英镑走强 亚洲投资者开始舍弃伦敦房市

2015年08月28日  来源：居外原创

英国作为经济危机过后外国投资者寻求可观房产投资回报“避难所”的故事或正在走向终结

除了成千上万的起重机和雨后春笋般的豪宅公寓，伦敦到处都充斥着富豪们的“小玩意”，从汽车升降机到范思哲儿童游乐区，表面上看，伦敦巴特西（Battersea）一带仍然是房地产繁荣的中心，它似乎已经将伦敦变成了英国的“摩纳哥”。

如果那些参与巴特西电站和九榆树地区（Nine Elms）改造的经纪人及投资者的传言可以相信的话，那些被众多外国投资者看好——也受到等量谴责的——推动了伦敦十年发展的豪宅繁荣期，或正逐渐消退下去。

跨国公司森那美（Sime Darby），42英亩的巴特西重建项目的主要股东之一，承认马来西亚和其他东南亚国家投资者的购房兴趣正在减退。此前，这些地区的投资者为在伦敦买房一掷千金，推高了豪宅价格，巴特西因受他们青睐而被称为“新加坡泰晤士”。这家总部位于马来西亚的公司坚称，现有的销售协议一个也没被取消。

但是，仅因为有一个地产代理数据显示：截止今年6月，巴特西和周围地区豪宅价格下跌10%，专家们就指责，近期的英镑走强和投资者本国的经济波动，打击了他们在伦敦购买豪宅的热情。

据英国莱坊房地产经纪公司数据，购买伦敦豪宅的俄罗斯客户2015年上半年占比跌至2.9％，这一数字在此前6个月为6.37％。新加坡买家减少了一半以上，占比为1.4％；中国买家占比从10.9％下降到9.4％。

森那美拥有巴特西重建项目40％的股份。近期，该公司在一份声明中指出：“我们发现，马来西亚和其他东南亚地区买家，对英国楼市的兴趣在不断减弱，很可能是因为货币波动较大和经济前景不明确。目前为止，公司没有交换合约被取消。”

经济学家预测，伦敦黄金地段房价将下降10％至15％；另外一些人则认为，一个潜伏已久的房地产萧条期已经开始降临伦敦。网络房地产代理商eMoov称，市场对价值200万英镑或以上的豪宅的需求在不断下降，单5月就录得了3%的跌幅。5月以来，伦敦60%的中心行政区，如威斯敏斯特（Westminster）或肯辛顿-切尔西（Kensington and Chelsea），住宅需求均有所下降。

eMoov创始人Russell Quirk说：“即使价格暴跌，我不认为有多少人会同情那些富得流油、锦衣玉食的豪宅买家。他们已经占据伦敦中央的“黄金街”很久了，现在看起来时代正在起变化。

“伦敦已经变成了英国中央的摩纳哥。但是，伦敦上涨的房价必定会出现回落，我们将开始看到英国首都和其他地区的房价出现‘再平衡’。”

 

本文系居外网度独家稿件，未经授权，不得转载，否则将追究法律责任。

关注居外网官方微信:居外资讯（juwai-com），每日阅读精选海外文章。

 

（点击下一页，查看英文原文）

Asian investors start to desert London property market due to strong pound

The status of Britain as a haven for foreign investors looking for decent returns in housing in the wake of the economic crisis may be coming to an end.

With its forest of cranes and mushrooming show apartments dangling plutocrat baubles from car lifts to Versace children’s play areas, Battersea remains outwardly the buzzing epicentre of the property boom that has turned London into Britain’s very own Monaco.

But if the rumblings from within a circle of brokers and investors involved in the redevelopment of the south London former power station and the surrounding Nine Elms area are anything to go by, the legions of foreign investors credited - and blamed in equal measure - for driving the capital’s decade-long luxury property boom may finally be getting cold feet.

Sime Darby, one of the major stakeholders in the redevelopment of the 42-acre Battersea site, acknowledged a “softening of interest” in buyers from Malaysia and elsewhere in southeast Asia who had previously been responsible for the spending splurge which saw the area dubbed  “Singapore on Thames”. The Malaysia based company insisted that none of its existing sales agreements had been cancelled.

But with one estate agent recording a 10 per cent drop in the value of luxury homes in Battersea and its environs in the year to June, experts blamed the cooling of ardour for buying up London’s high-end penthouses on the strengthening of the pound in recent months and economic volatility in the home markets of investors.

Estate agent Knight Frank said purchases of prime London homes by Russians had fallen to 2.9 per cent of the total in the first six months of 2015, compared to 6.7 per cent in the previous period. Singapore-based buyers more than halved to 1.4 per cent and Chinese investors dropped to9.4 per cent from 10.9 per cent.

Sime Darby, which owns 40 per cent of the Battersea project, said in a statement: “We are witnessing softening of interest among buyers from Malaysia and southeast Asian regions, probably due to the prevailing volatile currencies and uncertainty in economic outlook. No exchanged contracts have been cancelled to date.”

With economists predicting a fall in the price of prime central London property of 10 to 15 per cent, some argue that a long-awaited dose of real estate reality is already beginning to hit the capital. Online estate agent eMoov said it had recorded a three per cent drop in demand for housing worth £2m or more in a single month in May. Demand has fallen since May in some 60 per cent of “prime” London boroughs, such as Westminster or Kensington and Chelsea.

Founder Russell Quirk said: “I don’t think that there are many who will shed a tear for the well-heeled, sharp suited Mayfair type property predators. They have long crawled along the golden streets of prime central London, yet it seems that the tide has turned.

“London has been a Monaco in the middle of Britain. But what comes up must come down and we are now starting to see a rebalancing with other parts of the country.”