Property News · November 1, 2016

London housing: Sadiq Khan research brief recognises need for overseas investors


The mayor’s search for better evidence on an emotive issue shows that he knows that foreign buyers have been made an easy scapegoatMany Londoners take it as read that the high cost of housing in the capital is the fault of wealthy foreigners. Assigning blame to speculators from distant lands who purchase job lots of posh flats in skyline-wrecking towers then coolly leave them empty as their value goes through the roof reveals a Ukip streak in a Remain-voting city where 37% of people were born abroad and 300 languages are spoken.Everybody wants a piece of this populist narrative, including voices on the left. Mayor Sadiq Khan himself has cheerfully cranked out those crowd-pleasing lines about luxury housing units being stacked up like gold bricks both before and since he got elected back in May. How pleasing, then, to report that his recently announced inquiry into the impact of foreign property investment in London recognises that reality may not bear out the rhetoric. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
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