Risk och osäkerhet på fastighetsmarknaden : London & Stockholm

Background and research problem: The former highly inflationary property market is currently undergoing a stagnation process. Investors have been used to annual growth figures in double digits, but now this is no longer considered to be a realistic outlook for future years. According to a report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Urban Land Institute, published by Avanza Wealth Management, the three most attractive markets for property investment in Europe are London, Paris and Stockholm. Because of this the authors have focused their investigation on two companies in the London and Stockholm. The authors will additionally use an international bank, an estate agent and a consultancy firm for further information, with regards to the property market and risks associated with these types of investment in particular. This leads us into the purpose and research problem for this thesis which is concentrated around risks involved in property investments and how companies handle these risks. What are the biggest risks associated with these types of investment and how does different organisations analyse these identified risk factors? What different risk factors do companies in the property sector consider? Furthermore, a comparison between the investigated companies in London and London will be undertaken. Delimitations: The authors have chosen to limit the thesis geographically to the regions of London and Stockholm, since these markets have been categorised as being amongst the most attractive for property investments in Europe. Also, the authors have chosen not to consider the risk factors associated with new productions in debt since this will make this thesis far to indecisive and immense, hence it will be impossible for the intended reader to grasp the actual risks associated with the property market as a whole. Method: A number of interviews have been held with representatives at both board and management levels within the property companies which have been the focal point of this thesis. Moreover, several other interviews have been held with other associated companies to create a broad picture of the property market and the inherent risks in these investments. Results and conclusions: The largest risks associated with property investments, according to the interviewed property organisations are: fluctuations in interest rates, economic cycles, the position of the property, change in property law or property regulations. The interviewed bank had partially diverging opinions about the risk factors and summarised these as: fluctuations in rental income, vacancies, the ability of repayments and also the position of the property. This divergence would seem to be a result of the fact that the bank focuses on just the aspects of loans to finance the investment. To sum up the thesis, the authors conclude that the organisations, whether in London or Stockholm, seem to have identified relatively similar risk factors and that they also use roughly the same countermeasures to meet these risks. Suggestions for further research: It would be of interests for the industry to investigate the possibility of being able to quantify these risks into figures to be able to build models for calculations of these risks and thus be able to estimate the actual cost of risk associated with investments in property. Furthermore, it would be interesting to perform a large scale investigation with more organisations together with quantitative analysis and questionnaires