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The UK building industry theme-time radio hour
Somewhat oddly, Tim Wheeler (not the one out of Ash) has tried to explain the current state of the UK property market by, erm, quoting Bob Dylan:
Tim Wheeler, chief executive of Brixton, turned to Bob Dylan on Tuesday to help explain the outlook for the UK property market.
Mr Wheeler said the opening lines of the American songwriter’s All Along the Watchtower “seem to capture the beleaguered mindset of the UK commercial real estate market”.
The song, more famously recorded by Jimi Hendrix, says of land that none “know what any of it is worth”.
[...]
Mr Wheeler said that the fundamental problem was how to assess property values when “there is no real depth of buyers and sellers”. Referring to the lines in the song, “there must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief,” he said “if the ‘thieves’ are the funded or equity based opportunist buyers and the ‘jokers’ are the owners who won’t sell, there is ‘no way’ out of this impasse – yet.”
Mr Wheeler said the opening lines of the American songwriter’s All Along the Watchtower “seem to capture the beleaguered mindset of the UK commercial real estate market”.
The song, more famously recorded by Jimi Hendrix, says of land that none “know what any of it is worth”.
[...]
Mr Wheeler said that the fundamental problem was how to assess property values when “there is no real depth of buyers and sellers”. Referring to the lines in the song, “there must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief,” he said “if the ‘thieves’ are the funded or equity based opportunist buyers and the ‘jokers’ are the owners who won’t sell, there is ‘no way’ out of this impasse – yet.”
Wheeler's head actually exploded when he attempted to find a line in the song that could be used to illustrate the idea that by not committing to a stamp duty holiday, Alistair Darling has made the problem worse.
