There was also an increase for similar keywords, such as “Bitcoin is dead”.
This search trend reflects increasing anxiety for the crypto markets after weeks of relentless selloffs.
There are several theories behind why Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are crashing. Its downward spiral may have been caused by a shift in Federal Reserve policy, which placed downward pressure on risk assets.
However, many experts are putting the crash down to the wider global climate. Recessions are on the horizon, inflation is soaring, interest rates are up, and many people are battling with rising living costs. In turn, these factors cause demand for crypto to slide.
Recently, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates described NFTs and cryptocurrency as “100% based on greater tool theory”, implying that overvalued assets will go up in price when there are enough willing investors.
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The first of three 24-hour walkouts by 40,000 RMT members will commence after midnight on Tuesday morning. The members include signallers, train staff, and maintenance workers. Only one in five trains will run on six days of disruption.
The strikes are over pay and attempts to reform the rail industry. The RMT said thousands of maintenance roles were at risk and criticised plans to close ticket offices. On top of this, the RMT condemned planned pay freezes amid a period of spiralling inflation.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps responded to criticism from former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn that rail worker pay was inadequate by saying: "The median salary for a train driver is £59,000, compared with £31,000 for a nurse and £21,000 for a care worker."
Last week, Shapps warned rail workers that they risked striking themselves out of their jobs. Bosses for Network Rail expect the strike action to cost the industry around £150 million in lost revenue.
Charities have already been tested and stretched by two years of restrictions on fundraising and the closure, whether temporary or permanent, of their retail operations. Now they are facing increased costs at a time when they are also going to see the value of their assets eroded by growing inflation.
Help from the government
The government’s measures to help charities through the pandemic, while not universally felt to be adequate, did include some very welcome provisions including, of course, the ability to furlough staff and relief from business rates. The recent announcement of measures valued at £37 billion to help households to cover rising fuel and food costs is also welcome, but charities, to whom increasing numbers of people will turn for support as they feel the pinch, are not likely to be offered any new grant schemes, loans or furlough deals to help them weather the storm, and nobody really knows when or where this inflationary spiral will peak, when and how much it will come down and how long it will take to do so.
It is striking that more than 40% of the mutual aid groups that were formed to help communities when COVID-19 hit are still operating, with their focus now shifting from helping those who were forced to isolate to providing food banks and community kitchens, and many of them have now become more formally established as charities. They join the growing numbers of food banks serving those who struggle to put food on the table; the Trussell Trust reports that food banks in its network across the UK provided more than 2.1 million food parcels in the year to the end of March 2022, 14% more than the year before the pandemic.
Donor behaviour
At the same time, there is a real possibility that donors will cut back on what they choose to give to charities as they find their disposable income no longer stretches as far as charity. Having said that, many donors stuck by their favourite charities through the pandemic as they realised that new needs were emerging, and they may well continue to support them through what is looking increasingly like a recession in the making.
Flexibility and resilience
Let’s also not forget that charities can show great resilience in times of crisis, and an ability to adapt and innovate to survive. I recall predicting a wave of charity mergers and closures in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis, which I am glad to say never materialised, and it may well be that this capacity for flexibility and responsiveness will see charities through the storm.
We have seen some great examples in the sector of charities that responded to the pandemic in a highly organised way, acting quickly to identify risks and put mitigating measures in place. While they may still have some way to go before they are back at pre-pandemic levels of income, charities are likely to find ways of coping with a period of high inflation and low economic growth. Some will, we are sure, explore new sources of funding or modify their approach to any investments they may be fortunate enough to have, and the measures in the new Charities Act 2022 that will make it easier to unlock capital may help in this regard.
Others may find new ways of releasing value from their properties, whether by renting them out during any periods when they might otherwise not be needed (of particular interest to charities that manage educational premises) or by disposing of property that may have become surplus to requirements in the new era of remote and hybrid working.
More mergers?
Mergers may become an attractive option for some charities, as there are significant savings to be had in the medium to long term if they can find the right partner with whom they can share some of their functions. A merger is unlikely to be the answer to a financial crisis, as any partner organisation will be aware of the dangers of taking on the liabilities of a charity that is struggling to stay afloat, but if steps are taken early enough, it can be an effective way of ensuring the continuity in the delivery of services to beneficiaries.
Should the government do more?
Thinking beyond the question of what charities can do to help themselves, I have also been reflecting on the extent to which the charity sector has changed since I first became involved, with increasing volumes of services that were previously delivered by local authorities now being outsourced to the voluntary sector. I am all in favour of deploying the expertise of charities, and their knowledge of local needs, to help communities. However, when I see contracts awarded to charities with no scope for price increases to keep pace with the rising wage bills or other costs, or charity balance sheets showing potentially crippling pension scheme deficits inherited from the public sector, I do wonder whether the central government may have to reverse (at least on a temporary basis) the process by which local and central government passed these risks to the charity sector. Shouldn’t we be urging the government to put more resources into a sector on which it has come to rely so heavily for core infrastructure and services?
About the author: Paul Ridout is Partner at Hunters Law.
When the Federal Reserve made the unprecedented move in March 2020 to pump trillions into the economy, it was a global milestone. Because USD is the world’s reserve currency, the Fed is effectively the world’s central bank, overshadowing all others.
With such a drastic increase in circulating supply, the USD lost value, coupled with low-interest rates which resulted in cheap access to borrowing, we saw a worldwide inflation spiral. The UK closely follows the US inflation rate, as both have reached 40-year highs.
The UK Economic Woes A Mirror Of The US
While the US inflation reached 8.6% in May, UK inflation outpaced it even further, at 9% in April, the highest of the G7 nations. The cost of fueling up a family car in the UK is now £100.27, according to Experian Catalist’s database.
Compared to the US, this means that a gallon of gas in the UK is equivalent to ~$8.8, which is 76% higher than the US gas price national average of $5. This has had such a huge impact on the cost of living that one in four people have resorted to skipping meals, according to a Sky News survey.
Consequently, both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have started raising interest rates to lower consumer spending and borrowing, which levels down inflation. The latest FOMC meeting placed the target interest rate at 3.4% by the end of 2022. At the same time, the Bank of England is hiking its interest rate for the fifth consecutive time, to 1.25%, which is the highest it has been in 13 years.
Unfortunately, the hikes themselves, as a remedy to inflation, are decimating stocks and cryptos alike. Blue-chip representatives for Europe and the US are both down by over -20% year to date. On the upside, London’s “Footsie” index (FTSE 100) has been outperforming them.
Unquestionably, these are withdrawal symptoms of a market habituated to cheap, near-zero interest rate capital. Furthermore, the housing market is getting hit, as higher interest rates on mortgages are anticipated to price millions of individuals out of home ownership.
In other words, a remedy for inflation can trigger a recession—a period of declining output and hiring freezes as companies consolidate their capital under new conditions.
Funds To Escape The Inflation Vice
While this economic cycle seems particularly harsh, they come and go as they always do. For this reason, one must adopt a long-term outlook. An outlook, so to speak, that aims for a 5-year investment gain. More importantly, it is crucial to consider assets that are in demand regardless of either inflation or a recession.
In the UK, open-ended investment company (OEIC) funds are equivalent to open-ended mutual funds in the US. They are priced once per day, diversifying investor money across a wide range of assets. For this reason, they are considered a long-term investment, of up to 10 years, spreading the risk widely so the growth outweighs the potential of losing the principal.
Because OEIC funds are professionally managed and diversified, their maintenance is relatively higher. The funds are generally available through many of the leading apps for trading stocks in the UK. They typically charge an annual management charge (AMC) between 1% to 1.5% of the allocated shares’ value. Here are three OEIC fund candidates for your consideration.
1. VT Gravis Clean Energy Income
By 2030, the UK will no longer allow for new gas-operated vehicles to be sold on the market. This speaks volumes about the relentless regulatory green push. Moreover, energy investments have been a historical safe haven against inflation.
In the near future, the UK government announced that it will phase out Russian oil imports as a result of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. This will be as early as the end of 2022. Both the intermediate geopolitics and long-term legislation translate to a mass adoption of renewable energy.
At $459.26 million and targeting 4.5% annual income, VT Gravis counts on that future by diversifying investor money on smart grids, energy efficiency, storage and other zero-emission alternatives. The fund charges 0.81% AMC.
2. LF Ruffer Diversified Return
Although launched in September 2021, it is based on the time-tested Ruffer Investment Strategy. Having received a “cautious balanced” rating, LF Ruffer is on the lower end of the risk spectrum. Its portfolio diversification is focused on times of market distress.
Specifically, high inflation is currently plaguing the world. LF Ruffer ties precious metals, energy stocks and index-linked bonds in a capital-protection bubble that are least likely to lose money on an annual basis. At a size of $751.29 which targets above 4% annual income, RL Ruffer charges 0.93% AMC.
3. M&G Global Listed Infrastructure
Infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with energy stocks, precious metals and renewables as guardians against inflation. Although high inflation impedes new infrastructure projects, all governments are aware that the cost of not building and maintaining roads and civic and utility buildings is higher in the long run if left behind.
That is why M&G Global covers infrastructural assets that are critical for any nation - social and economic. Furthermore, the fund counts on the growth of emerging markets - smart gridding the cities, data centres and communication towers. However, its portfolio does include a tighter range of investments, so a drop in one could significantly impact the fund’s value.At $634.96 million size and targeting 3% - 4% annual income, M&G Global charges 0.70% AMC.
Taking Advantage Of The Davos Agenda
In prior decades, it was more difficult to pick the right fund. One had to choose between an actively managed or a passively managed (index) fund. The latter typically have lower annual fees but are less likely to take advantage of changing market conditions. A strong case could be made that actively managed funds are also superior to life insurance policies, in terms of financial protection.
There is also the credit rating and default risk to consider. While all of these metrics still stand, the concentration of economic power has grown to the point where one metric is more important than others. Does the fund cater to the Davos Agenda?
Whether it is the World Economic Forum, UN’s 2030 Agenda or the World Government Summit, they all tie every economic act worth of note in a unified front. Furthermore, they deploy ESG framework - environmental, social, governance - to rate them above the immediate profit-return considerations.
This creates a streamlined investment outlook in which emerging infrastructure, renewables, digitisation and smart grids take priority regardless of market upheavals. From this perspective, the three listed funds pose the least risk in these uncertain times.
This article does not constitute financial advice. The author and Universal Media Ltd. are not qualified financial advisers. All investments are made at the reader’s own risk.
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The pound was down as much as 0.5% against the dollar to $1.2290 after it reached a one-week high of $1.2405 just a day earlier.
The dollar index was up 0.23%, with the dollar gaining against the Japanese yen after the Bank of Japan chose to keep its monetary policy unchanged. Meanwhile, against the euro, the pound sterling traded flat at 85.46 pence.
On Thursday, the pound had gained 1.4% against the dollar thanks to the Bank of England’s 0.25% interest rate increase. The rise caught some investors by surprise. Many had expected a more aggressive move by the UK’s central bank amid soaring inflation in the country.
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What is the Bank of England interest rate rise?
In the fourth increase since the start of December 2021, when the base rate was 0.1%, the Bank of England has raised interest rates to their highest level in 13 years. The base rate is now 1% - a 0.25% increase. This increase is in response to inflation with the Bank of England trying to regulate the economy.
What happened the last time the Bank base rate was 1%?
The last time the Bank base rate was 1% was back in 2009 when it was cut from 1.5% to 1% during the so-called “credit crunch”. The next month it was reduced to 0.5% and remained stable until August 2016. At that point, it was cut again in order to offset Brexit’s impact on the UK economy. Since then, UK borrowers have benefited from relatively low interest rates.
What will happen to mortgage payments?
Your mortgage payments will increase but only if you have a variable rate mortgage. This could be a tracker mortgage (one which follows a base rate) or a standard variable rate (one in which the interest rate is defined by the lender).
The amount that your mortgage payment will increase will depend on the type of loan. For example, a tracker mortgage will directly follow the new base rate set by the Bank of England. Reading the small print of your mortgage, you can find out how quickly the increase will be actioned. However, it is likely that by next month your payments are already likely to go up. For example, on a tracker mortgage with a current rate of 2.25%, the new rate would be 2.5%; this equates to an additional £18 per month over the next 20 years for a mortgage of £150,000.
Interestingly but also concerning is the increase in searches online for short-term loans. For example, searches of ‘payday loans near me’ and other search terms relating to high-cost-short-term finance have seen increases in the last few months and with increased costs of living, coupled with rising interest rates, this trend is expected to continue.
What does the interest rate rise mean for those on a standard variable loan?
Data shows that there are currently 1,092,000 borrowers on a standard variable rate mortgage in the UK. This means that over 1 million borrowers in the UK are subject to the interest rate set by the bank or building society. Depending on the type of variable-rate mortgage that they have, the interest rate will either increase automatically as a direct link to the base rate or at the lender’s discretion.
It is estimated that those on a variable-rate mortgage will pay approximately £504 more per year as a result of the increase (figures from UK Finance based on a £200,000 loan). This is the equivalent of approximately £42 per month more in monthly repayments.
The average standard variable rate charged by mortgage lenders is currently around 4.71% - only up 0.31% since December 2021 despite the jump in the base rate. This is because not all lenders have chosen to increase their interest rates in line with the new base rate.
Those on a tracker mortgage, with an interest rate directly linked to the base rate, are set to experience an increase of around £25.22 per month in their repayments. According to data from UK Finance, this jump will affect around 841,000 UK borrowers.
Will those with a fixed-rate mortgage be affected?
Those who have a fixed-rate mortgage, which is 75% of UK borrowers, will not be impacted by the increase in the base rate. However, they may face higher borrowing costs once their deal comes to its end and they may need to remortgage.
The cost of living squeeze
With the cost of living crisis still gripping much of Europe and the USA as well as further afield, rising interest rates are likely to add to the squeeze being felt by consumers. Although there are a few savings to be made, for example, the reduced need to purchase covid tests when travelling between countries, this has been more than offset by increases in fuel, living costs and interest rates.
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1. Dollar destruction
The value of the dollar against Bitcoin highlights the effect decentralised currencies such as crypto are having in this arena. When you look at how much the dollar has devalued against Bitcoin over the last five years, it sits at 96.53%. It took 50 years for it to drop in value by 50% against gold. This is because of a global debt crisis. Chief economists say that printing and devaluing more of a nation’s currency is the easiest way out of a debt crisis. Of the roughly 750 currencies that have existed since 1700, only about 20% remain, and those that remain have all been devalued.
Another reason is inflation. It stands at a 40-year high. Many will look to the war in Ukraine and rent hikes for answers to gross inflation, however, many others disagree. These unpredicted events just happen to coincide with inflation after a record increase in printing dollars – 35% of all US dollars have been printed in the last 10 months. In practice, this means that as global economies begin to start up again after the pandemic, this record amount of dollar production is now catching up via inflation. This is also not a nuanced effect, nor endemic solely to the US, we are seeing it happening in the Eurozone too.
There is actually very little a country can do to combat inflation. Its main option is to print more money, making the physical currency more expensive to store and move. This increases interest rates and lowers growth. However, if the growth is low, it pushes you into recession. We are seeing this economic trend play out, with Deutsche Bank informing investors that they are expecting the worst recession in history to hit towards the end of 2023.
2. Age of exponentials and where to look
There are five areas of high growth that many investors should be looking at and these are Edtech, Medtech, Greentech, Space-tech and Fintech.
Obviously, these are all the major areas of tech that are disrupting and decentralising the current centralised systems. Society 4.0 is moving to Society 5.0, from the industrial to an age of impact. Societies are broken down into 1.0 – Hunter-gatherer, 2.0 – Agrarian, 3.0 – Industrial, 4.0 – Information. The transition is at first obvious but becomes embedded into our societal and economic systems, this is what we are currently seeing with big data. All of the fastest-growing companies and exponential technologies are now in this area.
When we look at this trend, what is really interesting is how much it has grown in the last 12 months and the projections over the next decade. ARK Invest, an investment management company, has researched the market growth of exponential technology. Their research shows that, by 2030, these sectors are on track to grow to $210 trillion from $20 trillion in 2020. But as these areas of technology that are seeing this exponential growth are numerous, choosing ‘your wave’ is crucial. One area that has interested me and I believe has advantageous benefits is utilising AI in business. As AI becomes more prevalent in the marketplace, it will improve a company’s reputation and valuation as its products will become more customer-centric and drive engagement. When looking at ARK’s research in this area, they suggest that this is on track to grow from $2.5 trillion in 2021 to $87 trillion by 2030.
Personal experience of leveraging exponentials specific to interests in investments and business are usually easier to research and put into action as the passion is already there. Exponentials represent numerous factions of a 5.0 society, and as we move into it, we must all look to what we can leverage personally, whether it be investments or integrations of other exponentials such as battery technology, cloud computing or blockchain, for example.
3. The digital decade
Everything that we do is being digitised and will encompass Society 5.0; in the digital decade, this will be apparent through a digital overlay on your day-to-day experience. Foresight and action have helped me as an entrepreneur stay ahead of this curve and pushed my interests into this field. We are now looking at partnering with some top-level partners for our ‘Metaversity’, which creates digital campuses for Edtech.
When we look at the history of the web, it is broken down into Web 1.0: accessible content was read -only, Web 2.0: the emergence of blogs and social media, the public was able to create content, Web 3.0: what we are now transitioning into – allows users to have ownership. For example, music was incredibly difficult for artists to monetise, but through NFTs, we are now seeing this being challenged.
The merging of our digital and physical lives will look at Social Spaces (what you build to interact with), Digital Objects (NFTs) and Wallets & Identity - people will need to know that you are real and that they can pass something to you, ie, assets through blockchain or currency.
What this means when looking at investing is that it will shift the paradigm. In the integration of Web 3.0, we must start to ask ourselves not just what we want to invest in, but also, what is the social group or economy we want to invest in? Right now, we are born into a nation with its own economy, so your assets and finances are by default, intrinsically linked. This is an incredibly important aspect, as Web 3.0 will negate citizenship and structured economies. Your wealth will not be linked to your physical citizenship, but to your digital citizenship. What this means in practice is that wealth will no longer be connected to place, but to purpose. Everyone will have the opportunity to build an economy around their individual purpose.
The 2022 Global Impact Investor Summit hosted on the edtech platform GenuisU, saw keynote speakers Roger James Hamilton, Founder & CEO of Genius Group, world-renowned investor Jim Rogers, Marcus de Maria, Founder & Chairman of Investment Mastery, Simon Zutshi, Founder of property investors network (pin), and Mark Robinson, Founder of International Academy of Wealth, share their top 10 investment trends for 2022-2023. Roger James Hamilton, founder and CEO of Genius Group offered his detailed analysis and the whole summit can be viewed online.
About the Author: Roger James Hamilton is a New York Times bestselling author and Founder and CEO of Genius Group, a multi-million dollar group of companies, headquartered in Singapore, which currently includes companies such as GeniusU, Entrepreneurs Institute, Entrepreneur Resorts and Genius School and has an acquisition plan to add in a further 5 companies in 2022 to the Group.
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The US central bank increased its policy rate by 75 basis points on Wednesday to a range of 1.5% to 1.75% as officials increased their fight against stubborn inflation.
Wells Fargo & Co now expects a “mild recession” for the end of 2022 and into early 2023.
“The Federal Reserve is going to hike interest rates until policymakers break inflation, but the risk is that they also break the economy,” Ryan Sweet, Moody’s Analytics head of monetary policy research, said. “Growth is slowing and the effect of the tightening in financial market conditions and removal of monetary policy have yet to hit the economy.”
A recession is generally defined as a downturn in overall economic activity that is broad and lasts for more than a few months. The United States has only just emerged from the economic slump that was triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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In April, regular pay excluding bonuses was down 3.4% after inflation. This marked the largest drop since records began in 2001, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
ONS figures also revealed that, for public sector workers, real pay is falling by almost 6% a year.
Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, commented: “This is really grim news on pay and is only likely to get worse. Despite the tightest labour market on record, nominal pay is broadly flat meaning that rocketing inflation is leading to the largest cuts in real pay in at least two decades [...] The picture is particularly bad for public sector workers.”
The figures come as inflation spiralled to a 40-year high of 9%, due in part to soaring energy and fuel prices amid the Russia-Ukraine war. The figures further emphasise the cost of living crisis that people in the UK are facing as pay increases are swallowed up by rapid inflation.
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The 2-year rate increased by more than 10 basis points to 3.1535%, hitting its highest level since 2007. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was also up, trading at around 3.1762%.
This week, a highly anticipated Federal Reserve meeting will be held, with the US central bank likely to announce at least a half-point rate hike on Wednesday. The Federal Reserve has already upped rates on two occasions this year, including a 0.5 percentage point increase in May in a bid to stave off surging inflation.
Last week, it was reported that the US consumer price index was up 8.6% in May on a year-over-year basis. This is its fastest jump since 1981, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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On a monthly basis, headline consumer price index (CPI) was up 1% while core increased by 0.6%. Estimates had been 0.7% and 0.5% respectively.
Surging fuel prices, food prices, and housing costs all contributed to the record-high jump.
Energy prices broadly increased 3.9% from a month ago, bringing the annual gain up to 34.6%. Housing costs rose 0.6%, the fastest one-month gain since March 2004. Food costs, meanwhile, jumped another 1.2% in May, taking the year-over-year gain up to 10.1%.
“What we need to see is clear and convincing evidence that inflation pressures are abating and inflation is coming down — and if we don’t see that, then we’ll have to consider moving more aggressively,” Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell told the Wall Street Journal last month.
“If we do see that, then we can consider moving to a slower pace.”
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This is why the success witnessed in the UK property market was quite special. The resilience of the market saw investors presumably looking to cash in on assets that have been historically reliable during a time when other opportunities haven’t looked as stable. Clearly, when looking at recent figures, this isn’t slowing down, with houses selling faster than ever, twice as quickly as they did in 2019, according to Rightmove’s house price index.
This boost in market activity is coupled with the surge in rising house prices recorded across each of the major recognised UK house price indices. For example, Nationwide's April house price index revealed that average property prices have now reached £267,620, the ninth straight month of growth.
Of course, this should not encourage complacency – the property market is not impervious to market volatility, particularly in the face of rising inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.
That said, with all Covid restrictions coming to an end at the beginning of the year, the health of the market is set to receive a significant boost in the form of international investors keen to take advantage of the freedoms not as readily available in previous years.
What is the role of international investment?
Attracting non-domestic investment will be vital. Not just to maintain the current growth of the market once domestic activity begins to lose momentum, but to help with the country’s economic recovery.
Fortunately, this appears to be the case since the reopening of travel into the UK. According to Knight Frank’s City Wealth Index section of their 2022 Wealth Report, in 2021, London saw more cross-border private capital in real estate than any other city in the world, with over $3 billion invested. Their forecasts estimate this trend to continue over 2022, with a further $24 billion expected to be invested in the capital.
The demand is certainly here for international investments when considering the UK’s housing crisis as the country desperately needs to address the chronic shortage in housing. According to one estimate commissioned by the National Housing Federation (NHF) and Crisis from Heriot-Watt University, around 340,000 new homes need to be supplied in England each year, of which 145,000 should be affordable. However, only 216,000 new homes were supplied in 2020/2021.
International investors have the potential to play a key role in supporting the construction and development sectors by buying new residential units off-plan and funding development schemes, particularly at a time when the knock-on effects of the pandemic have contributed to the slowdown of construction.
As such, they have the potential to achieve strong returns, especially when investing in growing areas. Regional areas outside of London, such as the West Midlands and North of England, are also very much on investors’ radars and will be ones to watch as they continue to gather pace in the years to come.
Could current macroeconomic headwinds slow down international investment?
Despite the promising signs, one must also acknowledge that the macroeconomic headwinds at play could impact the pace of growth.
For one, interest rates have continued climbing, having recently risen to 1%. Usually seen as a negative headwind for property investors, increased base rates tend to be followed by a rise in mortgages. Any overseas investors already operating on a variable term mortgage will see rates rising, while those considering taking a new one out to purchase UK property will have to factor in higher mortgage rates than they would have experienced last year.
Of course, the reason the Bank of England has increased interest rates is to control soaring inflation; another potential concern for the investors. Prices are set to rise to 10% this year – the highest rate for 40 years alongside increased energy bills and goods prices. A combination of high interest and inflation could erode rental returns and devalue the property if house price growth slows. Not to mention the consequent cost-of-living crisis brought on by raised costs has an indirect effect, as tenants could struggle to afford rents.
However, with all this said, international investment in the UK is unlikely to falter when the demand for new property is so high. Meanwhile, the drop in the pound since the UK’s withdrawal from the EU means that favourable exchange rates will see investors’ money stretch further.
With so much economic uncertainty off the back of a, to put it lightly, challenging two years, it is more important now than ever that we take full advantage of international investment flows. Harnessing the potential of this vital resource will be key to ensuring the continued healthy growth of the industry, the creation of new homes, and the wider economy in general, as we look to put recent times behind us.
About the author: Jamie Johnson is the CEO of FJP Investment, an introducer of UK and overseas property-based investments to a global audience of high net-worth and sophisticated investors, institutions as well as family offices. Founded in 2013, the business also partners with developers in order to provide them with a readily accessible source of funding for their development projects.
