You’d think Theresa May might be a bit tied up right now, the UK being 46 days away from Brexit calamity and all, but no: she’s still found time to take another swing at the capital’s economy. The Government is launching a consultation this week on hiking stamp duty for those overseas investors who want to buy a home here, with the extra cash being used, ironically enough, to fund the problem of homelessness. May, who can be guaranteed to revert to typical “bash the foreigners” form when she’s in a tight spot, blames the evil speculators for driving up house prices across London and the South-East. But speak to any major developer and they’ll tell you that it’s often those very bogeymen who help get much-needed building schemes off the ground in the first place. Most development finance will be conditional on a certain number of off-plan sales to generate early cashflow; those overseas buyers are far more willing to buy two or three years in advance than domestic purchasers, who usually want to move in straight away. Hence yet more fiddling with the tax system for political purposes which will do nothing for the supply of homes (and said homelessness problem), while yet again sending the message that London wants to penalise foreign investment. The University of York’s research into the issue in 2017 found that overseas investors naturally gravitate towards the more affluent parts of the capital with foreign buyers “over-represented in prime areas and under-represented in outer… [Read full story]
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