How To Buy Berkeley Group Shares UK with 0% Commission

COVID 19 decimated the real estate market. With widespread closures across multiple industries, many property developers took a big hit. UK property developer Berkeley Group was no different. It suffered a huge hit to share prices, which tanked 40% in March 2020 in the wake of the pandemic. However, recovering an impressive 30% since its March lows, investors are realising the potential of Berkeley Group shares.

However, in order to buy Berkeley Group Shares, you must set up a share dealing account with a broker to connect you to the London Stock Exchange. In this article, we take you through a step-by-step guide to how to buy Berkeley Group shares, including the best brokers, share price history, and how to open a brokerage account.

Step 1: Find a UK Stock Broker That Offers Berkeley Group shares

When selecting a broker to trade Berkeley Group shares, it is important to consider fees and commission.

In addition to this, you may want to consider the payment options available and also if the brokerage is FCA Regulated.

Berkeley Group shares have been listed on the London Stock Exchange for over 30 years, so are available from most UK brokers. Below you can find our choice for the top brokers to buy Berkeley Group Shares.

1. eToro – Overall Best Broker to Buy Berkeley Shares With Zero Commission

Our top broker pick is eToro. The platform is great for beginner traders, with a simple layout making it easy to navigate around. When opening a non averaged position with eToro, you will pay 0% in commission costs. The broker gives you access to over 2000 financial assets, meaning you can buy shares, cryptocurrencies, indices, commodities, and ETFs. eToro is also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) meaning your funds are protected under the FSCS Scheme.

eToro also provides some unique functions to make your trading experience more sociable. The social trading function allows investors to connect with eToro’s 20 million users in over 140 countries. In addition to this, the copy trader function enables investors to copy some of the platform’s expert trader’s portfolios. This is a great function for beginner investors, and copyable portfolios can be filtered for growth, return, and risk.

Being commission-free, you may be wondering how eToro makes its money. The answer to this is through its fixed spread charges. In addition to this, accounts will be charged in left inactive for over 12 months. When you wish to withdraw funds, a fee of $5 will be charged. Apart from these, eToro charges no other hidden costs, making it a very competitive broker to trade with.

To open an account, you must visit either their website or the investment app. Traders can open a virtual account for free, but before opening any real positions accounts must be funded with a minimum of $200, which is around £144 at current conversion rates. Funds can be added using various payment methods, such as debit and credit card, bank transfer, PayPal, and Skrill. Once these funds have been added you are ready to buy your Berkeley Group Shares.

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Step 2: Research Berkeley Group Shares

Berkeley Group shares have offered some great historical returns, as well as an attractive dividend. Before investing in any stock it is important to conduct the necessary research. We have conducted some of our own research below to give you some better insight before investing in Berkeley Group.

Berkeley Group Share Price History

Berkeley Group is a veteran in the London Stock Exchange. Having been listed for over 30 years, the share price has risen over 6000% in value! That means if you had invested £1000 in 1990 it would now be worth over £60000. Being a property developer, the Berkeley Group share price is heavily reliant on the housing market. We can see this by the huge boom that shares saw between 2006 and 2007, rising over 50% in that period.

However, in the wake of the 2008 financial crash – where the housing market largely collapsed – Berkeley saw its share price tumble by 60% from its peak. From here the firm was able to recover for the next several years, with share prices rising almost 500% to 2015. Between 2015 and 2016 share prices fell 30% but again continued to rise (over 120%) throughout the next 5 years.

However, this all changed when the pandemic hit. The housing market was hit pretty hard by the pandemic along with most other sectors. As firms shut their doors to consumers, rent payments were missed and property developer revenues declined. We can see this by the huge tanking of almost 40% of Berkeley Group’s share price. Though share prices have since recovered 28%, there seems to be a greater problem at the heart of the housing market.

The pandemic recovery has lead to a boom in the demand for housing, which has been magnified by ultra-low mortgage rates and increased consumer sentiment towards the housing market. Due to the pandemic’s restrictions freezing property production, there has been a 53% decrease in the amount of housing constructed. This has created a demand that is far outweighing supply and could lead to a housing bubble, which if it boils over could have a drastic effect on both Berkeley Group shares and the economy as a whole.

Berkeley Group Dividend History

Berkeley currently pays a 2.48% dividend. This is a healthy dividend and a great way to earn some passive income from your portfolio. Looking more closely at the dividend history, we can see that during 2018, 2019, and 2020, the dividend was actually decreasing by around 1% per year. In the second half of 2020, Berkeley froze its dividends similar to many other UK firms that were hit hard by the pandemic. However, a special dividend of 99p was issued back to investors to make up for this missed payment. In 2021, the usual dividend resumed which is great news for investors.

Is Now A Good Time To Buy?

Although the Berkeley Group share price has recovered well since the pandemic, it is still over 15% below its all-time high price reached in February 2020. This gives me confidence that the firm is on a good upward trajectory, will a great deal of room still to grow. The future of the share price is largely reliant on the UK housing market.

As explained earlier, there seems to be a large demand for housing outweighing supply. This is great news for firms like Berkeley Group as it means any housing/property developments they do construct in the coming months are likely to be snapped up.

Considering this, it seems that now would be a good time to purchase Berkeley Group shares. The firm seems to have recovered from the pandemic and seems on track for future growth. However, there are always risks to consider when purchasing a firm like Berkeley who is so heavily reliant on an external market. If the housing market takes a hit then the Berkeley Group Share price will also dip accordingly. Under current states, however, the housing market seems in a strong position for Berkeley to capitalize on.

Step 3: Open an account and deposit funds

Now we have researched the Berkeley Group share price, let’s move onto how you can buy shares for your portfolio. There are many brokers you can use to buy Berkeley shares, however, we have chosen eToro as the best choice. We will now take you through a comprehensive guide on how to quickly and easily set up an eToro account and fund it to buy shares.

As mentioned earlier, eToro is a great choice for investors as it offers zero commission, offers a number of payment methods, and is regulated by both the FCA and CySEC.

The first step in opening an account is to head over to either the website or the mobile app. From here you need to follow the on-screen instructions to create your account. eToro will ask for a short financial questionnaire to assess your previous trading knowledge.

It is important to complete this stage as eToro can then help you manage your risk more effectively. You will then need to create a username and password for your account. On top of this eToro will ask you for additional personal information including name, home address, contact details, and date of birth.

In order to authenticate your account, you will need to provide some legal documents. This can be done at a later date, but in order to withdraw your funds, you have to provide these details. Therefore it is easier to get this part of the process done sooner rather than later. The documents required from eToro are a photocopy of your driver’s license or passport, and a copy of a recent utility bill or bank account statement. In most cases eToro processes and verifies these documents within minutes.

Now your account has been verified, you must make your deposit. eToro offers you the option to trade with $100,000 in virtual money, however, if you want to begin purchasing real shares, you must fund your account with a minimum of $200 (which equates to just under £145 at current conversion rates).

Another great thing about eToro is it allows users to fund their accounts using a variety of payment methods. These include debit and credit cards, bank transfers, PayPal, Skrill, and Neteller. All funds are covered by the FCA’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), meaning if the broker is ever unable to pay you back, you could be liable for compensation. Once you complete the transfer, payments will be processed instantly (with the exception of bank transfer).

Step 4: Buy Berkeley Shares UK

Now you have set up and funded your account you can begin to purchase Berkeley Group shares for your portfolio. To do this, simply search for Berkeley Group in the onscreen search bar. In addition to Berkeley shares, eToro gives you access to over 2000 other financial assets including stocks, shares, indices, and top ETFs.

Once you have found your shares, navigate to the trade button in the top right corner of the screen. This will open up a subsequent order form which you must fill in before executing an order. It will ask you how many shares you want to purchase, as well as offering stop loss and other risk control options. Once this has been completed, simply click the ‘Set Order’ button and your position will be opened.

Berkeley Group Shares – Buy or Sell?

So, in summary, are Berkeley shares a buying opportunity? We would say so. The Berkeley Group share price was performing exceptionally before the pandemic struck, and post-covid there still seems to be room to grow. Berkeley’s share price rises and falls largely in line with the housing market and as explained above, the pandemic recovery seems to have spurred supply for property.

That being said, investing in any share so closely tied to a market carries risk. If the housing market were to collapse, similar to the situation in 2008, the Berkeley Group share price would likely take a large blow. However, since the 2008 financial crash, there have been a plethora of new regulations put in place to ensure no such event occurs again.

In addition to this, Berkeley’s resilience during the pandemic highlights its effective management in the face of adversity. We can see this effective management through the fact that Berkeley didn’t need any shareholder bailouts throughout Covid.

Another reason we are bullish about the future of the Berkeley Group share price is the strong earnings reported by the company. The latest results show a pre-tax profit of 518m, up 2.9% year on year. In addition to this, net cash and forward sales were only slightly lower than before the pandemic, sitting at £1.1bn and £1.7bn respectively. The consistently strong financials of the company, coupled with the stable housing market leave the Berkeley Group share price in a great position to grow further.

Berkeley Group’s share price has also risen 400% since 2006. This is more than double the return of the next best FTSE 100 property builder. Whilst past performance shouldn’t be an indication of future returns, it does highlight the exceptional trajectory the share price has been on. Coupled with the healthy dividend yield, the future share prices could offer some great returns.

eTorp – Buy Berkeley Group Shares UK With 0% Commission

In summary, we have had a closer look at the Berkeley share price history, its dividend history, and whether it is a buying or selling opportunity. In addition to this, we checked out some of the best brokers to trade Berkeley shares with and included a step-by-step process showing you how to set up an eToro account.

The Berkeley Group share price has offered some great historical returns for investors and we believe this trajectory can continue forward in years to come. The only drawback of Berkeley is the fact that it is so reliant on the housing market, however, we have seen that post-pandemic, housing demand has been increasing rapidly which is great news for the firm. The financials of the firm coupled with the dividend yield are also very attractive.

If you’re looking to add Berkeley to your portfolio, we recommend using eToro. They offer zero percent commission, both copy and social trading functions, accept a variety of payment methods and are FCA regulated. Simply click the link below to get started!

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