Hong Kong and mainland investors are leading an Asian buying boom in London's property market.
About 5 per cent of newly built homes sold in central London over a 12-month period to March were bought by Hong Kong and mainland buyers - the highest share taken in the market by any offshore investors, a report from estate agency Knight Frank shows.
Combined, investors from Hong Kong, the mainland, Singapore, Malaysia and the rest of East Asia bought one-fifth of the 7,579 new homes sold in the British capital's 11 central boroughs during the year to March, according to Knight Frank's International Project Marketing 2010.
Their combined GBP761 million (HK$8.74 billion) investment has encouraged developers to raise sales prices, according to Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank. 'There are three times as many Asian buyers as there were this time last year, but even that could be understating it,' Bailey said. 'Most buy homes for their children studying in Britain and then rent them out afterwards.'
Six out of 10 buyers of central London new-build homes were owner-occupiers, the remainder investors, the report says. Half the investors were from East Asia (Hong Kong, the mainland, Singapore, Malaysia and the rest of East Asia), 37 per cent from Britain, and the remainder from the rest of the world, including other parts of Asia such as India, with 3.3 per cent, and the Middle East, with 3.5 per cent.
Hong Kong and mainland buyers were the biggest group of overseas investors - 11 per cent of the total.