Recently the Chief Executive of the Battersea Power Station Development Company greeted the stampede to secure new Battersea homes with elation. More than £600 million worth of prime London properties – three quarters of the 800 homes on site – had been snapped up in a frantic four days.
For property-owning Londoners, the Battersea frenzy was no doubt a welcome sign of the continued robust health of the capital’s housing market. But I suspect the average renter found the news utterly demoralising. For them, the financial crisis brought great promise of lower house prices. But that never came to pass. Instead, already-stratospheric rents have crept steadily upwards. Mortgage deposit requirements have increased. House prices are climbing and yet still properties are being snapped up in double quick time. When even a Battersea studios costs £343 000, the hope of owning the smallest of homes seems more remote than ever.
Contrast that to the ease with which wealthy foreigners, many of whom will not be resident in the capital, are hoovering up London real estate. Such is their spending power that it is becoming increasingly common for agents to market new London property developments first to overseas buyers whose appetite for homes in the capital, alongside their ability to pay for them, seems not to abate.
An increasing number of Londoners are feeling locked out of their own city. Whatever one’s politics, this cannot be desirable– an overcrowded capital in which much of our precious housing stock is being bought by part-time or even absent residents will ultimately lead to a total lack of community.
