UK real estate investment trust Local Shopping REIT said that it has begun to see signs of distressed selling and hopes to take advantage of buying opportunities when property values fall further in 2009.
UK real estate investment trust Local Shopping REIT said that it has begun to see signs of distressed selling and hopes to take advantage of buying opportunities when property values fall further in 2009.
'In the last few weeks we have seen the first signs of genuinely distressed selling in our market. However, we believe it will be 2009 at the earliest before there will be a substantial number of properties for us to buy at discounted prices,' the company said in an interim management statement on its financial results for the six-month period ended 31 March 2008. Local Shopping said it was in a strong financial position to make acquisitions, pointing to undrawn loan facilities of £105mln (EUR 134mln).
Local Shopping said its net rental income in the first half of its fiscal year rose to £7.4mln from £5.2mln in the like, year-earlier period. The operating loss attributable to shareholders widened to £14.5mln from £ 538,000, largely as a result of a decline in fair property values.
