It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Michael Porter, Senior Director in CBRE’s National Valuation & Advisory Services team in Leeds.
2024 had its fair share of ups and downs, but from an economic point of view it turned out to be better than expected. Inflation fell sharply in Q1 and was near, or at target, for much of the rest of the year, and consequently the Bank of England started its interest rate cutting cycle.
Overall, the economy grew by around 1%. We now appear to be firmly on the road to recovery, and we forecast the growth trajectory to continue in 2025, boosted by further interest rate cuts.
Looking through a commercial real estate lens, it is becoming increasingly evident that the market reached a trough in 2024. Our Monthly Index is showing embryonic signs of a turning point, which we expect to continue and gather more strength in 2025.
As we leave a year where investment volumes remained at historically low levels, a rise in values, alongside lower interest rates and lower costs of debt, will stimulate a pick-up in investment in 2025 of around 15%.
