Euro cash buyers see value for money in London property market.
The surge in interest in London property from Irish property investors comes as a result of the fall in the value of sterling. Buyers from the Eurozone have seen effective price falls of over 30 per cent in the London property market.
London property prices are down 15 per cent on last year but if you're a cash buyer and that cash is in euro, you could more than double that discount.
London estate agent Liza Jane Kelly shows RTÉ reporter Brian O'Connell around a four-bedroomed property in Kensington on the market at £3.45 million. Last year, the same property would have been on the market for around £3.95 million. While this property has dropped in price by half a million pounds, the fall in euro amounts to around two million, a decrease of 36 per cent.
A property on the market for £1 million last year would have cost around €1.4 million. The same property could be on the market today for around £750,000, the current equivalent of about €800,000 amounting to a saving of about 43 per cent.
Liza Jane Kelly says that registration from European buyers has increased by about 70 per cent.
They range from French, Italian, Irish, right across the board.
Not everyone is so optimistic about potential Irish investment in UK property. Irish businessman Patrick Flanagan, who knows the UK property market well, says that Irish investors are still staying away. He believe that Irish investors do not have the same access to cash as their European counterparts.
It's very brave people that have the capacity or the ability to invest.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 25 January 2009. The reporter is Brian O'Connell.
