Foreign investors own about a quarter of the commercial property market in London.
Overseas buyers claimed 24 percent of the city's commercial real estate including warehouses, malls, offices and hotels by the end of 2013. The figure has doubled in just a decade and has reached its highest for the first time, Bloomberg reported.
London has been seeing a bevy of investors coming in since the great recession. The Financial Times explains that low base rates, political instability in neighboring investing havens like Russia and the fall in the value of sterling have all made London's commercial property market a great investment site.
So where is all the money coming from?
According to the publication, China leads the pack of foreign investors stashing money on London investments. Other countries like the United States, the Middle East, India and even Taiwan have been regularly pouring in huge chunks of money into the commercial real estate of London.
The arrival of foreign players in the property market has on one hand given the economy of the city a booster, but on the other has pushed up the cost of living in the city. According to a recent Savills report, London was named the most expensive city in the world as real estate costs grew 10.6 percent on a year-over-year basis. As the pound strengthened and rents rose, cost of living in London shot up too.
"...the availability of low-cost office space in and around Silicon roundabout, coupled with affordable residential accommodation, helped put the capital on the technology map. But gentrification has priced out new startups, and the vitality of central London locations are at risk as they become too expensive for the types of occupiers that made them attractive in the first place," the report stated.
So technically, the same factors that attracted foreign investors have made it difficult for the London natives. Housing supply has been incredibly tight and the lack of land and buildings to accommodate people is now high.
The government is trying to take steps to make life easier for Londoners. According to Biz News.com, the city administration has decided to convert several commercial property into residential developments to meet the housing demand.
"If all the long-term office space currently available was converted it could potentially deliver 250 000 new homes and save just under £140 million over ten years in unnecessary red tape costs," Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, was quoted by the website.
"Converting offices into homes is the biggest thing going on in central London right now," Peter Wetherell, a real estate agent in London who has sold more than 100 office properties that would be converted into residential developments, told the website.
"There is now a huge residential development pipeline of over 400 new homes, which will be built in Mayfair alone over the next 5 - 15 years," Wetherell added.