In response to the 2013 Budget, Francesca Medda, the Urban Land Institute’s Visiting Fellow on Infrastructure comments: “While we welcome the further £3 billion of infrastructure investment outlined in today’s budget, the major reform is the continued push towards a less centralised financial approach. Financial localism is a major shift in the mind-set of the UK Government and it is only through local initiatives that we can establish new ways to use infrastructure investment to help us exit from the economic crisis.”
Read the response of Nick Jopling, Chairman of the Urban Land Institute’s UK Residential Council, here.
Nick Jopling, Executive Director of Property at Grainger plc and Chairman of the Urban Land Institute’s UK Residential Council, commenting on the Budget, said:
“Housing is critical to the UK’s economic recovery. For every pound spent on building a new home, more than three pounds go back into the economy. The Chancellor’s commitment in today’s Budget of the stimulus to house building is, therefore, very welcome. We have been building too few homes over recent years along with an anaemic mortgage market and the enormous challenge facing first time buyers for saving up for a deposit.
LONDON (January 18 2013) German cities dominate the investment prospects for Europe’s commercial real estate sector as investors continue to favour safe haven locations according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate® Europe 2013, a real estate forecast published jointly by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The ranking of 27 cities across Europe, based on respondents’ expectations for market performance in 2013, sees Munich top the league table followed closely by Berlin in second place and Hamburg in fifth position, with investors taking comfort from each of the cities’ strong local micro-economic climate and resilient property market conditions.
ULI research highlights the impact of leverage on property fund performance
London (14 January 2013) New research published by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) highlights the significant negative impact which leverage has had on the performance of European property funds between 2001 and 2011. The findings, published in Have Property Funds Performed?, demonstrate that leverage is the key driver behind the overall underperformance of investment vehicles over the last decade, in some cases reducing returns by up to 13.2% per annum for a 60% leveraged opportunity fund.
In response to the 2013 Budget, Francesca Medda, the Urban Land Institute’s Visiting Fellow on Infrastructure comments: “While we welcome the further £3 billion of infrastructure investment outlined in today’s budget, the major reform is the continued push towards a less centralised financial approach. Financial localism is a major shift in the mind-set of the UK Government and it is only through local initiatives that we can establish new ways to use infrastructure investment to help us exit from the economic crisis.” 
Nick Jopling, Executive Director of Property at Grainger plc and Chairman of the Urban Land Institute’s UK Residential Council, commenting on the Budget, said: