Property derivatives are no more complicated than putting a bet on the outcome of Aston Villa games, an expert has claimed.

But Markus Wolfensberger, of InProp Capital, speaking at a meeting of the Midlands region of the Investment Property Forum, held at the Latitude Club, part of the One Snowhill offices of Barclays Bank in Birmingham, said too many people were scared of derivatives when there was no need to be.

And he also mounted a defence of the banks, saying it was not fair to lay all the blame for the 2007/8 financial crisis at their door – it was the fault of everyone.

The meeting heard that property was one of the only markets not to embrace derivatives – it didn’t exist in the Midlands and had only seen limited take-off in London.

Property derivatives are a financial instrument which derives its value from that of an underlying asset or index. They generally fall into three types – futures, swaps and options.

The leading IPD Index covers 11,000 properties allowing investors to trade in property without ever physically owning any.

Mr Wolfensberger said: “You don’t need to own Aston Villa to have a bet on them. That is little different from derivatives. With derivatives you effectively own a tiny piece of many, many properties.”

The trouble was that people were “scared” of derivatives even though they had been around since the 17th century. “This is not something invented with the onset of computers twenty or thirty years ago.”

Indeed the global derivatives market was worth $600 trillion. “This is not a fringe concept,” he emphasised.

“Property is one of the few markets that have not embraced derivatives fully. It is very disappointing. Even in London the number of people trading property derivatives is very small. People have been slow to pick up on it, they think it is complex, yet it is really not that difficult to understand.

“If property does not use these new efficiencies then people will brand it too illiquid and invest in other asset classes. And that gap will widen.”

Mr Wolfensberger said all sorts of different excuses came out for not using property derivatives.