Small investors looking for value shied away from public sales processes and looked outside of London to find value in 2020, according to an adviser to a large network of private clients.

For the first time in its more than 35-year history, private client advisory firm Prideview completed more deals in the Midlands (£27.9M) than in London (£23.7M).

“This certainly begs the question, during the extended lockdown period and the requirement to stay home, have investors realised that there is actually life beyond London?” Prideview Director Nilesh Patel said in a statement.

Prideview said the supermarket and convenience store assets popular with its clients now trade at yields below 5% in London, meaning investors have to look further afield to find value.

It said it bought or sold 24 of these assets in 2020.

“Most interestingly, our average spend on a convenience store rose from £570Kin  2019 to £1.3M in 2020, suggesting investors want larger, purpose-built supermarkets which are expected to fare well long term,” Patel added.

Overall, Prideview completed 83 deals with a total value of £86M, the same volume as in 2019. Of these deals, 68% were off-market transactions, compared to 44% in 2019.

“Nervousness about the economy in particular has meant sellers don’t want to risk seeing their property sales publicly falling flat,” Patel said.