4 ms·

London has hugely inflated house prices, particularly in Central but now all over the city due to foreign investment. It's obvious - virtually no one who actual

by sprafa 7y ago

London has hugely inflated house prices, particularly in Central but now all over the city due to foreign investment. It's obvious - virtually no one who actually lives in the city can afford it anymore.

user5994461 7y ago
Not entirely true. The various CXO, MD, expensive contractors and middle managers in large companies can afford in some parts of the city. They could afford almost everywhere a couple years ago. There is a lot of money in London, people just can't fathom how much. An income of £100k a year only gets you around the top 10% of workers. Needless to say. The closest you get to the center, the more you are competing against the very top percentile, which is filthy rich.
- sprafa 7y ago
  Sure that’s relatively true but it makes no sense for 90% of new housing to be built for those 10% of individuals (and I think it’s less than 10%). What makes more sense is that direct foreign investment has spiralled prices up because it allows the 10% richest of any country to buy london property (whether they live there or not). I mean I’ve seen ads for London property in Honk Kong and I’ve heard reports of a Russian buying up entire towers in the Battersea development (from a contractor there). I think the idea that current housing is completely unaffordable to the median wage (around 30k) to be incomprehensible unless you account for huge amounts of foreign investment. Sure there’s lot of wealth in London there’s always been. From memory the multiplier between wage-to-house-price went up like 10x in the last couple of decades (let’s say something like from 9x annual salary to 90x) I don’t understand how that could happen without foreign money. People can’t build unaffordable housing to the local population unless they are not catering to the local population.

4 ms·

London has hugely inflated house prices, particularly in Central but now all over the city due to foreign investment. It's obvious - virtually no one who actual

by sprafa 7y ago

user5994461 7y ago
Not entirely true. The various CXO, MD, expensive contractors and middle managers in large companies can afford in some parts of the city. They could afford almost everywhere a couple years ago. There is a lot of money in London, people just can't fathom how much. An income of £100k a year only gets you around the top 10% of workers. Needless to say. The closest you get to the center, the more you are competing against the very top percentile, which is filthy rich.
- sprafa 7y ago
  Sure that’s relatively true but it makes no sense for 90% of new housing to be built for those 10% of individuals (and I think it’s less than 10%). What makes more sense is that direct foreign investment has spiralled prices up because it allows the 10% richest of any country to buy london property (whether they live there or not). I mean I’ve seen ads for London property in Honk Kong and I’ve heard reports of a Russian buying up entire towers in the Battersea development (from a contractor there). I think the idea that current housing is completely unaffordable to the median wage (around 30k) to be incomprehensible unless you account for huge amounts of foreign investment. Sure there’s lot of wealth in London there’s always been. From memory the multiplier between wage-to-house-price went up like 10x in the last couple of decades (let’s say something like from 9x annual salary to 90x) I don’t understand how that could happen without foreign money. People can’t build unaffordable housing to the local population unless they are not catering to the local population.