Berkeley Group Share Price (BKG)

Disappointing to see this share dropped. I think it has strong potential, good brand and a lot of development sites. However I think we will need a cultural change. I think Berkeleys share price is caught in the leaseholder trap. The market for properties is about value and investment. Unfortunately I don't see how we can bring back the foreign investors that underpinned the buy to let market. But UK young professionals who were emerging as the market are put off by the service charges and high ground rent. Berkeley have good cost control and the capability to manage suppliers if they could extend proper fair and honest accounting and good value to service charges they could turn this around and again become a strong buy. If they could cut service charges by 50% and keep them low they could be sitting on a very positive turnaround strategy.

We just n ed to h management to wake or move on and let need blood take control.

What is the point of holding a large landbank if the properties being built are not what buyers actually want? Service charges across many of their blocks are excessive.

Personally, I would rather wait and buy a small house. My sister has a three-bedroom flat with an £8,000 annual service charge, which is increasing by around 15% each year. That means it will rise to approximately £9,200 next year.

Agreed. This is exactly the issue Berkeley needs to wake up to.

Developments such as Woolwich Arsenal, Canary Wharf and Kidbrooke Village are all seeing serious pressure from ground rent and service charge increases. I have seen aggressive year-on-year service charge increases of around 15% to 20%, which is frankly insane when household budgets are already under pressure.

At this point, buyers are no longer just buying flats, they are buying long-term liabilities. The headline purchase price is only one part of the equation. The real question is what the buyer is left paying every year after completion, and whether those costs are properly controlled.

Having spoken to people in large organised resident groups, a lot of leaseholders are not even trying to reduce luxury services yet. They are simply trying to find out what they are paying for. That alone should worry investors. If customers have to fight just to get basic transparency on service charge spending, the model is broken.

In my view, Berkeley has shown very little interest in managing value for money once the property has been sold. They collect the sales proceeds, hand the estate over to managing agents, and leave leaseholders to deal with rising costs, poor transparency and weak accountability. No rational buyer wants to pay premium money for a Berkeley property only to be left holding the bag afterwards.

This is not a minor after-sales issue. It directly affects affordability, resale value, mortgageability, buyer confidence and future sales. If service charges keep rising at this pace, Berkeley developments risk becoming financially unattractive, regardless of build quality or location.

For that reason, I am personally exiting Berkeley until there is clear evidence that the company is willing to take control of service charge costs, estate management and customer value for money. The current structure creates too much uncertainty for leaseholders and, in my view, too much risk for shareholders. There are also plenty of resident groups online raising serious concerns about managing agents such as Rendall & Rittner, which only reinforces the point that Berkeley cannot simply outsource this problem and pretend it has nothing to do with them.

Agreed and very well put. Sales are key to this share recovering and leasehold customer confidence is key. The reputation of some of these management companies for transparent and fair charges reflects badly on Berkeley. Good properties and good brand but they need to tackle this issue to get sales revenue on track.

Berkeley’s problem is not just a weak housing market. In my view, it is becoming a full-blown confidence issue caused by the total cost of ownership.

Buyers are already stretched by high mortgage rates, affordability checks, and uncertainty around property values. On top of that, Berkeley customers are facing rising ground rents, inflated service charges, poor value from managing agents, and the looming threat of leasehold reform. That is a toxic mix for new-build flats.

The reality is simple: no sensible buyer wants to pay premium prices for a Berkeley flat and then be trapped in an open-ended service charge liability. Once annual service charges start approaching levels that lenders dislike, resale values suffer, buyers hesitate, and the whole investment case weakens.

Berkeley cannot keep blaming the market while ignoring the cost structure attached to its own developments. If service charges are excessive, if ground rents are rising, and if managing agents are delivering poor value, then Berkeley’s brand is being damaged from the inside.

In my view, Berkeley needs to take direct control of estate management immediately. Bring it in-house, remove unnecessary middlemen, apply proper procurement discipline, and use the same cost-control mindset that made Berkeley successful as a developer. It should then give buyers and existing leaseholders a serious commitment: combined annual service charge and ground rent should not exceed 0.5% of the property value, with no aggressive increases for at least 10 years.

Without this, Berkeley risks creating developments that look premium on launch but become financially unattractive after completion. That is disastrous for confidence, resale values, and future sales.

At the moment, managing agents are not just annoying residents, they are actively damaging Berkeley’s sales pipeline and investment case. Until Berkeley takes ownership of customer costs, the company risks being dragged into a downward spiral of weaker sales, angry leaseholders, poor resale sentiment, and reduced buyer trust.