Author: Marketing

With increasing numbers of overseas buyers looking toward UK property, we look at the reasons for this rise and where to look.

Increasingly, UK expats and foreign nationals have been looking towards UK property for investment purposes. Those living and working in the US, Canada and the Far East are facing strong investment prospects, emboldened by a weaker pound, the availability of foreign national mortgages, confidence in the UK housing market and economy more generally, and a vaccine programme that promises to keep foreign travel a distinct possibility.

What We’re Seeing – UK Expats and Foreign Nationals Look to UK Property.

‘The number of UK expat and foreign nationals buying in the UK with the help of UK expat and foreign national mortgages was incredible over the course of the pandemic’ says Stuart Marshall. ‘But there’s no sign of that slowing down in our new post-pandemic world either. Anecdotally, we’ve seen a huge surge in the numbers of enquiries talking about obtaining a UK mortgage while being paid in a non-sterling currency. As restrictions have eased, we’ve seen a proportional rise in enquiries for UK mortgages coming from UK expat and foreign national investors. And many of these are looking at around the £500,000 mark, indicating that investing in the UK property market is no longer just for the super-rich working overseas. Further, entry-level investors are also increasing their volume of enquiries in a bid to get a slice of the lucrative UK investment market.’

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There are many interesting things to note when looking at the enquiries we’re receiving. First off, investment in the UK property market remains strong from the Far East. This is no doubt due, in part, to the UK’s BNO passport scheme in Hong Kong, which is continuing to contribute to the steady stream of foreign investment in the UK. New build properties are also a popular choice with UK expat and foreign national investors at the minute as they try to bypass supply issues and capitalise on the cheaper cost of newbuilds. Another factor to note is that investors are seeing the opportunity presented by city centre flats. While these types of property are not as popular as they once were in the property market, they are growing in popularity again in a rental market which is struggling for stock. The more affordable cost of these properties coupled with the rising rental cost is the perfect combination for a quality investment using a UK expat or foreign national mortgage.

Lastly, London continues to maintain popularity with overseas buyers, with lower prices in the capital proving to be an incentive for foreign investment. Prices are once again rising in the capital and so is rental growth, meaning that it’s an excellent time for UK expat and foreign national investors to buy an investment property in London.

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London.

After the terrible effect of the pandemic on London’s rental market, prospects are starting to look up for UK expat and foreign national buy-to-let investors looking to the capital. ‘As we’ve said, many of the enquiries we’re getting are about London property. It’s a tried and tested route for many UK expats and foreign nationals and somewhere they’re familiar with. The pandemic has affected rental stock massively, with 57% fewer homes available to rent in the capital in August 2020 compared to the previous year. This lack of available homes is putting upwards pressure on rental prices with London rents predicted to recover to their pre-pandemic level by the middle of 2022.’

‘Crucially for UK expat and foreign national investors, the sales market in London remains inviting, with prices far lower than you would typically expect in the capital market. There were 14% fewer people looking to buy in London in August 2021 compared to in 2019’s pre-pandemic market. This is contributing to a stock increase in properties for sale in the capital (19% higher in 2021 compared to the same time in 2019). This stock surplus is making sure that prices stay low – a great thing for UK expat and foreign national investors looking to capitalise on the rising rents by using a UK expat or foreign national mortgage.’

North West.

‘The North West is another area that we recommend to many UK expat and foreign national investors looking to buy in the UK. For those that are unsure about where to buy, the North West presents a proposition that’s hard to resist.’

One area in the North West that is of particular interest is Manchester. In recent studies, it’s been found that the number of properties available to rent in Manchester has fallen below 500. For a population of 500,000, this means that securing a rental property is incredibly competitive – a good thing for UK expat and foreign national investors who own a rental property in Manchester. As a consequence of the low stock, properties in Manchester are renting thick and fast. In the third quarter of 2021, there were more than 2750 lettings agreed in Manchester, 10.3% higher than we saw in the same period of 2019.

‘There is a great opportunity for UK expat and foreign national investors in Manchester at the minute. Zoopla is reporting that the average rental price in Manchester city centre currently sits at £1,505pcm, around £500 higher than the UK average. Average rents for studio and two-bed apartments have risen 6% in the last 3 months as a result of the constraint on supply. The average rental yield in Manchester now sits at 8.55%, more than double the UK average.’

The figures in Manchester speak for themselves so it’s no surprise that many UK expats and foreign nationals are making enquiries about mortgages for properties in Manchester and the rest of the North West. With so many UK expats and foreign nationals looking to invest in the UK with a UK expat or foreign national mortgage at the moment, it’s important to be aware of the areas that are most in demand in order to maximise the profitability of your investment and ensure financial stability for years to come.

Source: EIN News

A sudden spike in interest in the prime central London property market is being reported by a leading high-end developer, which has seen a dramatic uplift in sales at its showcase luxury development in the UK capital.

Trends that unfolded during the pandemic have seemingly shifted into reverse with the centre of the city re-emerging as a magnet, as investors look to hedge against an expected surge in British inflation.

“If people want to know what’s going on right now in prime central London property, it is chaos”, Gabriel York, the chief executive of luxury developer Lodha UK, tells The National.

“It is selling, and it’s selling fast. We’ve gone from 30 per cent committed to 65 per cent, in just a matter of weeks, and I think it will continue.”

Mr York was referring to sales at No. 1 Grosvenor Square, the company’s flagship luxury development in the heart of Mayfair, just a stone’s throw from Bond Street and Oxford Street’s Selfridges department store.

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With just 44 apartments on offer, the building was formerly the US embassy, with notable ambassador Joseph P Kennedy, the father of JFK himself, a former resident, once installing a replica of the Oval Office in the building. The remnants of that work are now clearly visible in the property’s ornate central lobby.

It later became the Canadian High Commission from 1961 to 2014, until Lodha UK, a subsidiary of India’s Lodha Group, purchased the building for a reported £308 million ($419m) and dismantled it brick by brick, before restoring its facade with the original materials and raising the ceiling height to 4.2 metres to accommodate modern tastes.

The result is a hyper-luxury development with apartments starting from £8.65 million, and luxury additions such as a Residents’ Club & Spa with private gym, swimming pool, spa and cinema, as well as private lifts, a personalised concierge service and a secure private entrance for cars. While the “race for space” has seen many buyers exit London to buy homes outside the UK capital, the developer said the reverse is suddenly true.

Surge in buyers from the GCC

With more homes sold at the development in the past four weeks than in any 12-month period, Mr York says a number of factors have triggered this radical shift in market activity, with one of them a change in the type of buyer.

While the early buyers all lived within 150 metres of the development and included chief executives or chairmen of FTSE 350 companies, 25 per cent of customers heading through the doors over the past six weeks are families from the GCC, “particularly from the UAE”.

“That can be everything from royal families to large business families and trading names,” says Mr York, who noticed a ramp up in interest from the region in September when the UAE and UK signed a Strategic Investment Partnership.

While the most expensive apartment remaining costs £40m, for a five-bedroom home, average deals now hover between £20m and £25m, with 30 per cent of the project now sold and handed over, 20 per cent pending completion and a further 12 to 15 per cent agreed.

The surge in GCC buyers is partly follows the easing of travel restrictions over the summer, says Mr York, but there is also “something different about what our Middle East customers are seeking”.

“Often it’s about a larger family, so we’ve had offers for multiple apartments for different family members, such as brothers wanting to live side by side and parents and children wanting to be close but not together,” he says.

Privacy and security are also very important, with the building’s proximity to the Italian Embassy a plus, along with a covered entrance for cars, with owners’ vehicles parked using “The Vault”, reportedly the largest and fastest automated parking system in the UK.

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The service offering is also key, with services provided by Lodha UK’s private management company Saint Amand, a team of 30 hospitality professionals who not only manage the residence but also make travel arrangements or book shows and restaurants across London.

Rather than tie up with a hotel brand, Lodha UK wanted an offering that worked for residents rather than tourists at both the Grosvenor Square location and Lodha UK’s sister development Lincoln Square, just 10 minutes from St Paul’s Cathedral.

Three apartments sold for £147m in April 2020

While No.1 Grosvenor Square started out as 48 apartments, there are now only 44 after some buyers amalgamated several residences into single homes.

One of the biggest deals started in April 2020 — completing in October last year — just as the pandemic was taking hold, with a penthouse and two apartments purchased for £147m.

The buyer was a UK-based technology entrepreneur who wanted the combined 17,000 square feet of space as his primary home.

“I went to his country home to visit him and said ‘what are you doing buying in central London in the middle of a pandemic when everyone’s moving to the country’,” says Mr York, a former army officer.

“He looked at me and said ‘are you crazy, I can do two days here in the countryside and then I’ve got to be back in London. I’m a city boy’. So the pandemic wasn’t a time to panic because that was a major transaction,” says Mr York.

However, the picture became very bleak towards the end of last year when London entered its third lockdown.

“The market froze for us”, says Mr York. “Across both our projects, in December, January and February the market just went. It was winter and people were locked up.”

Add in Mr York, his chief financial officer and other members of the team contracting Covid-19, and it must have been a challenging time.

However, Mr York describes that period as “dispiriting”, particularly as the slowdown came just after the company had received its first Middle East offer on an apartment in November.

“It was a really big moment and then lockdown swept the legs from under us, so it was a difficult few months not knowing how long it would last for.”

Market has transformed since grinding to a halt in lockdown three

What has happened since April, however, has been “quite extraordinary”, says Mr York.

The change was the emergence of an “entirely new wave of buyers” for Lincoln Square, where prices start at £2m to £3m, with one of the first buyers a doctor based in Devon.

“We started to have more curious cases like this. Normally with central London [the buyer] is going to be in financial services … people in private equity, hedge funds, running banks, and then this doctor bought,” says Mr York.

Soon after, more country dwellers snapped up homes at Lincoln Square, as they looked for a better balance between their rural and city lives.

The shift was far cry from the endless media reports of the “great exodus from London”, says Mr York. Instead people that had lived outside of London for a long time were hunting for a second home to avoid the commute or a hotel stay.

Then, in August and September, sales “ just took off”, with just five apartments of Lincoln Square’s 221 now left, a huge shift from the 65 that were unsold when the company entered the pandemic in March last year.

“In the last three months, the total amount of sales we’ve done across both projects is more than we’ve done in a whole year ever before — so the sales in that period exceed the maximum annual sales we’ve ever done in London,” says Mr York.

House prices in prime central London hit a turning point

For a company that has only been selling since 2016, it shows how quickly the market has shifted away from the suppressed prices seen in the prime central London market in recent years.

Earlier this month, consultancy Savills said prices had finally reached a “turning point”, rising for the first time since September 2014 despite the absence of international buyers.

Easing lockdown restrictions and the return of office workers to the UK capital resulted in annual house price growth of 1.4 per cent in the third quarter, the second three-month period of growth in a row, Savills said, after prices for the central London market bottomed out when international buyers were absent.

However, Mr York has certainly seen a resurgence in overseas buyers, particularly form the GCC, a market the company had barely worked with before.

The change came after Lincoln Square completed and the company noticed a change in the profile of tenants in the building, where rents cost £750 a week for a one bedroom and between £1,000 to £1,500 for a two-bed.

“There were people in their 20s from the GCC, choosing this part of London because they might be studying or at an early stage in their career. In some cases the parents owned somewhere in Knightsbridge,” Mr York says.

Four people from the GCC are currently buying in Lincoln Square, with one buyer purchasing a three- bedroom apartment to visit London and see his children who are at university in central London.

There is also a GCC buyer at Grosvenor Square, where demand has ramped up so much there are now multiple bidders on each apartment — another first for Lodha UK.

If the pace continues, Grosvenor Square could beat its sale completion target in 2024 by 18 months.

Home ownership set to surge over the next 10 years

Looking ahead, Mr York says the market is entering a five- to 10-year period where people are choosing ownership over staying in a hotel or rental to gain back control, in case the government imposes travel restrictions again.

“Ownership levels are going to increase, not just the percentage of people that own a property, but the average number of properties owned per person. And that’s going to happen across all asset classes,” says Mr York, who is a fluent Arabic speaker and plans a series of promotional videos about Grosvenor Square in the language.

“We’re going to see outrageous asset price inflation in holiday destinations and heavily visited cities such as London, Paris and Bangkok,” he adds.

“What we’ve gone through the last couple of months with car prices, gas prices and petrol prices going up as well as lorry drivers being paid more … in six months time it will have gone that way in every asset class category. We are at the cusp of a very high level of inflation and it will be property prices that go up at the fastest rate.”

Lodha UK’s’ next project, Holland Park Gate, will launch within weeks with 71 off-plan apartments. The company is raising capital for a £250m fund after customers asked to invest in future projects, though Lodha UK will be contributing up to 50 per cent of the capital.

While Savills is expecting 25 per cent growth in prime central London over the next five years Mr York says once you build in the inflation, that growth will “considerably higher”.

“If we are going into a higher inflation environment then I would not be surprised if it’s probably somewhere between 30 and 60 per cent,” he says.

“Has everybody been chasing central London property in the last six months? No, absolutely not. But right now they are. The people buying at the moment are getting ahead and positioning themselves as early as they can.”

By Alice Haine

Source: The National News