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Market in Minutes: UK Residential Development Land

Caution prevails in the land market after Brexit vote

■ There is caution in the land market due to uncertainty after the EU referendum across much of the UK leading to falls in land value in some areas.

■ Land values have stagnated or fallen over the last three months according to our development land index. UK greenfield development land values fell by 0.4% in Q3 2016 whilst urban land values increased only slightly, by 0.1% in the last three months.

■ Caution from some land purchasers has led to sentiment becoming more neutral and in general reduced the number of bids for sites.

■ However, there are areas of the country where demand for land has been maintained. These include outer London, connected markets in the South and central Birmingham.

■ The central London market is behaving very differently from the rest of the country. It has seen the greatest falls in land value because factors other than the referendum are at play.

■ In central London falling house prices have meant land values for residential development have reduced significantly (8.9% decrease in the last six months, the largest falls seen since 2008/09).

■ Land value for office development in central London have fallen (5.9% decrease in the last six months) due to the risk of occupational demand as a result of the Brexit vote.

Land value movements

FIGURE 1Land value movements

Source: Savills Research

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