Over the last five years, the main appetite for prime Central London residential property has come from Southeast Asia, with new-build schemes from London regularly hitting the Hong Kong – Singapore – Kuala Lumpur property exhibition trail.
Real estate firm CBRE, in its Global Living Research Report, has noted that almost all Asian buyers are active investors across a range of global cities.
Thai buyers are different and have tended to invest in their own market rather than overseas. London is an exception and is one of the few overseas markets they will buy in.
The reason for this is because it is popular for Thai parents to send children to London to study, and Thai buyers tend to purchase a property to accommodate their children while studying.
Following graduation they will then resell or rent the unit. The most popular locations for Thai buyers are Kensington, Knightsbridge and Hyde Park, but anywhere central near a tube station is considered to be popular.
Russian buyers, who have traditionally honed in on the most expensive and opulent end of the markets in nearly all key destinations, have quietened somewhat in the wake of recent geopolitical issues. Many are now looking at marginally more modest assets, at least by previous standards.
In contrast, the political and economic unrest in much of the Middle East continues to encourage wealth out of the area, pumping a steady flow of capital towards London. The flight to safety remains the number one priority.
Buyers from mainland China are becoming increasingly active. They have already surpassed the Russians as the largest overseas buyer group in Sydney and New York, and look poised to make a real impact on the London market. This is driven both by the sheer volume of wealthy people coming out of the country, their global aspirations, and the fear that their domestic residential market is now at saturation point in key cities.
Andrew Batt, International Group Editor of PropertyGuru Group, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email andrew@propertyguru.com.
