Now that the coronation is over – the coronation of Sweden’s Loreen as this year’s Eurovision winner (Soph and I voted for Finland’s Cha Cha Cha) – it’s back to the mundane world of real estate.
We’re greeted with the FT sticking the knife into the office sector. Poor old Uxbridge was picked out for its post-
Covid high-vacancy, unlettable office buildings. One expert said: “Duck, dodge, dive and weave, but you’re not going to let the space. They can’t be repurposed for anything unless you raze them.”
Soph and I cannot remember a time when real estate was so unloved by the nationals. Back in the day, the papers would write up company results and cover transactions, but not now. Stories have to have recognisable themes or names (housing, Canary Wharf, Blackstone) or have drama (‘stranded assets’, a collapse in the logistics sector) to attract the highest number of clicks.
We have the dispiriting task of telling clients that, one, their story is unlikely to be of interest to the papers and, two, on the rare occasion it is, we can’t guarantee a positive outcome.
But one positive for me and Soph, both renters with no savings, was downloading the Rightmove app, after Skipton Building Society announced the return of 100% mortgages. Definitely a cha-cha-cha moment for us.
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