Middle East developers widen their nets
1 December, 2008A world of angry bankers
1 December, 2008Should you wish to own such a garden, British houses are looking better than for some time, on two grounds: one, the very low cost of borrowing in the UK, where the base rate hit 3% after a huge 1.5% lop in early November; and two, the inevitable fall in London prices that must accompany such a major kick to the financial services industry which plays such a large role in the city’s economy. The currency is a tricky one to pick, though – since both the Aussie dollar and sterling have crashed against the US dollar, they’re still worth pretty much the same against each other as they were at the start of the year.
As ever, the question is: too soon? A web site called housepricecrash.co.uk is gathering a loyal following in the UK, and its analyst Jonathan Davis predicted in September that UK house prices could fall 40 to 50% between 2007 and 2011 (some of that fall has already happened). And let’s not pretend that a fall has made London property cheap by any stretch of the imagination: according to Nationwide the average price for a property in Hammersmith and Fulham is GBP426,801. And you can assume that’s a two-bedroom flat (without a garden in which to grow your turnips).
