More evidence today of how confidence in the broader economy — and London in particular — is surging back: Savills reported this morning that investment in the City property market last month was the highest for a January since 2016.
And what was happening at the start of that year? Well not very much by recent standards.
The FTSE 100 had just ended 2015 at an all-time high after a second consecutive year of solid GDP growth well above Britain’s par of 2%. Britain was steadily pulling away from the wreckage of the financial crash and then Chancellor George Osborne was homing in on a budget surplus on day-to-day spending.
We did not appreciate it at the time but it was the calm before the storm.
We all know what came next: the EU referendum result in June marked the start of a period of political and economic tumult that culminated in last autumn’s brief and disastrous flirtation with Trussonomics.
Today’s figures from Savills are a reassuring reminder of London’s admirable resilience.
The capital’s underlying attractiveness was obscured but hopefully not badly damaged by the bizarre events of the past seven years.
Today’s figures on City investment follow similarly encouraging numbers about demand for space in the West End.
With tourism numbers expected to recover strongly this year and commuter volumes still slowly building there are good reason to suppose that by this time next year London will have finally recovered its pre-Brexit poise.
