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London housing prices jump 10%
倫敦房價飆升10%
In London, analysts are warning of a potential bubble in the UK capital’s booming housing market. Home prices in London have risen sharply by ten percent in the past month. It follows the launch of a new government scheme to help first time buyers which some people say could be making the problem worse.
Most people in Britain aspire to own their own home. Making Property a major driver of the economy. Part of the reason the government launched ’Help to Buy’ aimed at breaking a bank lending drought.
Help to Buy applies to houses costing up to $900,000 dollars, first time buyers need only a five per cent deposit. The UK government guarantees another 15%. But a survey out this week from Rightmove, Britain’s biggest website property agency, has added to worries the scheme may be creating a London bubble. Rightmove’s survey of asking prices in the capital shows a jump of over 10 per cent between September and October. An annual rise of 13.8 percent. With more cash chasing a static property market, even members of the government have urged caution with Help to Buy.
Nick Clegg, British Deputy Prime Minister, said, "Of course we need to be vigilant, of course we need to moderate it, even turn it off."
London though isn’t typical of the UK, where asking prices generally have risen at 2.8%. In London, an apparently insatiable demand for prime inner-city property, driven by the world’s super-rich, has forced a typical price to more than $3.5 million dollars.
The middle classes moving to former trouble spots like Brixton in South London--where prices now push the one-and-a-half million-dollar mark-- wine bars and sushi restaurants alongside market stalls catering for West Indian tastes.
Alex Wheatle, writer of former Brixton resident, said, "It’s changing, the demographic is changing rapidly because the only people who can buy property here are those with money."
“Perhaps London’s property prices are not quite in a bubble yet, but figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders - the people who put up the cash to buy a house - have warned that lending is at its strongest in five years and much of that is down to the government’s Help to Buy scheme, CCTV correspondent Richard Bestic said.
