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London has the same issues as San Francisco, New York and Vancouver, where housing prices are skyrocketing due to it being almost impossible to build new constr

London has the same issues as San Francisco, New York and Vancouver, where housing prices are skyrocketing due to it being almost impossible to build new construction, along with foreign money flowing into real estate in those cities. As such, all new construction is hyper-luxury because those are the only buildings that are worth building in this political climate of NIMBY-ism. The new construction going up was never intended to be purchased by people who need a 30-year fixed to pay for it. If new construction was going up that was priced in a normal bracket, affordable for mere normal people who had 150k to put down for a mortgage, I would consider that a massive improvement.

mrec 10y ago
There's actually quite a lot of new construction in London, to the extent that some areas have a serious glut with many many years' worth of supply sitting on the market not selling. The problem here isn't just that what's being built is unaffordable - although it definitely is that - but that it's not what inhabitants want. It's being built to appeal to mostly Asian investors who like shiny high-rise newbuild and will probably never even see their purchases, much less live in them, so you end up with minuscule unit sizes, poor build quality, overheating, insufficient elevators and boilers, all the obvious corners to cut. Not sure what you mean by "mere normal people who had 150k to put down for a mortgage" - with median London incomes somewhere around £30k, needing a £150k deposit doesn't sound especially normal-friendly. If you meant total price, yes, now you're talking.
- selectodude 10y ago
  >Not sure what you mean by "mere normal people who had 150k to put down for a mortgage" - with median London incomes somewhere around £30k, needing a £150k deposit doesn't sound especially normal-friendly. If you meant total price, yes, now you're talking. I was being facetious, $750,000 is a totally insane cost for a condo unit, but even that would be far more affordable than what's been going up in San Francisco over the last 10 years.

mrec 10y ago

There's actually quite a lot of new construction in London, to the extent that some areas have a serious glut with many many years' worth of supply sitting on the market not selling. The problem here isn't just that what's being built is unaffordable - although it definitely is that - but that it's not what inhabitants want. It's being built to appeal to mostly Asian investors who like shiny high-rise newbuild and will probably never even see their purchases, much less live in them, so you end up with minuscule unit sizes, poor build quality, overheating, insufficient elevators and boilers, all the obvious corners to cut. Not sure what you mean by "mere normal people who had 150k to put down for a mortgage" - with median London incomes somewhere around £30k, needing a £150k deposit doesn't sound especially normal-friendly. If you meant total price, yes, now you're talking.

selectodude 10y ago
>Not sure what you mean by "mere normal people who had 150k to put down for a mortgage" - with median London incomes somewhere around £30k, needing a £150k deposit doesn't sound especially normal-friendly. If you meant total price, yes, now you're talking. I was being facetious, $750,000 is a totally insane cost for a condo unit, but even that would be far more affordable than what's been going up in San Francisco over the last 10 years.