Office capital values 'should stabilise in 2010'
Property professionals
16th June 2009
Capital values in the European office market are likely to stabilise in "mid to late 2010", an expert has suggested.
According to Capital Economics, it is possible that capital values are in their "final leg" of contraction and could steady next year, which may interest buildings insurance customers.
The firm's property economist Ed Stansfield explained that the economic downturn is "probably hitting much of Europe even harder than it is hitting the UK", in the short-term at least.
However, he added that the correction in Europe has caught the UK up rapidly and forecasting that rents could have seen the worst of recent falls or be starting to stabilise "probably is not unrealistic".
His comments come in the wake of DTZ's annual Money into Property report, which predicted that global office returns would fall by 20 per cent in 2009 and either stabilise or decline slightly in 2010.
The study suggested that London is the only office market in the world that currently offers "fair value" for investors.
