Some people have short memories. Others simply aren’t old enough to remember.

I get asked regularly what’s next.

And when I answer, people often say what I’m seeing feels obvious.

Now, I’m not going to get it right every time — no one does — but over nearly 40 years in property, my record has been fairly spot on.

So when I’m asked when the next downturn might come, my answer isn’t based on prediction — it’s based on pattern. Right now, a few things are lining up.

Transaction volumes have been suppressed for most of the past decade. That usually precedes an uptick.

Affordability is easing. Lenders are becoming more flexible, and competition for market share will push that further.

Ninety-five percent lending has now well and truly arrived.

As I write this, leaseholder reform has finally gained clarity. That matters. It brings stretched buyers back into the market, and it puts older flats — not new builds — back as the first rung on the ladder.

As momentum builds, history suggests the same thing happens every time:

price growth accelerates outside London’s chokehold, as people follow affordability outward along familiar arteries.

The risk is a quick, sharp rise in prices as two forces collide.

On one side, first-time buyers re-entering the market after being forced into renting.

On the other, landlords discovering — often too late — that rising costs can’t simply be passed on, and that good tenants with options don’t hang around.

That’s what concerns me.

Once that cycle plays out, the next phase usually isn’t far behind.

Over a two-to-five-year window, with stock markets and precious metals already at all-time highs, the indicators for a downturn start to appear.

Markets move in rhythm.

A crypto winter.

A sharp snap in asset prices.

Stress in debt markets.

Dollar collapse narratives.

Fear-mongering. Bubble talk. Shadow Banking collapse

Individually, none of these means much.

But when enough of them align at the same time?

Pop goes the market.

And that’s where experience really starts to matter.

When you look back at past property cycles and really understand what a bust looks like, hindsight makes everything appear obvious.

 This happened because of that, and that followed because of this. But most investors have never actually been stress-tested in a true downturn.

They may have seen a wobble or a slowdown, but nothing prepares you for a real downward cycle like the early 1990s or 2008.

A downturn does three things.

First, it stress-tests everything:

interest rates, rents, affordability, confidence. What once felt certain suddenly isn’t.

Second, it introduces panic.

Fear. Hesitation. Paralysis.

And third — and this is the part most people miss — it creates a point where uncertainty turns into opportunity.

I remember 2008 very clearly.

In fact, it was 2007 when we first felt it. Something was off. The market was jittery. Auctions were creaking. Confidence was thinning.

By late 2008, the scale of the problem was obvious.

And we did nothing.

We sat on our hands. No panic. Some uncertainty, of course — where’s the bottom? — but we waited.

Then in March 2009, the Bank of England dropped the base rate to 0.5%.

That was the signal.

While most people were convinced this was “the end”, I could see what that move would do. It would prop the market up in a way many couldn’t yet understand.

So we moved. Fast.

We bought everything we could.

It reminded me of the early pandemic period. That initial phase where nobody knows what’s happening, uncertainty is everywhere, and governments step in to stabilise things. If you understand what comes after that intervention, you don’t wait — you position first.

By the time confidence returns, you’ve already shifted.

Downturns are brutal.

They’re uncomfortable.

They expose weakness.

But if you know what you’re looking at — and what you’re waiting for — they can also be extraordinarily lucrative.

So when I see property educators shouting from the rooftops about how wonderful property is as an investment vehicle, my response is simple:

Talk to me once you’ve lived through a proper downturn.

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