Questions have been raised over the last few years about London and whether it's still a place for investment... well my take is always 'London will surprise you'.
Ryan Rahnavard, Associate Director at Gladfish explains his take on London's investment potential.
Video Transcription
Brett: Hi, guys! Welcome to Property Rant. I'm Brett Alegre-Wood. So what I thought to do today, I thought I'd introduce and just have a chat about London. What I'm gonna do is introduce you to Ryan. Ryan runs one of our teams here. He's been with me for about six years. He deals with London property investors all the time, all day, every day. So, Ryan, how are you?
Ryan: Good, mate. How are you?
Brett: Yeah, very good, mate, very good. So, tell me, London, is it still worth investing? Because we're hearing lots of stuff about, you know, Brexits, and Trumpisms, and all these sort of things that perhaps, people say, "London is no longer the place to invest." But what is your take on that?
Ryan: That's absolute a load of BS, if you like it, 100%. I mean, London is still, by far, you know, the best, has some of the best fundamentals around the world. I mean, it's second to none. And what something people keep forgetting is it is still a world city and it's not going to lose that status any time soon. You got some of the best employers that are staying. Brexit, yes, this, that. You know, we're gonna sign own separate trade agreements, service agreements, which will maintain our status as a world city.
So London, you know, coming from the worst recession that we had in 100 years, took us a year to recover and go in that sort of growth phase, don't be surprised if it happens again this time around and you can see massive, massive growth. But the thing about London is it's not just on one. It's spread out into a number of different places in London. So there are still many pockets you can make money from today and in the future.
Brett: And I think that's important, too. You know, we talk about Knightsbridge, and we talk about Central London stuff, you know, so easily and how expensive it is. The reality is London is a city of 8 million people. You know, fundamentally, it's a massive city. But everything is built. So there's nowhere, there's no new land really that we can build on. There're little bits and pieces. But actually, for a population so large, and then you add in people who transit in or commute in.
Ryan: Yeah, there're a lot of people there. And then you got the infrastructure that's coming in. You got Crossrail coming in. You know, you've got construction of...you know, Jubilee line's getting redone. You got the whole East Side.
Brett: Yeah.
Ryan: And the funny thing is is now that you've had a lot of money in the East, now you're getting some in the North, the West. So you're getting investment throughout the whole of London. So it still remains one of the best places to invest in the U.K.
Brett: And I think the thing with London is, you know, you can sit there and say, "Well, I'm expecting a massive growth automatically, you know, within a short period of time." The fundamentals here are such where it is a cyclical nature. So, yeah, you may find that right now, Central one and two aren't doing as well, three, four, five, some areas, you know, growing considerably. But there're still pockets that are doing really, really well...
Ryan: Absolutely.
Brett: ...and are surprising all the time.
Ryan: Hundred percent.
Brett: And you know, clients who buy, and especially when you're buying to regeneration and when you're buying to the investment story, there's massive amount of investment coming into London. And you know what? Brexit hasn't stopped that. You know, it hasn't. And I love that about it.
Ryan: And these are just white noises that you always get within property, you know. These sort of things coming and going, and it will naturally take its time. We'll adjust to it and we'll recover, and it will go back to its growth cycle. And the good thing is, you know, we've got someone in the Chancellor in David Hammond, who knows business. And, you know, he'll turn London into a haven long-term. And, you know, he's put in a lot of money behind tech side of things because he sees that as the future. And London wants to sort of get a foothold and get a headstart on the world.
Brett: And I think now, I've got, our company, Crowdsourcing Week, and that deals in the high, you know, tech and that sort of stuff and the crowdsourcing. And one of the things there is that people don't realize is tech is where things are moving. So there's so many new jobs being created from tech-base. I mean, just today, we had our IT guy in and he's talking about how now our IT infrastructure is so simple.
You know, you walk up to any computer and you login, you know, and basically, you don't need to own that computer, and you just store files on it. You know, that sort of stuff, you know, that's growing exponentially. You know, app development, all this sort of stuff is growing. And London actually has the talent and people that are experienced to be able to do that, you know. And very few other places have that ability to draw on massive amount of talent. So, you know, we can sit there and, you know, talk about how Brexit not being good and all these sort of things, and that is really the white noises, you know, we talk about.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely, I understand. But long-term, London, you can't go wrong: world city, best fundamentals, shops, the schools, the transport links, the employment, and certainly the investment that will never ever, ever stop coming into a major city like London.
Brett: Awesome. Okay.
Ryan: All right, cheers.
Brett: Well, cheers, mate. Thank you very much. Yeah, cool.
Ryan: Yeah, bye.
Brett: Okay, guys, so that's Ryan. I mean, look, London, you really can't go wrong long-term. Even, you know, with all the stories that are going on and the things you think that might be happening and reasons why you might think to wait, you know, most of it is just rubbish, you know. What you need to do is you need to, very quickly, you know, get your strategy, work your strategy. And, look, if you can afford London, get into it because it always astounds and surprises. And I'm sure that it will, you know, in very short order as well as you buy something there.
All right, guys, have a great day.
Live with passion.
