We are going to be perfectly honest; there is nothing new we can say about our country effectively being run by someone who came eighth in the last Conservative leadership election and who lists his recipe for 'good mental health' as including exercise, social contacts, gratitude and sleep. We can't even say: "What was Liz Truss thinking?" as we know, from recent evidence, that she hasn't, didn't, can't and won't.
Sometimes, when you absolutely need pudding and there is only vanilla ice cream available, you order vanilla ice cream.
[See other news providers for updates about just how knackered we are as a nation ... but how much better we feel than our current prime minister at the moment.]
As a result, today's NTI news bulletin is focusing on property funds which are being circled by sharks and being forced to sell assets cheaply in order to deal with the intense pressure they have come under following the mini budget, which was at once 'maxi' and 'non-existent' in just a week and a bit. Foolishness has its repercussions and large asset managers and cash-rich private investors are buying up assets which have been pushed onto the market as a result of failing liquidity.
Expectations of a downturn across the length and breadth of the commercial property sector have been heralded on this very news bulletin, having been forced down a tapering pipeline for more than a year. Goldman Sachs famously announced in the summer that the game was up for commercial property and that values would fall 20 per cent between June 2022 and the end of 2024 and a gap has arisen between buyers and sellers on what constitutes 'fair value'. The head of real estate at 'a large private investment group' said this week: "The market is semi-frozen. Investors' costs are going up and they have to push on price. Sellers can either show you the door or show you their blood." He's a much nicer man than he seems. He only very rarely tastes human flesh and only cheats when he plays his children at Monopoly.
At the moment, landlords are hoping to wait until interest rates settle before testing the market. However, property funds may soon have very little choice in order to meet redemption requests. One UK-based private real estate investor with a multibillion-pound portfolio described property fund managers coming to him with a menu of buildings to buy.
If there was only vanilla ice cream on that menu, do you think they, too, would order it?
