In 2007 and 2008, all the talk was of the dreaded 'R' word. Recession was looming ominously in the UK; we could feel it in the air. Four years later and the focus has shifted from the letter 'R' to the letter 'D', which of course, stands for deficit, or debt.

Here's a statistic for you. One in six people in the UK today will live to 100*, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). If they stop working at 65, this means they'll be spending 35 years in retirement.

Both the commercial and residential property markets face headwinds given the state of the economy — but volatile markets deliver excellent buying opportunities.

With the Government committed to tackling the country’s huge budget deficit through £80bn of cuts over the next four years, the fall-out will be hundreds of thousands of public sector job losses - as many as half a million according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. Although some of these job losses will be through the natural turnover of staff departures and voluntary redundancies, there will still be several hundred thousand people desperate to work made redundant.