Brexit may have rocked London’s real estate sector, but it does not seem to have rocked Singaporeans’ confidence in the market. In fact, their appetite for properties in London has continued to be rather voracious.
Photo credit: televisioncentre.com
More first-time buyers are reportedly entering the overseas investment market, and for many, the United Kingdom is one of the first non-Asian market they are dipping their toes into. The Brexit seems to have opened doors for these first-time investors who see the recent turn of events cultivating the prime time to enter the market. The weaker pound is one of the reasons Singaporeans are making their foray into the London property sector. In fact, property analysts and UK-based developers have reported seeing Singaporeans picking up London homes priced between ￡300,000 and ￡500,000. And most interestingly, majority of these buyers are HDB flat dwellers who see foreign property investments as more worthy than local properties.
Photo credit: The Lodha Group
Take for example Television Centre, a new mixed-use project in West London developed by Stanhope, which will yield 950 new homes amidst massive office, lifestyle and retail spaces and a hotel and even TV studios . Its first marketing effort outside of the UK had a sales target of 40 units. But thus far, it has already sold 45 units and a third of the buyers were from Singapore. Another property, Lincoln Square, marketed by Lodha UK, has also seen their sales doubling. Most buyers either have business links in London or have children who are studying in colleges nearby such as the London School of Economics and King’s College London.
Though property prices in London have been falling for half a year now, these new Singaporean investors are more keen on long-term gains, and see the current timing as optimal and to be taken advantage of.
