langdale
I keep reading higher inflation may be ahead and physical assets e.g. property may protect against it. Unfortunately I can't go out and just buy a house or flat. Are there any investments like ITs/unit trusts/ETFs/shares which could replicate owning residential property?
There is an industry based upon predicting inflation that has been around since the last big inflation times of the 1970's.
These folk have found inflation signs in every tea leaf they have looked at and they are big drinkers of tea.
The problem for them has been that inflation has been awol, more recently its ugly sister deflation has been more of a concern.
What happens now with all this money printing which devalues currencies is as always unknowable.
We had a big print in 2009, but no inflation like the 1970's. Will the current big print lead to inflation, the collapse of money, massive rises in land prices, gold and cyber currencies?
Added into this mix is the also unknowable effect of working from home. Will this continue, leading to falling city office rents, falling city property prices and rises in the price of housing and land in rural locations?
There is also the unknowable effect of immigration. Will the current large numbers of immigrants continue, or will Brexit lead to a stop in the increase and a removal of many of the asylum seekers. These processes can have substantial impacts on land and property prices.
You probably don't want more unknowables, but potentially the greatest secular change since the first industrial revolution, maybe happening as AI develops and starts to do lots of jobs that hitherto required people.
Still the purveyors of doom are all over the internet, predicting with fevered certainty all manner of trouble and who knows if this time they may get it right.
Regards