Property Funds Revisited
March 2017
Property is a deceptively diverse asset class but can broadly be split into two: residential and commercial
I have been fascinated by property funds since I first became an Independent Financial Adviser in 1997. For a long time, property funds seemed to offer the Goldilocks investment strategy – decent returns on a consistent basis with low volatility and seemingly minimal risk. Certainly at the time of my previous study in 2003, that appeared to be the offering across the market.
Over the years property investment has not always offered this. In 2007/8, in the credit crash, the best description of the sector would have been toxic. And more recently, following Brexit, the property funds were suffering massive withdrawals, which caused some of them to “gate” themselves to protect the funds by stopping withdrawals.