If there is one thing I have learnt from working in the property market for over 40 years it’s that any market prediction worth its salt takes into account the relationship between London and the regions. Sometimes the capital is a useful bellwether for the rest of the country but not always.
In the early 2000s, the central London market was booming thanks to an influx of investment from abroad. Such was the popularity of London with foreign buyers that the property market bounced back quickly after the 2008 financial crash – this was as much because of exchange rates as interest rates, something simply not seen in the provinces. For various reasons, successive governments then sought to squeeze the Prime Central London piggybank and overshot. So determined were they to give the appearance of being ‘hard’ on the overseas buyers that, by 2014, the market plateaued.
As mentioned, for regions outside London the post 2008 bounce never happened, but the growth of the London market has still played its part. The
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