Historically, there has been very little take-up of residential property by UK pension fund investors in their home market. This is in stark contrast to pension fund investors in other parts of Europe and North America, where the practice is, generally speaking, the norm.

There are two underlying factors, however, which could mean that this situation is about to change.

The first of these is perfectly exemplified by many of the UK’s local authority pension fund investors. These institutions have enjoyed a decade of extremely strong equity investment returns. Their equity allocations have been so fruitful, in fact, that the prospect of reaching fully-funded status is on the horizon for many of them — for the first time in 30 years. As a result, these funds are now being advised to significantly reduce their investment risk. But de-risking is not a one-way street. Pension fund trustees are well aware that they still need to generate some income from their investments