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£14,500,0000

for a two bedroomed flat. Sold.

Big chest and massive boobs

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..sadly, if demand is there, then...

.......has our coach driver done a Poo'yet, without thinking about Gus!

It's a shame for future generations, but right now, sell up, make a tidy profit, go move just outside the m25 and have a nice retirement when it comes around.
It's like out here in canada, whole place is expanding and towns being heavily populated by migrations and people wanting to live by a city. My place has gone up 40k in a year!! It doesn't help though when foreign investors by a house over the phone and putting down whatever it takes.

This was once a quality forum....

The top end of the market is being bought by foreign investors, many of whom leave the properties empty and aren't worried about rental income, just the growth in value which will continue to rise due to demand.

We need to make this practice less attractive by imposing heavy taxation on the capital gains for non UK citizens and heavy penalties for not occupying the property within a reasonable time.

This might slow demand and filter down to lower priced properties but there is a massive shortage of housing in London and no end of takers to rent and opportunists to buy to let.

If we keep taking in immigrants at the current scale the situation will get worse.

If people also react by moving further out to the suburbs and/or the rest of the UK pressure/demand on housing there will force prices higher.

I cannot see that anyone younger than age 30 now will ever own a house in the future unless they inherit it or win the lotto.

I'm sure Kermit wants to blame Thatcher for this - and she played a part selling off council housing but Blair's immigration policy has exacerbated the problem on a major scale.

Who mentioned Thatcher?

"The Housing Act 1988 expanded private sector financial input into social housing development, and introduced assured tenancies and a higher rent regime. This left the housing benefit bill to take the strain, which swelled to five times its original size to almost £25bn a year today.

Thatcher's housing legacy is one of tenure polarisation and growing inequality, worsening housing market affordability, housing supply shortfalls and an ever deepening housing crisis"

Kevin Gulliver is a director at the Human City Institute

Big chest and massive boobs

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Never mind Thatcher. What about right to buy now? Shouldn't be right that a council property is the best chance of getting your foot on the ladder.

I don't usually disagree with Boris but new flats that are immediately sold to Asian investors is just wrong and only benefits the developer, owner and councils. You can't keep building in London with minimum prices of 300k while people are forced to pay 500 quid a month for a damp shoebox.

Everyone talks about taxing the rich, while they happily pay someone's 20th mortgage. Tax the developers too so there's an incentive to build cheaper and if they don't want to build, then the councils should have to rather than simply sanctioning the building of thousands of new flats while having no further say in the cost or who gets them. Another case for taking power back from them.

Edited by johnfirewall (08 Nov 2015 2.00pm)