Foreign Buyers banned from buying homes...

domtheone

New Zealand bans foreign home buyers

Seemingly it's happening in NZ.

Overall, a good thing.  Though, perhaps just a massive tax on foreign buyers could have been a stepping stone prior to a ban.

Will it ever happen here....

Way too late of course (for London anyway) to help the average Joe.

Rasczak

No. Foreign investment is good and we should encourage it. House prices are high because too many people expect to own, rather than rent, their homes.

sebbykin

Doesn't renting just make the rich richer though ?

krish

Including buy-to-leave?

As I posted @ Staggering Statistic for London ...

Nonsense.

20,000 empty properties, collectively worth £9.4 billion, in London alone
- from the DCLG's (Dept for Communities & Local Government) figures published in April:
Dwelling stock estimates in England: 2016 - GOV.UK

There are almost 20,000 'ghost' homes sitting empty in LondonThis map shows London’s 20,000 empty homes                                                                                 Map reveals shocking number of empty homes across LondonAs I also posted @ Grenfell Tower Culpability Thread. ...

George Osborne also tried to clamp down on Kensington and Chelsea's out of control buy-to-leave phenomenon, mostly involving properties purchased by companies owned by Russian oligarchs and Arab Princes, and deliberately left empty.

Greg Hook

Agree with Krish here. The empty homes especially in London are at crazy levels.
Complete new developments often only have a handful of people actually living there with the rest still empty.

Foreign investment is good, but buy to leave is not.

Pacifico

your own link tells you that the number is falling rapidly, and that only 50% are suitable for rent immediately.

You did read your own link didnt you?

domtheone

Can hardly blame them when prices just keep going up and up.

Foreign investment is good, to an extent.  And we'd be snookered without some of it, given how bankrupt we are.    With an enormous issue as housing though.  Exceptions should be made.

Enki

I feel sorry for brass plaque engravers in those British overseas territories, what would they do if buy to leave empty was stopped?

IronGiant

"Come again? "

SteakAndCake

Which was driven by the Tories in the 80s who bribed the previous Labour voting working class with public assets (council houses).

Don't blame the people for embracing something that was pushed by their government as base policy for a decade and was basically free money.  It was bad policy that's come home to bite us all on the ass.