Prospects for the property industry - survey results

The prospects for the property industry over the next 12 months

CEM Research’s recent survey generated significant interest from over 900 of the College’s current and former students, and found:

• 51.8% identified government cuts as the biggest threat, followed in second place by interest rate rise (28.4%).
• 16.6% of respondents identified ‘changes to planning law’ as the biggest opportunity, closely followed by ‘England winning the 2018 world cup bid’ (14.1%), ‘Green taxation and legislation’ (13.6%) and Crossrail (10.7%).
• More than half of respondents (58.4%) identified ‘changes in educational funding’ as a threat

A large number of the respondents provided written comments about threats and opportunities for the property industry, examples of which are as follows:

'The UK property industry is heavily dependent on government spending, irrespective of how good the economy is and as such this [government cuts] is a big risk.' 

'The government cuts are a threat in the very short term but addressing the debt levels can only be healthy for long term growth in the property and construction sectors.' 

'The public sector now has the opportunity of transforming the way it delivers services and providing better value for money.' 

'The UK property sector is very robust and there are opportunities to be had in taking advantage of situations or changes that at first may have been considered a threat.' 

The results from the survey were featured in Property Week on Friday 17 December.

CEM Research would like to thank all those that responded to the questionnaire.

For a copy of the full summary, please email research@cem.ac.uk.