The good news is there are some 20,000 new homes being built in the broader Nine Elms area in Battersea.
The bad news for the average traditional London resident looking to live in this desirable area, is that most of these new properties will be luxury apartments mostly over £500k and a large number being over £1m to buy!
With some £15bn of investment pouring into the Nine Elms area, it is clear that the target market is aimed at wealthy foreigners and to some extent at the big salary city types requiring to live near the travel convenience offered by the new Crossrail link.
There is a further possible inflationary effect on the price of the new Nine Elms luxury apartments. This is the latest 40% profit being made by investors of apartments in the Battersea Power Station development, selling their interest before they have been built. This so called ‘flipping’ could catch on in Nine Elms thus pushing prices even higher!
In relation to things going higher it seems most of the super luxury apartments at Nine Elms will be in groups of high-rise towers and in this respect you hear the words “Mini Manhattan” being mentioned! Across London there are proposals for over 200 very high-rise buildings, with some already being constructed. In addition there is concern that the famous landmark of the Battersea Power Station, especially the four ‘protected’ chimneys will disappear behind the new ‘Manhattan like Sky Scrapers’…..an argument for the architects and preservationists still to have!!
All of these changing scenes, apart from the visual impact, in the Battersea area will preclude the average earning ‘would be’ London resident from buying. Alternatively they face the rental market of these luxury apartments also rising accordingly!
However the remaining good news is that there are still a number of very nice affordable rental properties available in the Battersea area. These are within the price bracket of a normally remunerated Londoner not yet having been effected by the inflationary price of the advancing march of the luxury apartments.
For more information on such available rental properties in the Battersea area please contact Penhurst Properties Limited, www.penhurst.co.uk , tel: 0207 978 0100 who for 30 years have a reputation for offering quality rental properties and would be pleased to assist.