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Rising house prices is not just an issue in London, it is a global phenomenon. Many people have moved to larger cities and construction has not kept up.
Before the brexit vote net migration to London was on average 100k people per year for 10 years (roughly). Unless you start building tower blocks with lots of flats (which people do not want to live in) it will create pressure.
hesa-
Not sure where you're living, but there are plenty of tower blocks going up in London, it's just they are called luxury apartments..
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The whole ‘immigrants cause rising house prices’ argument is just reheated UKIP bollocks, I am afraid.
UK house prices are driven by the massive influx of capital into the asset class, leveraged with cheap credit. Add into that a bit of top end demand for money laundering and safety deposit purposes and you have an affordability crisis. There are countries all over the world with high levels of immigration that don’t have our house price crisis (ie Germany), just as there are areas of the U.K. with low immigration but high house prices (ie Edinburgh).
cornelius_blackfoot
NickCJ
Honestly mate, I'm just happy to know you guys recognise it. Many who contribute much more to the issue don't, and that's what I find more egregious. At the worst case you've got your Russian and Chinese investors buying up ghost penthouses as an investment, but we're all complicit.
You could even take my family - whom I love deeply - for an example. We're east London since 1776, old school London. My extended family all bought their council houses under Right To Buy in the 80s, and either stayed, or sold up at a handsome profit and fucked off to Kent / Essex. Now. I grew up here, all my pals are here. I've been renting here for 20 years. Finally got to put my name on a place in 2017 and my family were all absolutely apoplectic that I had to save for five years to get a 5% deposit for a literal bottom of the market place in Leyton. Apoplectic.
But they do not recognise - like literally not for a second - that they're part of the problem. (Just like I am!) It's very easy for born and bred Londoners like me to slag off the newbie, bank of mum and dad FTBers all we want. But the reality is you're not buying in a vacuum. You couldn't buy that property at an inflated price if people like my parents weren't selling them at an inflated price. We're all part of the same chain. If you want to put down roots here, and pay taxes here, and contribute to the city, even with help from mum and dad, then you deserve it man. London's for everyone, and we're all treading on someone's toes.