Alan Fletcher

Groupthink

In this week's blog, we look at the latest round of housing data and unpack some positive indications that not only have we passed peak pain, but the significant capital inflow may be just beginning in real estate and all its directly correlated markets. Savills were on the tape last

The race is on

Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to the inaugural blog 2024. In this week's initial offerings, we are crisscrossing the narratives of the financial press, looking at the trends that are already emerging, and trying to pick out what most affects our corner of the industry. On the first tentative

New Year Musings

At the time of writing, we have just had the final round of inflation figures out for 2023, so unpacking those and their potential impact on fiscal and monetary decision-making in 2024 will be our first port of call in what will be our final blog of the year before

Upside

In this week's penultimate blog of 2023, we look at the increase in interest around institutional investors increasing their exposure to different forms of the credit market and how the overall sector, including P2P, has suddenly become the alluring big-ticket investment opportunity we predicted it would become, way back in

Autumn Proposals

In this week's blog, it would be remiss of us not to have a look at some of the finer details of the Autumn Statement. However, to spin the analysis differently, rather than jumping around from pillar to post, we will attempt to focus on the suggested changes to the

Dairy Fields by Aspire Designer Homes

In the dynamic realm of property development, clients such as Aspire Designer Homes play a pivotal role in influencing the future of communities and meeting the diverse needs of homeowners, and that's why it was a privilege to work with them on their Dairy Fields project at Binney Farm in

Autumn Statement

This week's musings discuss the best rumours and whispers surrounding the Chancellor's Autumn statement. The statement is expected to land on November 22nd and to issue this with a sizable caveat; there is no requirement here for a spoiler warning. Nobody knows what it will contain, but that has yet

Numbers go up.

In this week's blog, we again return to house prices to unpack the latest round of Nationwide stats and explore what this may mean for the market, what may be priced in, and how our predictions earlier in the year are playing out. Plunging straight into the data, the Nationwide

LABC Regional Award: Best Small New Housing Development: Lordswood Construction Ltd

One thing we are particularly proud of at Invest & Fund is the opportunity to work with fantastic businesses producing high-quality residential builds. It's lovely to see one of our long-term partners, Lordswood Construction LTD, has received the award of 'Best Small New Housing Development' from the LABC West Midlands as

Back in the New York Groove

In this week's blog, we begin over the pond in New York City and compare its retail rental market with London’s. The problems they have faced in the last year mirror our own domestic rental woes, but on a much larger scale, perhaps this is a glimpse into the

Confidence

At the point of writing, the hot topic of debate in the industry is, once again, inflation. The latest round of figures has come in flat, unchanged at 6.7% in the year up to September. The growing concern in the future is oil; with geo-political tensions and global conflicts

Keep building

At the time of writing, the Labour Party conference is well underway. With the housing and lending sectors being equally as keen to get a steer on what the future may hold after a regime change, we take the opportunity in this week's blog to unpack some of the latest

Volcker Shock

At the time of writing, the decision had been voted on to hold the bank rate at its current level, deviating from the trend and allowing some optimism to return to the beleaguered mortgage market. NatWest and Nationwide have both cut rates, and the starting pistol may have been fired

Consensus Pick

At the time of writing, this week's first in two significant news announcements had just landed. At 6.7%, inflation data now shows that prices in the UK haven't continued to rise as quickly as previously feared, which may trigger a pause or at least a consideration in the Bank

Cooler heads prevail

At the time of writing, Andrew Bailey had stated to the select committee that rates were "much nearer" their peak than before. This is an interesting statement taken in isolation; you could argue that being perched on the Hillary Step is much nearer the summit of Everest than base camp,

Soft Landing

In this week's blog, we once again return to house prices ahead of the September 20th ONS data that will give the market a better steer on the rate of the retracement and what to expect in Q4 and beyond. We unpack how that will affect confidence in the development

Sold down the river

At the point of writing this week's blog, the latest round of government housing announcements pertains to removing environmental protections on the nutrient neutrality rules previously installed by Brussels. These rules were initially introduced to guarantee that property and commercial development schemes wouldn't cause unnecessary damage to our waterways via

Opposing views

In this week's blog, we look at a fundamental principle we have frequently proposed: building more houses will resolve the housing crisis. Interestingly, only some people believe this; after some brief research in what can only be dubbed a "lethargic news cycle pre-bank holiday" within the housing domain this week,

Looking west

At the point of production for this week's blog, the breaking news is that house price inflation is finally showing signs of cooling, albeit slower than initially anticipated. The latest round of ONS data shows that house prices are below where they were at the peak of the November 2022

Brownfield

At the time of writing, Homes England has just announced a new £1 Billion brownfield land fund explicitly aimed at unlocking land fit to produce 40,000 new homes, prioritising local projects that can boost economic growth and increase supply in areas of low affordability. This action is overwhelmingly positive,

Housing hot takes

At the time of writing, the latest house price figures have been published, and an interesting phenomenon has occurred, multiple news outlets have published seemingly divergent commentaries entirely at odds with each other based on the same data sets. Depending on your periodical of choice, the light at the end

Stalemate

In this week's blog, we continue our "educated guesses" recaps and look at some of the day's big stories and how they may or may not fit into some of the big themes we have discussed over the last 12 months and what our seemingly endless prophesizing indicates about where

Educated Guesswork

In this week's blog, as a first in a series, we look back on some of the predictions and "educated guesses" we have made over the last 12 months of weekly blogs and what evidence we see of any of our musings coming to fruition. First up, we are looking

Alpha strategy

In this week's blog, as 2023 reaches its halfway point, many financial institutions and banks have posted their mid-year reports on the market, and their expert takes on where things are going next. We decided to run through a roundup of the top 4 and see what could be in

Dancing around the issues

At the time of writing, the Prime Minister has ruled out any support package to assist UK mortgage holders in tolerating the increased burden of further rate rises, so in this week's blog, we take a closer look at what this may mean for the broader housing market, and pose