Land Investment
Land has been an attractive asset class for investment for many years; the church, institutions, pension fund managers and developers have been long term investors. For private investors looking to diversify their investment portfolio with a medium to long term investment, it has a number of appealing benefits.
There are no complicated concepts that you need to understand with land; there is an ever-increasing demand for house building and a restricted supply of plots for sale. Land increases in value in two ways, it goes up in value when property value increases (due to demand outstripping supply) and by land gaining permission to have houses built on it.
Growth has occurred as a result of a shortage of housing in the UK and the scarcity of suitable land for development. The Government commissioned Barker Review of Housing Supply, published in 2004, reported that an additional 70,000-120,000 houses per year would have to be built to keep pace with the amount of demand. The number of households in England is projected to increase from 20.9 million in 2003 to 25.7 million by 2026, an annual growth of 209,000 new households, according to new figures released Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), March 2006.
The Government plans to build over 3,500,000 new homes over the next 20 years with up to 52% of these being on Green Belt sites (Source ODPM).
Investing in land that has planning permission is a relatively simple and safe process, it is maintenance free and allows you to have your very own ‘part of the country’. The taxation benefits are numerous; land ownership potentially includes Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax relief and has the ability, if in the UK, to be placed within a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension).
If you can’t afford to buy acres of prime land, that’s where we can help you. We help you buy sub-divided and affordable plots so that you can get involved with freehold land ownership.
