Britons buy slice of Big Apple

[T_i_B]

Source: Observer

British visitors to America have grown used to the strange sensation of seeing bargains at every turn. They return from New York or Florida laden with jeans, designer shoes, CDs and iPods. Now they are buying homes, too.

The US property market, undergoing troubled times because of the credit crisis, has suddenly become great value for Britons dismayed by sky-high house prices at home. The market has been driven by an exchange rate that has risen above two dollars to the pound for the first time since the early 1980s.

British buyers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are looking for holiday homes at prices they could not have hoped to pay a few years ago. Others are selling their British houses and moving to the US. Still others are starting to buy shops and businesses. A recent survey showed that one in five US estate agents has sold a home to a foreign buyer in the past year, and 12 per cent were British, representing a third of all European buyers. In Manhattan the situation is even more foreign-dominated, with overseas buyers making up about a third of purchases in new condominiums (blocks of flats with the freehold jointly owned by the tenants).

The sheer speed of the collapse of the dollar is key. The pound has risen 34 per cent against the dollar compared with five years ago, including 10 per cent in the past 12 months. The euro has done even better, jumping 47 per cent since 2002.

Read more: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2212868,00.html

[Benhurst]

1. Maybe they'll buy it all back and give us a decent government,

not that they are doing all that well as of late; but at least they have universal single-payer national health.

[nealmhughes]

2. Only fair, I lived like a Republican for a short while when the pound was down to

$1.08 back in the early 80s and was living on the Clydeside but paid in dollars. . .

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. God I love being paid in £££££££!!!! n/t

[badgervan]

4. Maybe....

the Brits would consider taking King George off our hands in belated payment for that Revolutionary War thing. They could give him a castle way out in the country somewhere with lots of ass kissing servants. King George would probably be happy as a clam if he got to wear a crown all day.
England: want him? You can have him.