Home / Property & land
Property & land
The most widely held tradeable asset in Britain, and the slowest to sell.
Property trades badly by every technical measure — each unit is unique, transactions take months, costs run to several per cent, and there is no continuous price. It is nonetheless where most British household wealth sits.
The interesting part of this category is the financial engineering built on top: trusts, ground rents, development land, and instruments that let you take a position on property without the solicitor, the survey and the six months.
Residential property
The asset most British households hold most of their wealth in, bought with borrowed money, sold over months, and priced by …
No. 002Agricultural land
Productive land that has for decades been valued for its tax treatment and its scarcity at least as much as for what it grow…
No. 012Commercial property
Offices, warehouses, shops and industrial units, valued on the rent they produce and repriced hard by the structural shifts …
No. 032Ground rents & freehold reversions
The freehold interest under a block of leasehold flats — a small income stream plus a reversion, and the subject of active l…
No. 052Real estate investment trusts
Listed companies that own property and pay out most of their rental profit untaxed at company level — property exposure with…
No. 059Timber & forestry
Land that grows its own return, taxed unusually favourably in the UK, and increasingly bought for carbon rather than for pla…