Rich people are fleeing London

[YSL]

Wealthy Londoners are leaving the city as new taxes make it expensive to inherit and invest, and as Brexit prompts rich Europeans living in the U.K. capital to return home.

This puts the British financial hub in the same category as Lagos and Istanbul, which are also seeing net outflows of rich people, according to the Global Wealth Migration Review published this month. About 5,000 high net-worth individuals left the U.K. during 2017 and only about 1,000 arrived, the report shows.

Cities that saw large inflows of HNWIs include Auckland, Dubai, Montreal, New York, Tel Aviv and Toronto, the report showed.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...h-report-shows

[mhays]

All as predicted of course.

But really...London having a bit fewer HNWIs isn't at all like a city with relatively few that's also seeing an outflow.

[destroycreate]

I think we're all ok with London getting a lot cheaper. Let's be real.

[10023]

Given the extremely low bar for “high-net worth individual” (just $1 million in net assets), I would treat the accuracy of these numbers as highly suspect.

They don’t actually know who’s arriving and leaving, and 15.2 million in the world seems like a quite dramatic undercount.

Anyway, some European bankers and traders going to Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris is to be expected, but I don’t know what these new taxes are that they’re talking about (they seem to have made this up), or why Brexit would have an impact on London’s appeal to wealth from the developing world. The UK still has a fairly unique tax regime allowing “non-domicile” tax status, which makes it more appealing than any major country in Europe or the US for the global wealthy, at least from a tax standpoint.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by 10023

Given the extremely low bar for “high-net worth individual” (just $1 million in net assets), I would treat the accuracy of these numbers as highly suspect.

They don’t actually know who’s arriving and leaving, and 15.2 million in the world seems like a quite dramatic undercount.

Anyway, some European bankers and traders going to Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris is to be expected, but I don’t know what these new taxes are that they’re talking about (they seem to have made this up), or why Brexit would have an impact on London’s appeal to wealth from the developing world. The UK still has a fairly unique tax regime allowing “non-domicile” tax status, which makes it more appealing than any major country in Europe or the US for the global wealthy, at least from a tax standpoint.

Totally agree with you on the low bar aspect of these numbers.

Also, post in the post Brexit era, something is bound to happen to insure retention of high net worth residents. The Thatcherite mindset has given London an edge that even Labor governments are wont not to disrupt.

[isaidso]

So rich Londoners are leaving to join middle class Londoners who've been leaving for a long time. Is London heading back to the days when the population barely budged or are people still flooding in from eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa?

[jd3189]

Maybe this will lead to London being more down to earth and diverse. Can't be too much of a bad thing if the rich people leave.

[Ant131531]

So is London experiencing white flight similar to the U.S. back in the 50s and 60s?

[10023]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

So is London experiencing white flight similar to the U.S. back in the 50s and 60s?

No, not at all.

[10023]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Maybe this will lead to London being more down to earth and diverse. Can't be too much of a bad thing if the rich people leave.

This is wrong on so many levels.

[jd3189]

^^^Why? What is possibly wrong with rich people leaving and the city possibly becoming cheaper for everyone else? Unless there is something I'm not getting about real estate and culture in contemporary London.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Maybe this will lead to London being more down to earth and diverse. Can't be too much of a bad thing if the rich people leave.

More diverse? You really think the "rich" are in such large numbers that *some* leaving will markedly make it more diverse?

And your second sentence, that's highly insensitive unless you said it for purely economical reasoning thinking it will lower prices. Otherwise you are casting a bad light on a minority, which is wrong(no matter how powerful that minority is).

[jd3189]

^^^ I guess the rich are not a big group but they are influential at making certain neighborhoods untouchable by the majority of people. They are voluntarily leaving, so it's not like they didn't have a choice.


I'm just for cities being affordable for the middle and low-income classes since they work and enjoy the cities more than rich folks who may only live there for a few months in a year. Thus. my statement was purely economically. If the rich are leaving to live in the suburbs or elsewhere but they still invest in the city, then that's the best of both worlds.

[10023]

Originally Posted by jd3189

^^^Why? What is possibly wrong with rich people leaving and the city possibly becoming cheaper for everyone else? Unless there is something I'm not getting about real estate and culture in contemporary London.

Rich people leaving cities is what destroyed most American cities after WW2. It’s why most American cities are not the vibrant places they once were.

But I don’t see this being a worthwhile debate, so I will leave it at that.

[montréaliste]

There is a lot of damage created by HNWI's who invest in real estate and leave it fallow for long periods. jd3189's opinion is not as radical as some would have it. On the other hand, there are mechanisms in the UK civic governments that allow for incentives that are totally unreal when looking at the broad market valuations.

This article in the Guardian reveals a few interesting points about this;


https://www.theguardian.com/society/...e-end-up-empty

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by isaidso

So rich Londoners are leaving to join middle class Londoners who've been leaving for a long time. Is London heading back to the days when the population barely budged or are people still flooding in from eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa?

The population is still rising pretty rapidly, negative internal migration to other parts of the UK is more than counterbalanced by an excess of births over deaths and international migration.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

I think we're all ok with London getting a lot cheaper. Let's be real.

I don't know about getting cheaper but prices to buy and rent in London have stopped rising by as much as they were a couple of years ago, London has gone from seeing the fastest house price growth of any UK region to the slowest growth currently.

[Jonesy55]

House price growth in year to April 2016

London +14.5%
East of England +13.6%
Southeast England +12.3%
East Midlands +7.8%
West Midlands +7.1%
Yorkshire & Humber +6.0%
Northern Ireland +5.9%
Northwest England +5.8%
Scotland +3.3%
Wales +1.7%
Northeast England +0.1%

Compared with house price growth in the year to December 2017

Scotland +7.7%
East Midlands +6.3%
West Midlands +6.3%
Northwest England +5.9%
Wales +5.4%
East of England +5.2%
Northern Ireland +4.3%
Southeast England +4.2%
Northeast England +3.6%
Yorkshire & Humber +2.8%
London +2.5%

[Jonesy55]

Average prices are still much higher in the capital though of course.

Average price - all homes December 2017

London £484,173 ($677,840)
Southeast England £322,269 ($451,175)
East of England £290,341 ($406,475)
Southwest England £254,081 ($355,715)
UK average £226,756 ($317,460)
West Midlands £191,050 ($267,470)
East Midlands £185,694 ($259,970)
Northwest England £158,370 ($221,720)
Yorkshire & Humber £156,781 ($219,495)
Wales £154,938 ($216,155)
Scotland 148,783 ($208,295)
Northeast England £130,838 ($183,175)
Northern Ireland £130,482 ($182,675)

[MolsonExport]

How many are decamping to Jacksonville?