With only weeks to go now till the official opening of the Olympics’, speculation on how the property market with be affected once the excitement is all over if rife. Should I sell now, should I wait, will my property double in price or are we going to experience a downturn in the market? One thing for sure is that we are going to see an extremely quiet period during the Olympics simply because it will be so difficult for people to get around, just the logistics of getting from A to B will be enough for anyone to completely shelve the idea of looking for a property to buy or rent. Signs that this is already happening particularly in the rental market is already evident with most tenants staying put in their current property having already negotiated an extension months ago or if they have had to move they have already arranged to transfer to a new property and will be moved in before the games officially commence. Trying to read the market and predict what the future holds in respect of property prices is tough and certainly there has been quite a split in viewpoints on this. Our friends from Asia are convinced we are going to see a huge downturn and are as we speak arranging to have cash readily available to purchase property below current market value; certainly they are all convinced that the bottom will drop out of the UK market. But will it? Over the period of the games themselves many owners will be cashing in by renting out their properties. Longer term it is harder to predict, but if the park does become an international attraction as some predict there should be plenty of opportunity for both short- and long-term lettings to increase in the coming years. Time will tell whether the plans will be executed fully, but the legacy of improvements in infrastructure and the global media attention on the area would suggest that East London should see further property price rises over the coming years, which could have a wider impact on property in the surrounding areas too. Recently a report stated that the UK economy will benefit from a “record breaking spending injection during London 2012” to the tune of £750m in the seven week period of the Games. It went on to add that “this record breaking spending boost will deliver a sustained stimulus worth a total of £5.1bn to the UK economy by 2015.”
Let’s hope this filters through to the property market and sustains the recent increases and pushes them further upwards to deliver the results we are all hoping for.