Yes it is that “B” word again, and yes I know how fed up most of you are with hearing about it, but here is the thing, what will the Brexit effect have on your home?
Some of the big financial experts in the city have readily declared that a NO DEAL Brexit will have a catastrophic effect on your house value, your house income and your household expenditure. The only figures that have been quoted though is up to a 30% drop in property values although they haven’t actually given us any specifics. I have to say that in my two decades experience of being a property professional, I have heard these scare tactics before and they have in no way ever affected property prices in the south west to this extent in the past, despite the big London experts and their opinions.
The value of the pound is already dropping to an unexpected low with it almost being on parity with the euro at this current time due to the fact that there is a real chance of a “no deal Brexit” which had previous been thought to have been taken off the table due to all of our beloved politicians not being able to work together for the good of the country. This is similar to playing a game of poker when you actually show your opponent what cards you are playing with and then wonder why you are losing the game.
Gross Domestic Production (GDP) fell in the second Quarter (Apr to Jun) following the strong growth seen in the first Quarter (Jan to Mar), this was most certainly due to companies, and the general public, stock piling and building up reserves in readiness for the March 29th original date for leaving the EU. When this didn’t happen, these people and companies had enough reserves that they didn’t need to purchase these things in the second quarter, hence the strong growth followed by the drop, surely this is simply common sense.
Even with all the doom and gloom that is being batted around like a game of ping pong by the politicians, industry leaders and so called financial experts, one thing seems to have escaped them and that is the fact that life still goes on. We are already seeing more “Staycations” than ever before meaning more of our hard earned income now actually being spent in this country supporting our tourist trade and the thousands of people employed in it.
If we cannot get certain foods from abroad, we will have to buy more UK grown produce bringing more income to our UK produce businesses and farms. If we buy and use our own services rather than relying upon foreign imports our economy will grow. It is purely that we come to expect that we can have whatever we want to buy no matter where it comes from and no matter at what time of the year, it is with no thought as to what this has already done to our country’s GDP.
As for houses, as I see it, people will always want to have babies, babies grow into children, into teenagers, into adults and then into families of their own. People will continue to marry and divorce. People will relocate for work or for pleasure and the effects of all of this is that they will need a roof over their heads. Will the property market here in Devon go down? I think that the uncertainty of Brexit will have an effect but for us in the south west, it will probably be more of a slowdown effect on the market rather than a downward effect of the value of property.
