Insights

Time Makes More Converts Than Reason

31/10/2016

The title comes from Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense" in which he argued for American independence and it picks out one of his arguments which we might now called "boiled frog syndrome" - the passive acceptance of something harmful through acclimatisation.  In his case it referred to the Monarchy but similar arguments were presented in favour of Brexit - we were attached to Europe through inertia and would be better off jumping out of the pan.

The test of any system is its ability to cope with shocks and after the immediate panic reaction the property funds which initially shut down withdrawals are now finding that the process is reversing.  Money is coming back in and properties which were for sale are being held back.

This is good news but the problem is that until we have a clear new relationship with Europe through a formal exit treaty we may have jumped, but we might just have landed back in the pan.

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Some of the buildings put up for sale by property funds in summer, in the wake of withdrawal requests by investors following the Brexit vote, have been taken off the market as funds flow back into the sector. Zurich’s property fund has stopped the £100m sale of the Centro 3 and 4 office buildings in London’s Camden, according to people with knowledge of the matter. BlackRock’s UK property fund will now only sell £85m of assets from its Project Rio portfolio, down from the £200m previously planned.

http://www.egi.co.uk/news/property-funds-halt-sales-as-money-returns-to-sector/%3Fcmpid=nlc%7Cegix%7Cegdam-2016%7Cglob&sfid=701w0000000wsbx