Time to switch off foreign investment in the UK housing market?
November 17, 2015
This story has understandably slipped under the radar in the light of the terrorist attacks in Paris.
The government has sold off £13bn of former Northern Rock mortgages that taxpayers acquired during the financial crisis. It’s one of the final pieces of the jigsaw from the bailout of the failing banks during the credit crunch 2008. It will be followed in the Spring by a sell off of Royal Bank of Scotland shares to the public.
Chancellor George Osborne states that this “demonstrates the confidence investors have in the UK.” And over the last few years the UK, and London in particular , has seen massive investment in the property market. Reports of Russians moving their money away from the rouble, investors from the Middle East have spent their oil money and London house prices have become unaffordable for most Londoners.
A short message to London estate agents
So, as an estate agent in London I suspect your loyalty is divided. You will want to sell your stock as highly as possible to buyers from all and any nationalities, but will also want affordability for the local people.
In my view you can be both of those things at once. You can be a campaigning voice, someone that adds their name to the right petitions, makes the right comments on social media and the forums and yet still go on with your day job of making money as an estate agent.
A short message for everyone else
Affordability has become a real issue in the United Kingdom housing market. The government has proposed a massive house building programme, new cities being built and a return of Right To Buy (with caveats for social housing thrown in) since being elected. This problem is now critical, we have moved away from being a nation of homeowners and generation rent is paying off someone else’s mortgage, not their own.
It’s time to really push on with these housing initiatives. I’ve blogged many times before about the chronic shortage of housing. I’d suggest you look at the housing programmes that are going on in your local area, speak to the planners and the councillors and add your support. Every local authority has to come up with a medium-term housing plan to play their part. And you can play yours.
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