During a Specialist Lending Solutions TV debate in association with Market Financial Solutions (MFS), Richard Rinder, associate partner sales manager at Oriel Finance, said: “In the UK market especially, property has remained pretty positive throughout Covid. There’s been a lot of activity.
“If you look at wider geopolitical situations across the world, clients are seeing the UK market as a safe haven and that’s really driven investment onto our shores.”
James Riley, mortgage consultant at Oriel Finance, said: “Having house prices grow as much as they have in the last few years increased a lot of the international demand, and a lot of international clients try to capture some of that increase.”
Riley named cities like Manchester, Birmingham and Milton Keynes as popular among overseas investors due to “significant” price increases and their direct airport links.
Rinder added: “Gone be the days where clients where purely London-centric.”
Referring to Savills data which said commercial property investment in January and February totalled £6.9bn, a 35 per cent rise on last year, Zahira Fayyaz, senior business development manager at MFS, said this part of the market was making a comeback too.
Attractive products
Riley said the improved availability of mortgage financing compared to five years ago has also driven international investor demand.
He added: “It was potentially very difficult in some aspects for international clients to [obtain] mortgages and there have been certain mortgage lenders which have really spearheaded that.”
He also said the differences in what was achievable in the UK compared to overseas made the market attractive. He referred to interest-only mortgages which allow international investors to make smaller repayments and therefore take a higher yield on their investment.
Watch the video [8:25] hosted by Shekina Tuahene, commercial editor at Mortgage Solutions, featuring Zahira Fayyaz, senior business development manager at MFS, Richard Rinder, associate, sales manager for Oriel Finance and James Riley, mortgage consultant at Oriel Finance.
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