eight or nine months’ frenzy of activity. “That’s a good thing because the market needs a reality check and tenants need to find the money from somewhere when their rent goes up.”
But he doesn’t believe the UK property market will overheat. “Everything else will slow down as the London market cools,” he warns. “I’m sure the commercial investment market will slow down slightly, but not collapse, and it’s then that long-term holders of property will start to think about selling.”
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