London Olympics triggers record rent for home
An aerial view shows the London 2012 Olympic Games Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Centre, Water Polo and the Orbit, at the Olympic Park in London December 20, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/LOCOG/Handout
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - A seven-bedroom house in London's upmarket Mayfair district will likely set a British record rent of 433,000 pounds per month as landlords cash in on demand for space during this summer's Olympic Games.
The house has a floor space equivalent to three and a half tennis courts spread over three floors and includes a swimming pool, cinema and seven bathrooms. It can be also rented for 100,000 pounds a week.
In addition to a six-bedroom flat near the Harrods store in Knightsbridge that is for rent at the same weekly sum, it is the most expensive home on the findaproperty.com website, which displays houses being marketed by major estate agents.
"The figure is unprecedented for an open-market rental," said Jemma Scott, head of residential corporate services at real estate agency Knight Frank. "It is purely due to the Olympics which, as a rule of thumb, will see monthly rents become weekly rents before reverting to normal after the Games."
The house would likely attract interest from overseas individuals in the Far East, Middle East and Russia, she said.
London homeowners are increasing rents by up to six times to meet demand from an estimated 11 million sports fans, media and corporate clients who will come to the city for the world's biggest sporting event this summer.
The total Olympics rental market for flats, apartments or houses could be worth 314 million pounds, based on one in three homeowners considering letting out some or all of their properties, according to a survey by findaproperty.com last year.
The luxury end of London's housing market has been buoyed by demand from overseas investors looking to shield their wealth from the euro zone crisis and Arab spring uprisings. Prices for the best homes rose 39.5 percent between March 2009 and last November, Knight Frank said.
Renting homes was popular among certain wealthy individuals as it provided a greater level of privacy than a hotel, Scott said.
($1 = 0.6382 British pounds)
(Editing by David Cowell)
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As a person working in London Property the ‘golden goose’ of Olympic Lets is lunacy. In large, there will be only 1 winner- the estate agents involved (I own and run an estate agent myself and am therefore not simply attacking the industry).
Careful research has shown that, in fact, the amount of fans visiting for the Olympics seeking accommodation is more like 1m than 11m. Whilst properties across London are being listed at vast prices- there is little or no evidence to support what, if any, are being let and at what price.
All agents plugging this service are also conveniently glossing over the post Olympics period. If there really are 11m renting flats over the Olympics, when these all become empty within days of each other who exactly is going to move in to them? How long will they sit empty? What will this doing to asking prices?
Articles like this must be balanced with intelligent research and debate which questions the barmy figures being thrown around and tries to quantify the outrageous claims used by agents to bolster their stock and receive press inches with little or no supporting evidence.
The Olympic Let market could be one of the worst things to hit the London property market- far worse than the recession of 2007/8 where prices dipped @ 10% but promptly made a swift recovery with many properties now listed higher than at the peak of the market.
Journalists- take note! It is your responsibility and duty to palce your comment, backed by research, on such stories rather than fan the flames of the ‘gold rush’ mentality that will come back and hit us all hard.
When this does happen, and the big agents putting all this nonsense in the press turn around and say ‘how could we know this would happen? we never saw this coming!’ you need to be there to make them accountable for the outrageous and unfounded claims that will ultimately lead to huge financial loss for many delusioned London Landlords whilst they sit on the coffers of record income.
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