INVESTMENT
The UK property market: With competition high, speed is everything
T
he UK’s property market has long been heralded as one of the most desirable in the world. And the jewel in the crown of the nation’s property sector is undoubtedly London.
Paresh Raja CEO Market Financial Solutions
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Nationwide’s House Price Index shows that the average house price in London currently stands at £473,000 – more than twice the national average of £217,000. These house prices are driven upwards by the sheer demand for property in the capital, both from domestic and foreign buyers. Last year Savills named London as the most competitive city in the world when it comes to purchasing property, while Knight Frank’s latest Global Cities report revealed that London ranks second in the world for foreign property investment, with £18.8 billion worth of
property bought by overseas buyers in the year to June 2016. However, with a huge number of investors looking to access the UK property market – particularly in London – a problem has emerged. In the current state of the industry, property buyers are at constant risk of being gazumped at the last minute by rival buyers. Market Financial Solutions (MFS) recently conducted research into this very issue; in a survey of 2,000 UK adults, MFS found that 5% of all people in the country (2.57 million Britons) have been pipped to the post when trying to purchase a property, with the figure rising to 15% among Londoners, showing the ruthless, competitive nature of the city’s real estate market.