Don't hurt foreign buyers,urges Berkeley

The FTSE 250 builder, which works solely in the capital and the Southeast, said demand for its property has been "resilient" since the beginning of the year, helped by demand from overseas. Foreign buyers are drawn to London property both as an investment and because of its practical uses, said finance director Nick Simpkin. "I'm not talking necessarily about [properties worth] tens of millions of pounds in Belgravia, I'm talking rather, across London, properties of £200,000 upwards," he said. Buyers might be parents buying flats for children studying at the universities, or people avoiding the need to pay for a hotel, he said. However, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that Britain's "anomalous" treatment of foreign buyers is encouraging them to pile into London property to the point it is now acting as a "reserve currency" and that the Government should stop the system favouring overseas buyers.