In London, 27% Of Homes Are Secondary
The Guardian tells us there are many second homes in the UK. "Nearly 230,000 properties in England are now second or holiday homes. The largest concentration of second homes is in the financial heart of London, where they account for 27% of the total housing stock."
"Overall, second homes accounted for more than 5% of the total housing stock in 18 local authorities."
"Relatively high house prices in the main second home hotspots mean that a significant amount of potential demand is being diverted overseas where property can be picked up for much less money."
Who is going to be in these houses in ten years? "Nearly a third of people who owned a second home were aged between 55 and 64."
5 Comments:
goleta:
If you are intersted in Demographics, and interesting read is "The Financial Day of Reckoning" by Bonner.
It is mostly a Gold Bug book, but it has some interesting views about how the US baby boom is roughly 10 years behind Japans. And as you have mentioned, as we age, our interests, spending habits and investing methods change a great deal.
The book shows some very spooky charts that show the center of the baby boom in Japan coinciding with there stock market peak in the early nineties, and when using the same method to identify the center of our baby boom population, how it coincides very closely to our market peaks in the DOW and NASDAQ in 2000. I guess the theory is that if the center of the boomers are at the magic age, then from that point on, few will be in the market for age related reasons.
DrBubb,
Thanks for commenting and keep us posted on the City.
Looking through the RE websites in Europe you can see where all that pomme money is headed overseas. Seems the Brits are still enamored with Spain and now Croatia as least judging from the number of English based sites. Look for property in Austria and everything is still in German
I was in southern Utah a few weeks ago and met a few older couples who were buying 2nd homes in the area (St. George, Mesquite). It's about 2-3 hours outside Vegas, hi desert area, near Zion National Park. Kind of pretty in a hot dusty sort of way.
Homes are still relatively cheap here compared to the boom areas, but tracts upon tracts are going up. I would guess that many of them are being bought by oldsters as second homes.
The three couples I met came from LA, OC and Phoenix. All three of them were using HELOC money to buy the 2nd home. All three couples planned on retiring in the 2nd home and moving out of LA, OC and Phoenix. I asked them what they planned to do with their main homes? They said they would either sell them or let their children live in them.
The point here is that a lot of 2nd homes being purchased today are going to wind up being first homes soon. This means that there will be a lot of homes coming on the market in the years ahead, waves upon waves of them. After all, when a 2nd home becomes a retirement home, then the first home serves no purpose.
isecondthat,
Excellent first hand account. I have heard rumors about Utah building. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
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