Under “normal” circumstances, the seventh anniversary of the United Kingdom’s historic decision to sever its membership in the European Union, would be an opportune juncture to assess the impact that Brexit has had on real estate markets and cross-border investment.

Over the past seven years, however, circumstances have been anything but “normal”. Real estate market activity has been intertwined with the end of quantitative easing, the deep and lasting impact of the COVID-19 crisis, the rapid reversal of 15 years of ultra-low and zero interest rates to a “higher-for-longer” monetary policy cycle, 40-year high inflation, and historically high energy costs. These macroeconomic drivers have greatly influenced investor decision-making and made it nigh on impossible to isolate Brexit’s specific medium- to even long-term impact on transactional market activity and cross-border investor appetite.

“A lot has happened since Brexit,” says Martin Towns, deputy