Property developers and brokers plan to capitalise on an appetite among less wealthy Greeks to move money into the relative safety of London real estate as political and economic uncertainty grips the country.
Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL.N), the world’s second-largest property consultancy, plans to start marketing London homes in Greece in coming weeks at prices from 250,000 pounds, below the price bracket of the wealthy, many of whom have already moved money into London property.
In partnership with local companies, it plans to sell properties valued at up to five million pounds, Jones Lang LaSalle residential director Tim Wright told Reuters. For homes above five million the buyer typically travels to view the property for themselves, Wright said.
“We want to find a route to market as quickly as possible,” he said. “We will gauge if people’s appetite is as high as we have been led to believe anecdotally. We will dip our toe in the water with areas like Kensington and Chelsea and move to less exclusive parts of London if demand is deep enough.”
London developers said Greece was on their radar as a result of the instability affecting the country due to its financial bailout.
“Greece might well be somewhere we’d look,” said Tony Pidgley, chairman of residential developer Berkeley Group (BKGH.L), which specialises in riverside developments in central London.
“The euro zone crisis means the London market is not just dominated by Far Eastern buyers,” said Jeff Adams, chief executive of United House, which sells London flats costing between 450,000 and 1.5 million pounds. “We’d look to work with local Greek companies to gain access to the market.”
The number of wealthy Greeks looking for London properties has soared since the summer’s economic turmoil, real estate brokers and developers said.
They are part of a growing number of overseas buyers of expensive central London homes, attracted by the stability of the market and relative weakness of Sterling.
About 55 percent of central London homes bought for more than two million pounds were taken by foreign buyers in the year to end-September, up from 49 percent a year earlier, said property consultancy Knight Frank.
Reuters
