{"id":35338,"date":"2016-11-22T14:22:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T07:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/3-things-uk-property-experts-have-told-us-about-london-mayors-investigation-into-foreign-investment\/"},"modified":"2016-11-22T14:33:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T07:33:28","slug":"3-things-uk-property-experts-have-told-us-about-london-mayors-investigation-into-foreign-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/3-things-uk-property-experts-have-told-us-about-london-mayors-investigation-into-foreign-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"3 things UK property experts have told us about London Mayor\u2019s investigation into foreign investment"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nHint: they all think it\u2019s a load of tosh
\nMayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Image: Martin Hoscik \/ Shutterstock.com
\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan announced in September that he would be launching an investigation into foreign investment in the UK capital, particularly condemning wealthy buyers for using homes as \u201cgold bricks for investment,\u201d and pricing domestic buyers out of their own market.
\nWhile Khan\u2019s intentions may well be honourable, one thing is clear when speaking to leaders in the UK property sphere \u2013 London needs foreign investment.
\nHere\u2019s what three experts have told us:
\nNaomi Heaton \u2013 Founder and CEO of London Central Portfolio:
\n\u201cWhat Sadiq Khan hasn\u2019t really realised is that there are 2 parallel markets.
\n\u201cMost foreign investors buy at a price point which is far beyond the price point of a domestic buyer, the average value of a property in London as a whole, is GBP500,000 (USD608,000) and the kind of properties that are being sold in the new builds particularly in central London are far in excess of that.
\n\u201cTake Battersea, a two bedroom flat was being marketed at GBP1.7 million (USD2million). Any domestic buyer would be buying a house for a family with that money. Essentially the properties that the foreign investor buys are not the properties that most domestic buyers would buy. Most domestic buyers would prefer to be in old properties. We\u2019re not a new build nation.
\n\u201cSo really, to blame foreign investors is a kind of political posturing, it\u2019s an easy scapegoat for government and local authority failings who haven\u2019t provided enough affordable housing for the domestic market.
\n\u201cIf he turns the tap off on the foreign investor what you\u2019ll end up is a lot of unbought, unsold property which is no good for anybody else. You won\u2019t then find its filled up with all these people you want to give homes to, because they\u2019re not the right homes, the right homes haven\u2019t been built.\u201d
\nCentral London is especially popular with Asian buyers. Image: mikecphoto \/ Shutterstock.com
\nMore: HNW Middle East students in London want to live here
\nAlex Newall \u2013 Founder of Hanover Private Office:
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what he thinks he\u2019s going to find!
\n\u201cThe UK has always attracted foreign buyers, partly because of trading partners and historical links. For example, because of the old empire days in India there\u2019s always been a link there, and now there\u2019s an enormous amount of Indian money in London.
\n\u201cLondon is an international city, and everyone knows there\u2019s a lot of foreign investment in UK property. So surely an investigation into this will just teach us what we already know.
\n\u201cDoes he want a diverse society, which he himself has benefited from, or not?\u201d
\nPeter Allan \u2013 Sales Manager of Stanhope Plc:
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s a lot of hot air to be honest. There\u2019s no doubt that he has come into office, he\u2019s looked at the market and said \u2013 I want to try to change things.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a fact of London that no one likes \u2013 people tend to park money and barely use the property. But it has always been thus in London. It\u2019s just the nature of a global city. If he thinks developers are suddenly going to turn their back on international buyers, then that\u2019s a joke.
\n\u201cOn one hand he\u2019s saying London is open for business globally, and on the other hand he\u2019s making these ridiculous claims on the housing market \u2013 which just doesn\u2019t add up, frankly.
\n\u201cSadiq\u2019s a good guy, he\u2019s rooted in London. The reality is we need to be building more affordable homes, but it\u2019s not at the expense of trying to cripple the top end.\u201d
\nRead next: Thinking about investing in Singapore? Read this first
\n
\nSource : property-report.com
\nRead more…3 things UK property experts have told us about London Mayor\u2019s investigation into foreign investment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hint: they all think it\u2019s a load of tosh Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Image:...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-property-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75ss1-9bY","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14386,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/sadiq-khan-condemns-foreign-investors-use-of-london-homes-as-gold-bricks\/","url_meta":{"origin":35338,"position":0},"title":"Sadiq Khan condemns foreign investors' use of London homes as 'gold bricks'","date":"May 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Mayor condemns capital\u2019s housing policy for being \u2018obsessed by numbers rather than building the right sorts of homes\u2019The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has attacked foreign investors for using homes in the capital as \u201cgold bricks for investment\u201d following a Guardian investigation that revealed the UK\u2019s tallest residential skyscraper\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32549,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/london-housing-sadiq-khan-research-brief-recognises-need-for-overseas-investors\/","url_meta":{"origin":35338,"position":1},"title":"London housing: Sadiq Khan research brief recognises need for overseas investors","date":"November 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\r The mayor\u2019s 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. 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