The rest is politics?

For followers of politics, this week has seen plenty of developments that will take some time to digest at international, national and local level. Every glance at a newspaper, television or social media showed something else that has the potential to impact day-to-day life, real estate very much included.

Let's start at the geopolitical level. Dominating the headlines was the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran that is being trumpeted as the end of the war in the Middle East. Big Picture will defer to others on the assessment of just how effective and beneficial (and lasting) the final deal will turn out to be, but from an economic perspective it offers some much-needed good news. Oil prices and Government borrowing costs fell in the aftermath of the announcement, two factors that real estate investors will hope, and expect, to feed through to more benign market conditions in the coming months.

Thursday saw three by-elections in the UK, the most notable of which resulted in the election of Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, convincingly returned as the new MP for Makerfield. Once everyone is back from their summer holidays, it is likely the UK will have a new Prime Minister, be it as a result of a Burnham-won leadership contest, or Keir Starmer standing down. Either way, a new political direction is on the horizon, and the uncertainty that goes with it; it is perhaps unsurprising that UK borrowing costs ticked upwards on Friday as markets tried to figure out what the realities of a new Government will look like.

It also raises a question for Greater Manchester itself, which will in short order have to find a new Mayor. Manchester has been the UK's regional city success story of the past couple of decades, and those that have benefitted from this success will hope the new Mayor continues with the same focus on inward investment and business-friendly policy.

One final bit of politics, perhaps minor in the grand scheme of things, was Switzerland's rejection via referendum of the proposal to cap its total population at 10 million. If it had been enacted, this would've thrown another spanner into the works of the European economy as all manner of free trade and movement deals became unworkable; the result at least spares the continent from more protracted – and distracting – negotiations.

So, what to make of it all? How can real estate best navigate these changes? At a basic level, the industry has to do what it has always done: keep going, keep facing up to new challenges and keep finding new ways to make deals, projects and initiatives stack up. But the changes seen this week also reinforce a theme that has been growing for some time: how can real estate – indeed, all sectors – be more nimble, adaptable and responsive in the face of such unpredictability?

Real estate is arguably more susceptible to uncertainty and political change than most. Dependent on the cost of finance – something that can shift in a heartbeat, underpinning or undermining viability depending on the direction of travel – and working in timeframes of years and even decades, real estate has few options when the political winds change. A building cannot simply be relocated to another jurisdiction.

On balance, the political machinations this week are probably net positive for real estate. In economic terms, a détente in the Gulf will be beneficial in terms of lower inflation and the prospect of lower borrowing costs. And while an Andy Burnham leadership will not see a low-tax, free-wheeling economy, there is at least some hope that Manchester's pro-business policies will find their way into the national policy too. In the meantime, real estate will strive to be more adaptable, while also recognising that in uncertain times, the permanence of property has its own attractions. The rest, as they say, is politics.