Everyone likes property. They think of it in terms of houses and flats – partly because that’s where we all live, partly because property prices is all the chattering classes discuss at dinner parties, partly because of all the residential property programmes on telly and mostly because commercial property has never really been seen as a sensible or accessible investment.

Well, that’s all about to change, so put away your Changing Rooms DVDs and lock Sarah Beeny under the stairs (where she ought to have been years ago anyway). Property makeover shows are all, in my view, a lot of nonsense and largely irrelevant if you are going to make any real money out of property. Commercial property is where serious money is to be made and indeed, if the Chancellor gets the legislation right, so everyone in the country will have access to direct commercial real estate investment.

Reit (pronounced Reet as in sheet) is the acronym for Real Estate Investment Trust. Google it and you will open a whole panoply of sites, mostly in America, of these investment vehicles.

A Reit is basically an organisation with the sole purpose of owning and managing investment properties.

The history behind their inception was the American response to an appalling real estate market crash in the early 1990s. These investment vehicles allowed property companies to turn themselves into trusts. The trusts are tax transparent.

That’s the key. If you want to invest in commercial property at the moment, it’s rather difficult to do so in a tax efficient manner. If you are an overseas investor, you can invest Capital Gains Tax-free, but if you live in the UK and hold real estate assets onshore, then you will be taxed. Now that’s fine if you own the property yourself, because like anything else you pay tax on capital gain and income.

But if you hold shares in a company that owns property then they pay capital gains tax on gains, corporation tax on income, Stamp Duty on transfers and so on and so on. So, basically, holding or investing in commercial real estate is rather inefficient because as an investor you still pay tax on the capital gain of the shares and income tax on the dividends.

In addition, commercial real estate has not really been accessible other than in property company shares. Why? Because commercial property tends to be in large lot sizes of millions or even hundreds of millions of pounds. If split into lots of different shares, the sum of the shares rarely add up to the value of the total – so to date, if you buy a property company through shares on the stock exchange, you have been exposed to a vehicle that is (i) very unspecific in its investment strategy and (ii) pays corporation and capital gains tax before you, the investor, have seen any kind of return.

Many of us are exposed via our pension plans to commercial property, either through pension plans which often hold 10 to 15 per cent of their portfolios in direct property assets, or own shares in the leading listed property companies. Indeed, many pension funds also hold shares to replicate the FTSE 100 index. Names you may have heard of listed on the London Stock Exchange may be Land Securities, British Land and Hammerson.

It is likely that all the main players will look to convert into the new Reits. But will conversion be enough to make it appetising for investors?

Well, in my view, not quite. That’s because most property companies have mixed portfolios and all of these different types of real estate perform at different levels and have different risk return profiles. So, just as we pick shares to compliment each other, so I believe the market will evolve to have focussed Reits on different sectors of the market.

Offices, shopping centres and industrial property will all have their own Reits. Again, just look at the US, where you can purchase shares in diverse types of property ranging from the obvious offices or shopping centres to bizarre things such as prisons, nursing homes and other specialised types of property. And why not? The skills required to maximise returns really are rather specialised.

Property should be interesting to all of us. The shops we shop in, the offices we work in, the buildings we travel through, the buildings we see movies in – our entire built environment is owned by someone. Chances are that the someone that owns the property has then leased it to an operator. There are only a few operators who own much of their real estate. So why not be able to invest in the real estate we use in a tax efficient manner?

Indeed bricks and mortar are a great way to augment a portfolio, whether for investment purposes or as part of a pension plan. It’s rare in the sense that it’s an asset-backed investment, meaning that if the tenants leave and that source of income is lost, then at least there is an asset left behind that generally has some value.

So what will the changes the Chancellor is proposing actually do? And who will be able to apply for Reit status?

The new regime will be open to companies that are resident in the UK, that are publicly listed on a recognised stock exchange; Companies or groups that meet the UK REIT eligibility criteria will not pay Corporation Tax on rental income or Capital Gains tax on chargeable gains; A requirement to distribute at least 95 per cent of net taxable profits on rental income to investors, who will then pay tax at their marginal rate.

So the upshot of all this is that you, the investor, will still pay tax on any investment gains you get from your holding in commercial real estate but, for the first time, you will be able buy into management focused on assets that distribute earnings without having paid tax. Watch out for new property investment vehicles and fill your boots.

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