London commercial property 'might recover'

The London commercial property market could be on the road to recovery, an expert indicated today.

According to Michael Aglony, marketing manager at Mortgages for Business, the market is ’starting to open up’ following the credit crunch-induced downturn.

The comments follow the release of a survey from Cushman and Wakefield, which showed that investment in central London over the second quarter hit £1.4 billion.

This is a 110 per cent increase over the first quarter of 2009 - and provides further evidence of ’green shoots’ of recovery in the economy as a whole.

Mr Aglony said: ’We have definitely seen an increase.’

’I’ve taken a look into the [Mortgages for Business] commercial mortgage statistics and, based on quarter one figures versus quarter two figures for 2009, there has been a 171 per cent increase in commercial cases, which would reflect the positive shift we have begun to see in the last few months.’

A report by DTZ published last month suggested that London was one of the few office markets currently offering ’fair value’ in the present financial climate.

Prime rents in the City and West End were found to have fallen by 31 per cent and 23 per cent respectively from their pre-credit crunch peaks.ADNFCR-2318-ID-19253599-ADNFCR