Hundreds of flats in Canary Wharf development sell in hours - half to foreign investors

[Pickman's model]

Not last time no, although I have been there. I am aware it has a different housing problem to Vancouver, as it has seen a proliferation of high-rise apartments whereas Vancouver is still mostly houses. When I was in Toronto in 2010 the locals were telling me all about the housing bubble and it's imminent collapse.

yeh. when you say high-rise we're not talking the 20, 30 floor blocks you might see in eg. london, but 60, 70, 80 storeys high. and the toronto population's rapidly growing as people from outside the city - and many of them from other countries - move in. a house, a small house, in toronto now goes for about £500,000. and the only accommodation being built is condos.

 

[bi0boy]

yeh. when you say high-rise we're not talking the 20, 30 floor blocks you might see in eg. london, but 60, 70, 80 storeys high. and the toronto population's rapidly growing as people from outside the city - and many of them from other countries - move in. a house, a small house, in toronto now goes for about £500,000. and the only accommodation being built is condos.

Well yes, the city centre around the waterfront is growing rapidly and people are moving further out to e.g. Mississauga and commuting in, which is causing traffic problems. I'm not sure what their urban planning policies are and how they are attempting to manage the growth.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well yes, the city centre around the waterfront is growing rapidly and people are moving further out to e.g. Mississauga and commuting in, which is causing traffic problems. I'm not sure what their urban planning policies are and how they are attempting to manage the growth.

from what i could see, they're not. there seems to be a huge drive to destroy what remains of 'historical' downtown toronto, buildings dating from perhaps the start of the last century, and to replace them with these vast tower blocks. and not just downtown, but up by winston churchill park, further west on bloor, right beside the distillery... toronto in five years time will be very different from toronto now as there seems nowhere in the city for the people who actually make it function.

 

[mauvais]

What is interesting is that ownership by those without a British passport is only around 3%.

That's bollocks for a start.

Stop rich overseas investors from buying up UK homes, report urges

85% of prime London property purchases in 2012 were made with overseas money. Estate agent Savills found that last year £7bn of international money was spent on "high-end" London homes, with just 20% of that spent by UK citizens

...

over the past two years only 27% of new homes in central London went to UK buyers, while more than half were sold to residents of Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and Russia.

 

[bi0boy]

That's bollocks for a start.

No it's not. I said 3% of ownership not 3% of new build purchases.

Stop rich overseas investors from buying up UK homes, report urges

Why not "stop rich investors from buying up UK homes"?

 

[mauvais]

I should qualify that: clearly the two things aren't logically mutually exclusive, but it's grossly misrepresentative to try and dilute the problem by taking statistics from the entire, static housing stock.

Besides, I doubt anyone even knows the number of non-resident property owners.

 

[mauvais]

No it's not. I said 3% of ownership not 3% of new build purchases.

Why not "stop rich investors from buying up UK homes"?

Who gives a fuck?

Christ, this is really fucking simple stuff. The problem isn't that Johnny Particular Foreigner is buying a particular house. It's that the UK government has permitted UK property to become a globally traded commodity at the expense of the population.

 

[bi0boy]

Who gives a fuck?

Christ, this is really fucking simple stuff. The problem isn't that Johnny Particular Foreigner is buying a particular house. It's that the UK government has permitted UK property to become a globally traded commodity at the expense of the population.

So restrict investment purchases, and not foreign purchases as that ridiculous Guardian article you posted advocates. London is the world's most global city ffs.

 

[mauvais]

So restrict investment purchases, and not foreign purchases as that ridiculous Guardian article you posted advocates. London is the world's most global city ffs.

Fine, do that if you prefer. But in your efforts to untangle the issue from 'foreigners', who noone was confused about in the first place, all you've appeared to have been doing is denying the magnitude of that problem, however anyone chooses to describe it. Unsurprisingly this will very quickly make a lot of people very angry.

Noone attributes this particular problem to immigrants buying up houses to live in. Everyone knows it's about the rich, and property as an investment. There isn't even a foreigner in any meaningful sense, no off-the-boat caricature. It might as well be as abstract a concept as banks, which is often what it actually is.

But there is a difference between overseas investors and domestic ones, whether you like it or not, because at least domestic landlordism - social ill though it is - notionally puts some profit back into the UK economy. For most people it's even worse that the benefit flows to beyond our borders.

 

[Pickman's model]

So restrict investment purchases, and not foreign purchases as that ridiculous Guardian article you posted advocates. London is the world's most global city ffs.

tbh restricting purchases is too little, too late. build not for rich twats but for ordinary people.

 

[mauvais]

Basically the argument is - unintentionally, I hope - an offshoot of the remarkably successful 'corporations are people too, maaaan' trope, in which the generic patterns of global capitalism get given a human identity and we're not allowed to criticise it any more because it's racist. Huh.

 

[Pickman's model]

Basically the argument is - unintentionally, I hope - an offshoot of the remarkably successful 'corporations are people too, maaaan' trope, in which the generic patterns of global capitalism get given a human identity and we're not allowed to criticise it any more because it's racist. Huh.

easy solved: for 'foreigners' in this context read 'rich cunts'.

 

[bi0boy]

Basically the argument is - unintentionally, I hope - an offshoot of the remarkably successful 'corporations are people too, maaaan' trope, in which the generic patterns of global capitalism get given a human identity and we're not allowed to criticise it any more because it's racist. Huh.

My point is that there are very real foreign people here who are not rich cunts and are actually getting blamed for house prices. Lazily labelling arguments as being against foreign buyers and not against rich investors does actually adversely affect people who aren't landlords.

 

[Pickman's model]

My point is that there are very real foreign people here who are not rich cunts and are actually getting blamed for house prices. Lazily labelling arguments as being against foreign buyers and not against rich investors does actually adversely affect people who aren't landlords.

tell you what, when you see such arguments why not label them lazy instead of acting like the worst sort of liberal and claiming that pointing out the simple facts is racist.

 

[bi0boy]

tell you what, when you see such arguments why not label them lazy instead of acting like the worst sort of liberal and claiming that pointing out the simple facts is racist.

I think stronger words than lazy are needed when the arguments result in Guardian articles blaming foreigners and proposing restrictions on them. I have not used the word racist on this thread.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think stronger words than lazy are needed when the arguments result in Guardian articles blaming foreigners and proposing restrictions on them. I have not used the word racist on this thread.

perhaps you've not used the word racist yet you have very much given the impression that that's what you've intended to convey. should i use your form of words or have you got the message?

 

[Pickman's model]

I think stronger words than lazy are needed when the arguments result in Guardian articles blaming foreigners and proposing restrictions on them. I have not used the word racist on this thread.

what do you consider the key difference between your 'xenophobic' and my 'racist'?

 

[bi0boy]

Xenophobia is a general prejudice against foreigners, whereas racism is belief in the superiority of a particular race over others or discrimination based upon that.

What do you think advocates of "a system that would mean that no existing home could be sold to a buyer from outside the EU" (from that Guardian article) are?

 

[Pickman's model]

Xenophobia is a general prejudice against foreigners, whereas racism is belief in the superiority of a particular race over others or discrimination based upon that.

What do you think advocates of "a system that would mean that no existing home could be sold to a buyer from outside the EU" (from that Guardian article) are?

alive generally

 

[mauvais]

Xenophobia is a general prejudice against foreigners, whereas racism is belief in the superiority of a particular race over others or discrimination based upon that.

What do you think advocates of "a system that would mean that no existing home could be sold to a buyer from outside the EU" (from that Guardian article) are?

Are opponents of free trade agreements racist?

 

[bi0boy]

Are opponents of free trade agreements racist?

Only the racist ones.

 

[mauvais]

Only the racist ones.

How curious. So what's different here?

 

[bi0boy]

How curious. So what's different here?

Difference between what? I already explained what I believe racism to consist of, and that I have not used the term in this thread.

 

[mauvais]

Difference between what? I already explained what I believe racism to consist of, and that I have not used the term in this thread.

*sigh*

Xenophobic then.

Explain to me why restriction of overseas trade is not inherently xenophobic, but restriction of overseas trade specifically in housing stock is.

To save us both the trouble, I think what you're going to do is point to the Graun article as being against overseas individuals buying a house to reside in, when I believe it is in fact concerned with purchases by people that don't live in said property nor intend to, or at the very least is a blunt attempt to achieve the latter.

 

[smokedout]

So restrict investment purchases, and not foreign purchases as that ridiculous Guardian article you posted advocates. London is the world's most global city ffs.

Surely the point is that this would not have been possible without foreign investment, there aren't enough rich people in the UK to sustain the London housing bubble at the level it's at. So an analysis of the housing crisis requires at least understanding and explaining what is happening which can't be done if you ignore foreign investment. Housing strategy in London is being developed with the interests of global capital's profits in mind, not the interests of people who live and work here - many of whom by the way, are from overseas.

 

[stethoscope]

Super-rich may quit London homes under new anti-corruption rules

Super-rich international investors in London property are likely to sell off some of their mansions and penthouses after the introduction of anti-corruption rules cracking down on offshore secrecy, a leading estate agent has said.

Privacy-hungry oligarchs, media owners and tech billionaires from around the world could also abandon plans to buy homes in Britain because they would no longer be able to keep their identity secret by purchasing them through offshore companies, Trevor Abrahamson told the Guardian.

The owner of Glentree Estates, which has sold property to billionaires from Russia, Nigeria and China, said the obligation for any foreign company buying UK property to join a public register of beneficial ownership would drive wealth creators away. It would also prevent corrupt individuals using the London property market to hide ill-gotten gains in offshore companies located in places such as the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands. He said about half of his customers buy through offshore companies.

'Wealth creators'. And I totally trust the motives of those international investors with masses of capital for buying in London when they're all going to quickly sell up if they're names/companies are on a register of interests somewhere.

 

[BigMoaner]

People are losing homes or losing the chance of having a London home because, partly, of overseas investment inflating the bubble. Id rather stop that and be called racist etc. Fuck them. I don't want people who don't live here grabbing homes that my kids could one day live in.

 

[NoXion]

How in the ever-living fuck are rentier scum "wealth creators"?

 

[NoXion]

It's my inalienable right to buy property abroad!

 

[Artaxerxes]

Noone attributes this particular problem to immigrants buying up houses to live in. Everyone knows it's about the rich, and property as an investment. There isn't even a foreigner in any meaningful sense, no off-the-boat caricature. It might as well be as abstract a concept as banks, which is often what it actually is.

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and vast hordes of UKIP, Labour and Tory voters sadly do believe it's down to immigrants rather than a generation of piss taking by those in charge.

And the people in charge are happy to make them believe that is the case.