Smith and Williamson Property Survey 2012

The Smith & Williamson Property Survey 2012 is made available on Designing Buildings Wiki with the kind permission of Smith & Williamson. Some brief headlines from the survey are presented here, and the survey can be read in full by clicking on the link below.

File:Property survey 12 SV.pdf

The Smith and Williamson Property Survey 2012 (published at the end of October 2012) found a great deal of caution about the prospects for the future of the property industry, stating that ‘years of excess is taking years to unwind’.

The survey found considerable pessimism about the speed of recovery that could be expected. 46% of the 187 respondents felt the property industry would take four years or more to recover to pre-recession levels of profitability. 6% thought that it would never recover to pre-recession levels.

The survey found a very stark regional imbalance, with property in London continuing to 'defy gravity', whilst much of the rest of the UK suffered. Respondents were most pessimistic about the North East.

Whilst there was some optimism about the residential and agricultural sectors, there was a great deal of pessimism about retail, where there continues to be an over-supply of shops.

The key issues facing the property industry in the next 12 months were thought to be UK economic performance and the availability of bank finance, with banks still unwilling to lend.

The initiatives respondents felt would best assist the UK property industry were:

• Enhancing bank lending.
• Simplifying planning regulations.
• Using public funds to finance infrastructure.
• Cuts to property taxes and rates.

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