Below is the English translation of an article published in the January 2014 issue of HKEJ Monthly:
Outlook of UK Property amidst slow growth and tax crackdown In recent months it seems, whichever direction one turns, from newspapers to letterboxes and even email inboxes, overseas property sales advertisement are omnipresent – be it familiar markets such as UK/US/Australia/Canada, or Singapore/Malaysia, even depressed Japan, or the sovereign debt troubled Spain/Portugal seem to be selling properties in Hong Kong.
However, buying property long distance already increases risks, let alone acquiring real estates located in places of different languages or unfamiliar commercial/legal cultures. Extra due diligence is therefore paramount to investment success. The writer tries to stick to markets which are easier to understand, and the one top of the list has to be UK. This article tries to look into various fundamental factors in an attempt to increase readers’ odds should they be looking at overseas property investing.
Where stands the UK property cycle? The key advantages of investing in property are its long cycles, and the lack of market/insider manipulation like in investing in securities. As a result, one only needs to invest at turning points of these cycles to generate long term and repeated above-normal returns. Besides price cycles, another important indicator is affordability, below we look at the UK market from the point of view of valuation to determine if it still is a good time to take a plunge in this market.
Home price to income seem expensive, but mortgage affordability remain good If left untouched, the free market would have allowed prices to rise and fall by the balance of forces between supply and demand, however, since the global financial crisis (GFC), all governments around the world seem to have taken on the role of God, trying all means at their disposal to prop up all sorts of asset markets. The result is the loss of the price discovery mechanism and a general loss of information content in whatever prices we see being transacted. In the case of the UK property market, what should have been a 50% fall in price seemed to have been arrested by the combination of zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP), quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus (such as Help to Buy), resulting in a rebound in prices after barely a 25% drop.
Currently, average home prices in the UK are equivalent to 4.67 years of the average full time worker’s income (Chart 1), and looks set to continue rebounding some 7% in the coming year, with a chance of breaching the bubble high levels last reached in 1988/9. This bounce in the national prices are too modest compared to London home prices, which helped by external demand (of which China/HK money rank amongst the top sources), safe haven effect (i.e. all European countries hit by tax hikes and banking crisis, such as France, Greece, Spain), has been rebounding strongly since back in late 2009, to have risen over 30% against income levels. London’s price to income multiple now stands at 6.06, and could well reach the top of the historic range around 2016 (Chart 2).
Whilst expensive in price-income multiple terms, housing valuation needs also to be viewed in the context of mortgage affordability (i.e. what proportion of monthly income is used towards mortgage repayments). In this measure, the central bank’s ZIRP has helped a great deal, and alongside recovering lending appetites amongst banks, mortgage costs have steadily fallen in the past year, leading to the UK mortgage affordability measure nearing historically low levels, and at almost one standard deviation below historic averages (Chart 3).Over in London, the stronger rises in prices have more than offset the magnitude of falling interest rates, resulting in the London mortgage affordability measure rising for two years in a row – even with another 16% rise in prices, the measure only just returns to the historic average line (Chart 4).
The above two sets of charts clearly illustrate that, without forceful administrative intervention, UK home prices had more to fall; however, with interventionism and political populist very much the mainstream philosophy, adding to that uncertain pace of economic recovery, government support for the property market will likely remain the main factor influencing home prices.
Home prices not attractive if income and rental yields are factored in the equation In order to combine the income and interest sides of the analysis employed above to look at the whole picture, we can combine the key home price drivers – income, interest rates, and rental yields – into a ‘composite valuation index’ to reach a result akin to that shown in Chart 5. Unfortunately, despite recovering income and suppressed interest rates, rental yields have also fallen, resulting in the composite valuation index to reach levels similar to the 2007 top already!
In a still low interest rate environment where government market support is unlikely to withdraw, we are afraid that the trend in the next two years will most likely be higher highs in the composite index, until around 2016 before a correction will be seen.
Tight supply also favorable to home prices Besides affordability, another key factor driving home prices is supply. In this regards, the tight credit environment and slow economic growth has led to falling completions; this combined with household formation remaining at elevated levels, has pushed up UK occupancy rate back to the range seen in the 90s, or an occupancy rate of 96.6% (Chart 6) – this high occupancy rate will benefit rents and prices alike. Looking at the planning permission figures of the past three quarter, completions will likely stay low in the next six months, at an annual rate of around 150,000, which is significantly lower than the 200-220,000 levels before the GFC. Overall speaking, in the short term, UK supply will likely stay below demand.
Economic growth – not out of the woods yet The greatest challenge to home prices in the future remains low real income growth (Chart 8) which will restrain rental increases and therefore property prices. Further, fast paced economic growth seen in the UK since the 80s (i.e. the portion above the dotted line in the chart) may have coincided with financial sector deregulation (i.e. Big Bang) and the peaking global interest rates in 1980. Both these factors are now in reversal, with no prospects of improvements to help the economy outperform.
Whilst in the short term, low interest rates will continue to provide support, this remains an artificial ‘life support’ mechanism which will one day be taken away, adding to that the spectre of a Euro sovereign debt crisis, risks remain that home prices could mean revert towards income (Chart 9).
Besides troubles in Europe, it seems that the global economic growth engine that is the USA may weaken – after over three years of recovery, the initial jobless claims numbers may have reached a multi-decade low (red arrow in Chart 10). Whenever the initial claims numbers start to enter a rising cycle, stock market indices stagnate or even worse, enter bear markets. So, with the economies of two of UK’s most important trade partners entering a period of high uncertainty, risks also rise for UK’s economy and property market. The question remains of whether: governments allow markets to falter (arrow B in chart) or another round of QE saves the day (arrow A in chart)? Exhibit 10: US job market recovery may be about to end
Fiscal difficulties + popularism = higher taxes have only begun Another important factor that investors in UK properties need to increasingly take heed of is the implication of structural budget deficits (Chart 11) brought about by high welfare. When government debts are at the highest levels since the 60s (Chart 12), and when interest rates cannot fall further to reduce the debt financing costs, higher taxes may be the only way forward.
| Exhibit 12: UK net debt will not decrease until 2015/2016 according to Treasury’s optimistic prediction |
Which sector is most attractive?As is common in many jurisdictions, the need to appease domestic voters will continue to increase as prices rise further, shutting out local potential home buyers. As a result, punitive taxes aimed at overseas owners/buyers (such as the Mansion Tax) will become more severe and more widespread – investors should be prepared for this trend unfolding in the next two years as elections loom. By this stage, we hope to have highlighted the main pros and cons in investing in UK property. If you have already decided to put money into this market, you will certainly have heard all about buying location and quality (rather than cheap prices). However, it appears that quality and premium products are now reaching levels where the benefit no longer justify the cost – for example, West End prices have already outperformed Greater London by over 30%, and an even more substantial 100%+ when compared to national average prices (Chart 13).
With the rush of overseas buyers pushing prices to unreasonable levels, combined with the government targeting luxury homes (eg those over 2 million pounds), property prices in the more expensive districts have already started sliding, and looks set to continue in this trend to at least the middle of 2014 (Chart 14), if not as far as 2015/6.
Given this possible outcome, what you see in your letterboxes (most likely in the most expensive parts of London) will probably not be an outperforming asset in the near future. For good value sectors, office property outside of London may have better upside (Chart 15).
The author wishes to thank Mr Simon Zhu’s help in assisting in the collection and analysis of information used in this article.
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