Property investors remain cautiously positive amid value and income decline

Slow improvement in performance

UK property investors have begun to see signs of improvement in the market amid heavy writedowns of rental and capital values in their underlying holdings, but both open-ended and closed-ended vehicles face an uphill battle against blows dealt to portfolios by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The total return offered by all UK property is expected to contract by 7.4% by the end of 2020, according to the Investment Property Forum's (IPF) UK Property Consensus Forecasts, with average rental value and capital value growth expected to fall by 5% and 11.7% respectively. In terms of capital value, the IPF forecasts the greatest declines within retail, shopping centres and retail warehousing with falls of 20.4%, 28.3% and 20.9% respectively.  Retail and shopping centres are also the worst hit on retail values, which have contracted 10.8% and 13.4% respectively. It is a difficu...