Why is China snatching up UK real estate? RT’s Boom Bust explores investor buying boom

As high unemployment following the coronavirus pandemic saps house-buying demand, commercial-property investors are looking to take advantage of falling prices.

In the United Kingdom, house prices are expected to fall by five percent this year, according to a Reuters poll of property-market analysts. Prices won’t recover until the end of 2022, showed the survey. The monthly fall for the Nationwide Price House Index was 1.7 percent in May.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong and mainland China are taking advantage of cheaper prices in London, buying up as much real estate as they can, according to a report from London-based brokerage Beauchamp Estates.

Investors from those regions now account for 15 percent of international buyer transactions priced above $1.22 million in London’s prime areas. They also acquired 20 percent of real estate there priced above $10 million.

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