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Singapore bank suspends loans for London properties after Brexit

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OR... Brits who have been priced out of the market for so long will finally get a chance to buy in.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

One bank in Singapore suspends loans for buying in London-what about the rest of the UK? Most foreigners in London don't need loans to buy either UK property is a massively good safe bet! High standards, good materials and no natural disiasters as there are in Japan Sterling is down and there is massive infrastructure work going on around London.Anyone looking for capital gains and rent income is now well placed to nab a bargain I am thinking of sizing up my portfolio there later this yen as the pound is so low!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Now the nation is going to belong to foreigners who buy all the property when it hits rock bottom!

The foreigners bought it all long ago, Japan bought a lot when the yen was very strong recently. We have to remember that this is just one of the many banks in Singapore, and the others are probably all too happy for the upsurge in business and fees. And increased foreign investment in London and the UK will cause a currency imbalance, which will in turn cause the British pound strengthen in the long term.

More funny still is that Britain, like everyone else, has been trying to devalue their currency to cause exactly what is happening in the UK right now; to lower the cost of British goods, and increase exports of these goods. The weak pound is a win-win situation for the UK, they get the positive effect of a weak currency without having to borrow and print billions, and squander it on bridges to nowhere.

But don't count on the pound staying weak for long, it is a far more stable currency than the euro, and as other countries follow Britain's lead, and the euro reacts, I might find some good real estate deals Germany or southern Europe.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

@HowardStern

OR... Brits who have been priced out of the market for so long will finally get a chance to buy in

Unfortunately not; those Brits have seen the value of their money reduced by the exact same percentage that the value of the properties has been reduced. It is only overseas buyers (whether foreign, or overseas Brits with large foreign currency reserves) that have had their buying power improved by this.

As I said to every Brexiteer I debated with pre-referendum, one of the results of a vote for Brexit is the Chinese ending up owning huge chunks of our property market and our national infrastructure. Not that there is anything wrong with that per se... but it defeats the purpose of many Brexit supporters to "get their country back"

1 ( +4 / -3 )

My team of high powered real estate speculators are looking at prime central London property which may or may not include some of British Parliament for our 3rd London office.

As a high-powered, wealthy industrialist who buys and sells men much like myself on a weekly basis, this deal is just one my team of assistants will keep me posted on.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

The EU parliament gravy train HQ in Brussels will also be available soon rent free. To beat the squatters make sure to get in early for a shot at a space.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Love it! The morons that voted in favour of Brexit were largely doing so out of national pride and no basis in reality in terms of the concrete consequences it would have, and many of them racists paranoid about an 'invasion'. Now the nation is going to belong to foreigners who buy all the property when it hits rock bottom!

0 ( +6 / -6 )

UOB move is reactive. FX market has already adjusted.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

wait until London has a referendum to become its own city-state then the two can resume

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@SF2K

London is its own city state.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

MIddle-class British families actually able to afford a house in London? What a horrible prospect.

If they couldn't before the Brexit vote, they still can't after it; the value of properties has gone down, but so has the value of British families' money. It is only overseas buyers who now see their buying power increased.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

"If they couldn't before the Brexit vote,"

Yes, they could. Median British real wages and living standards have been falling steadily over the last decade, according to official data. The downtrend accelerated after enlargement in 2004.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I disagree; it was the 2008 financial crash and the austerity economics imposed by the govt to cover the cost of bailing out the banks that has caused the fall in living standards. But regardless of what you think of the causes, the fact is that the loss in property value caused by the drop in the pound, as reported in this article, doesn't help British families to afford property more easily because their own pounds have lost the same amount of value. Furthermore, the increase we're going to see in foreign buyers is going to make it even harder for British families to compete in the London property market.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Yoshitsune

"I disagree; it was the 2008 financial crash...."

Stats (unrelated to Brexit) done by LSE show a slowdown in income growth starting from 2004.....right after EU enlargement, and the trend worsening and continuing to present day.

In case you haven't seen it, the media has been reporting other statisics on a growing outflux of regular people from London. The Office for National Statistics directly blames the rising cost of housing, and says the outflux grew by 70 percent last year. First-time British homebuyers are especially affected, it says.

London's great if your a Russian billionaire or a movie star. It's getting impossible for regular British people. Gee, why would anyone want to vote against a status quo like that?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

London's great if your a Russian billionaire or a movie star. It's getting impossible for regular British people. Gee, why would anyone want to vote against a status quo like that?

What I'm saying to you is that Brexit wasn't a vote that will change that status quo; it's the wrong medicine (and note that Londoners voted overwhelmingly to remain). Again; this article is reporting that British properties have lost value due to the fall in value of the pound following the referendum result. This makes it easier to afford British property only if you hold wealth in other currencies - e.g. for Russian and Chinese billionaires. If your money is in pounds, as it is for the British families you're talking about, then the fall in the pound doesn't increase your buying power because it reduces your wealth at the same rate it reduces the property values. What this means is that as a result of the weak pound, foreign buyers will be buying up even more property in the UK (the freeze in loans by one bank in Singapore is temporary and won't be stopping any billionaires from Moscow or Beijing)

the media has been reporting other statisics on a growing outflux of regular people from London. The Office for National Statistics directly blames the rising cost of housing

But, once again, the fall in the pound's value only creates a fall in the cost of housing if you're buying with dollars, yuan, yen, etc. It doesn't help British buyers holding British pounds; in fact the demand from overseas is going to increase so the pricing in pounds may well increase even further.

Stats (unrelated to Brexit) done by LSE show a slowdown in income growth starting from 2004

I'd be interested to see those stats if you could share a link?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"I'd be interested to see those stats if you could share a link?"

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/real-wages-and-living-standards-the-latest-uk-evidence/

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Thanks for the link. It's pretty clear from the data there that the 2008 financial crisis was responsible for the fall in living in standards, as indeed the author of the report also states.

And again, sadly, the people of the UK are going to find out over the coming years that voting to leave the EU will not solve the problems caused by the 2008 crash - immigration and the EU were the scapegoats used by the Tories to dodge the anger over their austerity economics. And with the hard Tory right now taking the reigns unopposed and soon to be free of the meddling EU and its pesky worker's rights, the average British worker is about to get shafted harder than ever before.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I feel like Britain soon will be going to sell a lot of stuff, from houses to military hardware, in an act of desperation.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

MIddle-class British families actually able to afford a house in London? What a horrible prospect. These Brexiteers must be stopped.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I've actually got a business partner looking at property in the UK now. We're going to monitor it over the next few months and decide whether to buy.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

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