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Comment by soVeryTired | Hacker News Reader

I've heard similar reports about the London rental market, but then again when it comes to the housing market, the UK press report on every scrap of noisy data they can get their hands on.

London has also seen a huge glut of (supposedly) high-end property come online. Builders are struggling to sell, so they're now starting to offer discounts on the new housing stock [1]. If what the article says is true, I would be surprised if the same scenario didn't play out in London.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/f6692d4e-8327-11e6-8897-2359a58ac...

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Looks like rents are down a little but not too dramatic: https://homelet.co.uk/homelet-rental-index/london?range=24

This isn't too surprising, since I think London rents were seriously testing what the market would bear - plenty of chatter about London becoming completely unaffordable.

Except at the lower end of the market rents are still unaffordable and social housing has dropped off precipitously since the 80's. And housing starts for households on less than the median wage in London is at its lowest since WWII.

So I guess this is a case of convergence, higher priced housing is dropping and lower priced housing is increasing. This effect will probably become more pronounced if interest rates start to rise.

London, I believe, has a big problem with the Brexit because many banks plan on or are already leaving the country. No banksters, no tenants for outrageously expensive properties.

Hmm, I haven't heard of any banks leaving yet.

Brexit hasn't happened yet. If it does there's no indication that they won't arrange some passporting arrangement to protect the bankers.

There's also no indication that they will, which is the whole problem for a business planning its future.

You need to erase from your memory all the other times all the banks threatened to leave the one country that waves through financial crime.

Here's some stories.[1][2] Of course, these are about future plans, not actually leaving, so take them however you want. AFAIK,the real concern is not that banks will actually "leave" the UK, but that they will downsize as they move operations to other areas of the EU, which makes complete sense. Some of the laws that allowed free access to EU citizens from the UK will end with brexit, and while UK officials will try to get something similar in place, there are EU officials that feel that a deal that's essentially the same is not in their favor, and that the UK should pay a penalty for leaving. This is the uncertain climate that is causing some banks to hedge their bets and move some operations to the EU.

1: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-banks-idUKKCN12M...

2: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/22/leading-ban...

I was responding to the statement that some banks were planning to leave and some had already left - I have heard of banks planning to leave, but have definitely not heard of anyone doing so. Was curious if the poster might come back with any evidence for that claim but as they haven't, I think it was probably just hyperbole.

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