Brexit: Property could be the safest place to put your money

My advice is to "keep calm and carry on". The country has made a momentous decision that will affect our future for generations to come, but life must still go on in a positive, day-to-day way. This country and we in the Yorkshire Dales will pull together and get through tricky times.

House buyers and home movers should think in the same way. House buying is usually a long-term decision. If you want to own your own home, it is for life, or at least until you want to move up, downsize or relocate. If you are retiring to the Yorkshire Dales it is because you want to and intend to stay there for the next 10-20 years. If you are moving here for a life change, again it’s for the long-term. If you are buying a second home to use for family holidays or to let out for investment, then people will always want to visit our beautiful Dales. Brexit might even make holidays here more affordable for both Brits and overseas visitors.

We must also remember that people will always get older, marry, start families, occasionally split up, retire and downsize. The demand for housing is still increasing, whether to buy or rent, and that will not be changed by any slight reduction in immigration. So, rents will continue to rise, making the decision to buy, if you can,still very attractive to many people.

If you are buying a house now, then when you come to move again, it will still be worth more than what you are paying now. Ifyou have a good mortgage offer, on a good fixed rate, you should grab that with both hands and proceed. Your mortgage company will have already checked that you can ride a period of uncertainty before offering you that mortgage. If you "wait and see", it may be more difficult or the offer may not be as good in the months to come.

Cash buyers and investor buyers, now is a great time to buy. Your bricks and mortar investment will be much more secure pver the long-term than shares or other equities and bonds, thanks to the returns from rents and long term capital growth. Your property will still be there in 10 or 20 years’ time. Now is a great time to makean offer on a property and snap up a bargain from motivated sellers.

Sellers. If you are selling a house, my advice is again to be positive, rational and calm. Look at all reasonable, proceedable offers and, on the basis of those, make offers on the house you wish to buy. Look at the cost of moving and the difference between buying and selling, not the actual size of the offer in relation to what you paid or thought or hoped your house might beworth. Now is not the time for flatly rejecting proceedable offers, or asking inflated asking prices without thought for your onward move.

Talk to your estate agent, solicitor, and financial adviser. They will all have seen tricky times of uncertainty in the recent past, and they will help you get through this period and into the home and lifestyle you want.

Brian Carlisle, J R Hopper & Co. estate agency, Yorkshire Dales, www.jrhopper.com