The UK’s residential property is attracting foreign investment due to its growth in demand and being a safe and secure asset. Paired with the low interest rates and the underperforming sterling, foreign investors are looking to join the market, experts suggest. 

Between December 2019 and June 2020, Prime Central London housing has seen an investment worth $374 million. This amounts to 20% of the whole - of all property transactions, over $17.5 million in London.

Reports claim that Boris Johnson’s win at the 2019 UK General Election resulted in a relative stability that had been missed since the 2016 Brexit referendum. Despite a Brexit agreement not been reached yet, foreign traders are still interested in the UK’s market as the British government will still have control of the UK legislative agenda until 2024. 

Furthermore, as the world continues its battle against the coronavirus, property activity has still been on the rise. At the start of July, British Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the nil-rate threshold for SDLT on residential property would temporarily be increased, impacting all purchases completing between July 8, 2020, and April 1, 2021. 

In an online discussion on the professional networking platform LinkedIn, Sunak said, “But we really need to be eyes wide open because, sadly, in the world in which we’re living there are hostile state actors that come to invest and try to extract technology out of the UK, or indeed jobs.”

He continued, “We’re tightening up all our rules and laws around that to give us greater powers to intervene.”