Legal Experts Says Buyers From China And Middle East Undeterred By Brexit

The UK has seen a surge of interest from Chinese investors looking to take advantage of the low value of sterling post-Brexit vote, by buying British property.

China’s biggest international property website, Juwai, said inquiries about UK property from Chinese buyers have been 40 per cent higher than average, in the four weeks since the historic vote for Britain to leave the EU.

The jump comes after months of Chinese interest in UK property dwindling, largely due to the slowdown of the Chinese economy in early 2016.

Although London accounts for over half of the properties bought by Chinese buyers, one reason they invest in the UK is for the educational institutions, for which parents purchase apartments for their children to live in.

This is reflected by the level of interest from the Chinese market in university cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Cambridge and Oxford, and helps make the UK the most popular place in Europe for Chinese investors to buy property.

Chinese buyers are also showing keen interest in flats in northern cities, which have high rental yields, and are helping to boost the Government’s Northern Powerhouse plans.

Beijing Engineering Construction Group is investing £800m in Manchester’s Airport City development and last week Sheffield announced a 60-year, billion-pound construction deal with Sichuan Guodong Construction Group – the largest Chinese investment outside London.

The increasing interest in UK property comes at the same time as sales to Chinese buyers of US properties during the 12 months through to March fell for the first time since 2011, to $27.3 billion from $28.6 billion a year earlier, according to an annual research report released by the National Association of Realtors.