Most of our news channels are focused on the presidential election, but across the pond in the UK they face a referendum in June as to whether they stay in the European Union or not. Needless to say it could have implications on the housing market amongst everything else so we wanted to share this Market Comment from Nick Churton of Robert Paul Properties’ London office with you…

“In the USA citizens are beginning to decide who will govern them for the next four years after the general election in November, whilst over the Atlantic in the UK residents will soon be deciding who will be in charge for a great deal longer.

The British public will vote in June on whether or not to leave the European Union. To go it alone or stay in the Union and put up with unseen Eurocrats in Brussels making decisions for them. It is not an easy choice. There are far-reaching financial, legal, security, social and sovereignty issues at stake. But to make it simpler to understand for those outside the UK it might be easier to think about it in terms of moving home.

Should we stay or should we go? It is a very difficult question indeed. There are so many factors to take into account. What will happen if we stay where we are? What new opportunities might there be if we move? But if we stay at least we know where we are. We have become used to it. Of course there are faults -many of which need to be fixed over time.

The neighbors are reasonably friendly and do look after us a bit. We are secure here and they help keep out some not-so-welcome guests. But the neighbors can also be taxing, do not always see things our way and often try and tell us what to do. Next door are always good for a fine meal and make their own great wine. But they grumble a lot and never seem to be happy. Next door but two are in a huge place, run things like clockwork, always have wonderful, well-built cars and often seem to bail out our more cash-strapped neighbors which is nice of them. But over the years we have not always seen eye-to-eye at all have had some world-class fallings out.

Of course if we do move it doesn’t mean our neighbors won’t move away themselves over time if their friendships dissolve. So the old place might not necessarily be the same whether we leave or not.Then there are our Scottish cousins who live with us to consider. If we did move they might not want to move with us, but might rather stay with the neighbors thereby making our family smaller. Do we really want that?

Moving could mean finding ourselves in an isolated place. We would have to make new friends many of whom live a long way away. Yes, deciding whether to move house or not is a very big decision. Property exit – prexit – will be one of the biggest decisions we make. We will need to take a few months to think about being in or out of the market very carefully and be prepared to live with the outcome because if we do move there will be no moving back.”