Why Buying in London is Always Safe, even Post Brexit.
For anybody ever considering buying a property in London there is never a shortage of property ‘experts’ who will tell you it’s a really good/ bad idea and that prices are about to soar/ crash and you should definitely buy/ wait. 2016 has been particularly gruelling for polarised, contradictory opinions, about the probable or likely impact of Brexit on the UK in general and London in particular
However, for the layman there are some basic, but accurate points to bear in mind, before fretting over the latest predictions from the FT, Phil Spencer or Mystic Meg.
Firstly, the City of London has been an important economic centre since Roman times, and the area from there to Westminster, in modern day ‘Zone1’ has long been one of the most important political and legal centres in the World. Add to this the West End media and culture presence and you have a large number of very influential and wealthy people working within a relatively small area. The result of this is that if you own a property with access to this area, whether walking distance or an ‘easy’ commute away, somebody will always want to buy it from you. Whether form #Brexit takes, this is unlikely to change in the next century.
In terms of making a profit from a specific London area there are some basic ways to predict this. In my experience of living and working in London since 2002 (give or take the odd trip to Iraq and Afghanistan) there is a point at which you can see an area has ‘made it’, become fashionable and prices soar accordingly. The point you know this has happened to an area is when all 3 of Starbucks, Waitrose and Pizza Express have set up there. For a specific case in point look at the areas South of Clapham on the Northern Line over the past 10-15 years and how the image of Balham and Tooting has changed accordingly. It’s significant that the fashionable areas have moved down the Tube line as the ‘easy’ commute has got longer, and is likely to become much longer as prices rise and people raise their commuting threshold.
To conclude, the result of this is that if you can identify an area in London with potentially ‘easy’ access to Zone 1, in an area that has not yet got Starbucks, Pizza Express or Waitrose, it is a reasonably safe bet. By the time you want to sell, that area will have ‘made it’ as other people see the potential and you will make a profit. Acton remains in that category as it is on the Central, Piccadilly and District Lines and on Crossrail/ Elizabeth Line when that opens this year.
Written by George Anderson george.anderson@strongholdadvisor.co.uk
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