While we are looking at international markets like China and the US, the biggest pop in housing has been London and that too select areas. Middle-eastern money is flowing into London along with Indian and chinese money. If the Mumbai market is so desirable for investors as claimed by the brokers how come these investors are ploughing money in London. "They think money is “safer invested in an apartment in Sloane Street than in a bank account in Damascus.” Now I have lived on this Sloane street during my stay in London and I have lost track of the number of Ferraris and Maserati's on that road. That is pure inter-generational wealth which is driving markets. Next time a broker tells you that Dubai folks are investing in Mumbai, point him to this article.
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Is this the biggest bubble in the world?
I hesitate to use the overplayed word “bubble.” But in the case of London property, it’s hard to avoid.
What’s happening here is absolutely ridiculous.
Housing data
Markets are being impacted by housing-sales data along with fears over northern European economies and a stronger Japanese yen.
Look in the window of any real-estate agent here and you think people have gone crazy — and then you realize that the prices are in British pounds, and that to convert to dollars you have to add another 60%.
Half a million pounds ($800,000) for a one-bedroom condo with a small garden on the southern, unfashionable side of the river Thames? Really? And $2 million for a modest two-bedroom condo in Chelsea?
As John McEnroe used to say at Wimbledon, you cannot be serious.
