Total returns for UK real estate were positive in March, the first time the sector has made a positive return since June last year.

The month-on-month total return in March was 0.67%, data from MSCI showed, resulting from a 0.46% income return from rental income and a 0.21% capital return. Average values rose during the month after eight straight months of declines.

“The rebound was led by an increase in values for residential, industrial and retail property,” MSCI wrote in a blog on the data. “Office values continued to fall as the segment comes under pressure from hybrid working trends and heightened risk of obsolescence.”

Capital values fell faster during the current period of uncertainty than during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and late 1980s recession, MSCI said. Negative returns in October last year were the worst on record at 6.5% versus a low of 4.75% in the wake of Lehman Brothers' collapse, driven by capital value falls in industrial and office property in particular.

MSCI raised the prospect of a sharp but much shorter correction than during the financial crisis.

“At just eight months, the slowdown is, as it stands, of much shorter duration [than the 2008 crisis],” it said in its report.