AlbertBeale
Established Member
However, high-value developments seem to have a nasty habit of being treated like collectible baseball cards by investors who are happy to keep them empty, rather than take the tax liability of rental profits.
Indeed - I don't know of evidence that this sort of high-end development does much for actual housing need in London. It seems that patterns of ownership (including by absentee foreign investors), the lack of security of private rental in this country, together with the existence of second (third/etc) homes, and semi-legal holiday lets, etc, add up to as much of a problem as any lack of housing. If there were the political will to tackle these problems, then it would be a more efficient route out of much of the "housing crisis" than more building from scratch in the already over-developed and over-built-on inner city.