UK property shares live up to safe-haven tag in volatile world
By Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) - Forget gold. In a world of volatile market swings, Greek debt fears and an impending U.S. interest rate hike, one safe haven that has delivered on its promise is UK real estate.
The value of British homes can fall as well as rise. But many Britons believe that buying a house or apartment is the best long-term investment they can make, and since the start of the year, shares of homebuilders such as Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey and Berkeley have surged an eye-popping 30 to 50 percent.
That has trumped not just the wafer-thin gains of the broader FTSE 100 but even the 28-percent leap seen on the Shanghai bourse.
It's not just construction firms, either: property listings website Zoopla has soared 31 percent year-to-date, rival Rightmove is up 47 percent and estate-agent chain Foxtons is up 49 percent -- all in a year when Britain faced its most uncertain general election in decades.
The fortunes of the sector contrast starkly with the performance of traditional safe havens so far in 2015. Gold prices are down, U.S. treasuries have taken a wild ride on expectations of a rate rise and the Swiss franc wrong-footed many in January when the cap on its value was lifted.
"(UK property) has been a nice place to be, with good management discipline and good supply-demand dynamics, (and) prices going up," said Chris Watt, manager of the Jupiter Asset Management UK Growth and Income Fund.
To be sure, there are limits to how "safe" UK property can be given its frothy valuations. Homebuilders are trading at all-time highs relative to their asset values, average UK house prices at their highest since records began and the Bank of England has cited the housing market as a major economic risk.
Many housebuilders lost well over half their market value after the housing crash in 2007, and their prices can be very sensitive to growth and consumer confidence.
But with expectations of a UK interest rate rise being pushed further out and no sign yet that housing supply is catching up with demand, there is little evidence of an end to the froth just yet. Even political pressure to increase housing supply is seen as a potential positive for homebuilders.
"If I look at (UK) housebuilders now, they're trading on all-time high valuations - even higher than 2007," Jupiter's Watt said, describing the sector as expensive despite the supportive political backdrop.
"The political climate is probably positive for the housebuilders, (housing) is a key issue for the Conservative government. But the sector still looks too expensive."
LONDON RISK
Investors like Watt are moving to capture other, cheaper parts of the UK housing sector - partly to avoid bubbly London prices.
Hermes Investment Management's latest residential property fund is capping its exposure to Greater London to one-third, seeing cities outside the capital as offering higher rental growth potential.
Fund managers also singled out listed property REITs, or Real Estate Investment Trusts, as offering more attractive multiples than other areas. REITs have failed to rally as strongly as homebuilders this year due to volatile bond yields and fears of a hike in borrowing costs.
"REITs have rental income and growth here might be able to offset the rise in interest rates over time," said Veronika Pechlaner, European fund manager at Ashburton.
Others are looking at stocks further down the housing-market food chain: Jupiter's Watt said kitchen manufacturer Howden was one that might benefit from continued strength in the housing market.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Lionel Laurent/Ruth Pitchford)
