And, having played Scrooge in the first partof his pre-Christmas speech, Mr Brown donned his Santa outfit for the second part to offer a small piece of good news for the property market.

He finally gave the go-ahead for the introduction of Reits - or Real Estate Investment Trusts. These
tax -transparent and tax-efficientvehicles for property investment give ordinary investors the chance to join the residential and commercial property market. The changes are likely to lead to increased institutional demand for quality residential properties, which could push up property prices across the UK.

So what will they mean for the private investor? In France, the US and Australia, swarms of investors have already piled money into Reits and seen high yields and steady incomes in return. As far as investors are concerned, they are effectively unit trusts, unlike property companies, pay no corporation tax in return for distributing 95 per cent of net profits to their investors.

There are restrictions on how they can operate - more than 75 per cent of their income must come from property rents, for example - but most property companies in the UK are expected to convert to Reits as soon as possible.

Savers will be allowed to include them in investment schemes such as ISAs, and there is every indication that they will be able to include them in their SIPPs portfolios as well.

Observers believe it is likely to encourage the development of tightly focused schemes dealing with specific types of commercial property - shopping centres, offices, or industrial units, for instance, In the past, the only way for private investors to put their money into such profitable investments was through property companies, which had to pay out corporation tax at 30 per cent before any assets were distributed. Private investors with a portfolio of tenanted properties could realise gains by selling them into a Reit.

So the change can only be good for investors and for the property market itself. And of course, an investment's value depends on it performance rather than on any tax concessions. Property remains what its always has been - a crucial part of any portfolio - and Reits will make it more accessible for the private investor.

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