Alex Ross is no property bull. The fund manager expects the commercial real estate market to flatline for at least three years and he's less gung-ho about the City office sector than most property brokers. Yet even he thinks property stocks are due a year-end bounce, as investors start to shrug off Europe's sovereign debt problems.
"The equity markets are pricing in a considerable amount of fear," he says. "I'm not saying I know more than anyone else, but my view is that Europe will muddle through. And if we don't get a banking crash and a credit crisis, then we won't see property values hit. Of course, if we do get another credit crisis, then all bets are off."
Most property fund managers don't have to worry about the vagaries of stock market sentiment. But Mr Ross, who runs the open-ended Premier pan-European Property Share fund, is an exception. That's because his portfolio holds shares in listed property companies – the likes of Land Securities, British Land and Hammerson – rather than physical property itself ('bricks-and-mortar').