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| James Moss, managing director of Curzon Investment Property. (Photo: China Daily) |
BEIJING, August 9 (Xinhuanet) -- James Moss leant over our table almost conspiratorially and said unsuspecting Chinese people were being "ripped off" in the London property market.
The chartered surveyor is managing director of Curzon Investment Property, which acts for those wanting to invest in central London residences.
The company, which is based just a few meters from the world famous Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, now has a number of clients from China looking to buy.
"People are being ripped off because they are paying for properties that aren't actually in the best locations and are not getting the rental income they were told they were going to get by estate agents," he said.
We had escaped the light summer rain to discuss the recent phenomenon of Chinese buyers becoming big players in the London housing market.
Over coffee at the Emporio Armani Caffe, a restaurant somewhat incongruously located in a clothes store, there are by chance some young Chinese shoppers perusing the designer wear. They had an air of affluence that made one speculate whether they would be buying more than a dress on their travels.
"We have always done well in places like Hong Kong with the expat market wanting to buy property. What we have now is a much higher proportion of ethnic Chinese," he said.
He insisted, however, there were dangers for unsuspecting Chinese and other Asian buyers rushing into the London market.
He said some developers were flying over to the Far East to try to effectively dump properties they could not sell to UK buyers.
He said he knew of Chinese investors who bought flats in Lewisham, a relatively deprived area of southeast London, thinking they were in a prime location.
"Places like Lewisham certainly aren't prime. They are residential secondary and tertiary locations. There are mixed communities there. They are certainly not affluent. These sort of areas don't attract the corporate and professional tenants that the glossy brochures said the schemes were aimed at," he said.
Moss said a number of developers were being economical with the truth when it came to their marketing literature.
"I wouldn't say properties were being mis-sold but there is quite a lot of misrepresentation. There is certainly inflation of the numbers and embellishment as to how good these locations are when they are not very good at all," he said.
Moss said China's new rich have become attracted to the London property market because of the 30 percent fall in the value of sterling against the Chinese yuan over the past two years combined with falling property prices in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
"London property became very expensive in 2007 and then suddenly became 50 percent cheaper in 2008 when you take into account both the exchange rate effect and the fall in prices. It is crazy but that is right," he said.
