Londoners priced out of home market blast foreign buyers

Cheryl Coyne shouted "No more homes for millionaires!" with protesters dressed as pirates outside London City Hall last week. Inside, Mayor Boris Johnson was approving a plan by Hutchison Whampoa to build as many as 3,500 homes close to where she lives.

"These are the kind of homes that local people will never be able to afford," said Coyne, a semi-retired schoolteacher who wore a striped shirt and a skull and crossbones neck scarf. "There are thousands of people in the borough who need homes, and instead they're building flats for multimillionaires."

The status of Britain's capital as a magnet for wealthy foreign homebuyers is helping to drive prices in many areas beyond the reach of most Londoners. That is putting pressure on politicians and developers to convince locals that they have not been forgotten in the rush to court overseas investors.

Foreign-born buyers made 69 per cent of central London new-home purchases in the two years to June last year, with 28 per cent living outside Britain, broker Knight Frank said in October.

London house prices increased 18 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the most since 2003, Nationwide Building Society said on April 2.

"There is a head of steam building where people are seeing this situation, which is so blatantly unfair, and want firm action to be taken," said Darren Johnson, the chairman of the London Assembly's housing committee.