6 ms·

On similar lines, I was in Hong Kong a few months ago and saw quite a few adverts for investing in London property. Global markets really do exist for top tier

On similar lines, I was in Hong Kong a few months ago and saw quite a few adverts for investing in London property. Global markets really do exist for top tier property. It's really quite depressing being in the top few % income wise but not having a hope in hell of competing with the global market and the people taking on reckless levels of debt. Our housing markets are broken on so many levels.

pjc50 12y ago
It's not enough to be in the top few %, the top 0.1% have orders of magnitude more money than you.
BSousa 12y ago
For me, it was even more surprising when I was driving out of Algarve recently (South of Portugal) and saw a billboard about buying and selling Hotels. Not villas, full blown Hotels like it was freaking Monopoly.
- sgift 12y ago
  It is - with the difference that playing Monopoly doesn't disturb the life of non-players.
citricsquid 12y ago
The BBC did a feature earlier in the year about London property and Hong Kong investors, it provides a good insight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINbQGgVEN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINbQGgVEN8
- 001sky 12y ago
  This is also happening in Vancouver, BC since the 1997 era. A lot of money is "parked" there, and asset prices are way out of line with local income levels.
  - michaelochurch 12y ago
    Vancouver and Paris (and their ridiculous ratios between real estate prices and prevailing wages) prove that egalitarian, decent societies can't hold up against the rapacious evil of the global elite. It's sad. I feel like the global elite are a nasty job being passed around. No country or generation or group of people wants to be the one that stops (possibly with major bloodshed) and ends them, but someone will have to, and it's a world-scale undertaking.
    - _delirium 12y ago
      Copenhagen has an interesting bit of accidental resistance against that (at least I think it's accidental): the residence-registry system combined with the common coop-ownership structure conspire to make it unattractive to be a foreign non-resident owner of city-center real-estate. The coop-ownership part is that for historical reasons a huge percentage of central apartments are structured as owner-occupied cooperatives, where the residents own the building. And these typically require the owner to declare it as their residence, except for short-ish (up to 2 years) periods where you can live abroad and rent it out. Now whether you actually spend your nights there people won't check, so you could perfectly well buy a place and actually live in NYC or Paris or Tokyo, only flying in occasionally to eat at Noma. But whether you declare it as your residence is easy to check. And that's where the residence-registry system comes in: to declare it as your residence, you have to declare to the municipality that you live at this address as your main abode. By doing so you've of course also declared that you are a Danish resident. Most wealthy non-Danes don't want exposure to Danish income taxes, so they won't declare this residency, and they therefore can't own these flats, which does a bit to insulate local housing prices from global real-estate speculation.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        I think this prevention of value capture is one of the under discussed aspects of socialism. I mean, sure, the market isn't able to discover that a mall or office building the locals don't want would be more valuable, but it doesn't seem to destroy cities.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- corin_ 12y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that, but it's not really relevant - we don't just ignore all emotions because somewhere someone is worse/better off.
bane 12y ago
It doesn't have to be global markets. Real estate speculation pushes up prices everywhere.

pjc50 12y ago

It's not enough to be in the top few %, the top 0.1% have orders of magnitude more money than you.

BSousa 12y ago

For me, it was even more surprising when I was driving out of Algarve recently (South of Portugal) and saw a billboard about buying and selling Hotels. Not villas, full blown Hotels like it was freaking Monopoly.

sgift 12y ago
It is - with the difference that playing Monopoly doesn't disturb the life of non-players.

citricsquid 12y ago

The BBC did a feature earlier in the year about London property and Hong Kong investors, it provides a good insight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINbQGgVEN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINbQGgVEN8

001sky 12y ago
This is also happening in Vancouver, BC since the 1997 era. A lot of money is "parked" there, and asset prices are way out of line with local income levels.
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  Vancouver and Paris (and their ridiculous ratios between real estate prices and prevailing wages) prove that egalitarian, decent societies can't hold up against the rapacious evil of the global elite. It's sad. I feel like the global elite are a nasty job being passed around. No country or generation or group of people wants to be the one that stops (possibly with major bloodshed) and ends them, but someone will have to, and it's a world-scale undertaking.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    Copenhagen has an interesting bit of accidental resistance against that (at least I think it's accidental): the residence-registry system combined with the common coop-ownership structure conspire to make it unattractive to be a foreign non-resident owner of city-center real-estate. The coop-ownership part is that for historical reasons a huge percentage of central apartments are structured as owner-occupied cooperatives, where the residents own the building. And these typically require the owner to declare it as their residence, except for short-ish (up to 2 years) periods where you can live abroad and rent it out. Now whether you actually spend your nights there people won't check, so you could perfectly well buy a place and actually live in NYC or Paris or Tokyo, only flying in occasionally to eat at Noma. But whether you declare it as your residence is easy to check. And that's where the residence-registry system comes in: to declare it as your residence, you have to declare to the municipality that you live at this address as your main abode. By doing so you've of course also declared that you are a Danish resident. Most wealthy non-Danes don't want exposure to Danish income taxes, so they won't declare this residency, and they therefore can't own these flats, which does a bit to insulate local housing prices from global real-estate speculation.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      I think this prevention of value capture is one of the under discussed aspects of socialism. I mean, sure, the market isn't able to discover that a mall or office building the locals don't want would be more valuable, but it doesn't seem to destroy cities.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

corin_ 12y ago
I'm sorry to hear that, but it's not really relevant - we don't just ignore all emotions because somewhere someone is worse/better off.

bane 12y ago

It doesn't have to be global markets. Real estate speculation pushes up prices everywhere.