Almost half of British real estate professionals expect no broad improvement in Britain's depressed property market before next spring, a Lloyds Banking Group survey found.

In its latest Commercial Property Confidence Monitor, the part-nationalised lender said 46 per cent of respondents from medium-to-large businesses expected no change in market performance, while more than a quarter from small and major companies were bracing for new declines.

"Commercial property values rose by just 0.1 per cent in August, and the levels of confidence we've seen appear to reflect the wider plateau in rents and yields across the industry," Richard Dakin, head of Lloyds corporate real estate business support unit, was quoted as saying in our sister publication, the Gulf Daily News.

"Net confidence may have fallen since the last quarter, but this adjustment is probably a far more accurate reflection of today's market fundamentals," he said.

After rebounding rapidly in the six months between September 2009 and the first quarter of this year, Britain's commercial property market recovery has buckled under the weight of recession and eurozone sovereign debt worries.

Average values have risen around 2 per cent since March, around half the aggregated gain seen in the first quarter, data from benchmark provider Investment Property Databank shows. – TradeArabia News Service