Young millionaires in London today are shifting away from the traditional postcodes favored by their parents and grandparents in favor of developing hotspots in the capital’s east and north.
Rather than purchasing properties in expensive Knightsbridge or Mayfair, the ultra-wealthy of today are searching out tomorrow’s up-and-coming neighborhoods, such as Hackney. Keira Knightley bought a treehouse-inspired apartment in Shoreditch, while Ed Sheeran is rumored to possess two $1.74 million properties in the region.
Statistics
Isla MacFarlane/ Pinterest | “Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away
According to estimates of total net worth issued by the Office of National Statistics, the United Kingdom has the largest wealth related to land, compared to all G7 nations.
Land accounts for £5 trillion of the UK’s total net wealth at a market value of £9.8 trillion, constituting around 51% of the country’s overall wealth. Compared to France (42%), Canada (39%), Japan (35%), and Germany (26%), whose unemployment rate is 26%.
According to the ONS, the United Kingdom also owns houses worth £1.8tn, other structures such as office towers at £1.7tn, and machinery and equipment totaling £823 billion. The United Kingdom has financial assets at £31.8tn, which are more than offset by its financial liabilities totaling £31.9 trillion.
Hidden benefits of the UK real estate market
Marianna Hunt/ Telegraph | Owning a home is a keystone of wealth…both financial affluence and emotional security
As in every other country with a free and stable economy, the British real estate market has seen both periods of stagnation and rapid expansion. However, the United Kingdom is among the top five investment locations in the world for a reason. Long-term, a house or apartment in the United Kingdom can protect you against inflation and earn a substantial profit if you decide to sell it.
There is an alternative for investors unwilling to wait years for the optimal time to sell their homes. Our specialists will assist you in locating commercial or residential properties that you may buy to rent and begin generating a steady income immediately.
However, other economists warn that the high price of land in the United Kingdom is a failure of decades of economic policy. This is because planning legislation artificially restricts the availability of land, driving up housing costs and preventing workers from relocating to better-paying jobs.
New research
Getty Images/ Countryfile | The major fortunes in America have been made via land
Half of England is held by fewer than 1% of the population, according to new statistics provided by the Guardian in an effort to pierce the opacity surrounding land ownership.
The findings, termed “astonishingly unequal,” indicate that only 25,000 landowners, often members of the aristocracy and businesses, control over half of the nation. If the land were split fairly among England’s inhabitants, each individual would get little more than half an acre, about the size of Parliament Square in the heart of London. The principal owners are the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, numerous big grouse moor properties, and the industrialist James Dyson.
Although land has been concentrated in the hands of a small number of owners for centuries, exact information on property ownership has been notoriously difficult to get. But the growth of digital maps and data, along with the push of activists, made it feasible to compile the devastating facts.
