Overseas owners fuel housing crisis

MORE than 5,500 properties in Devon and Cornwall are registered to people based overseas, new statistics reveal today.

The number has more than doubled since 2010, and the figures shed more light on the factors behind a growing affordable housing crisis in the region.

Foreign buyers are blamed in part for driving price increases, as wealthy individuals compete for second homes and investment properties. Recent house price data has shown big rises over the last 12 months in Devon and Cornwall.

The average asking price has gone up by almost a quarter in Brixham on the south Devon coast. That was the biggest rise in Britain in the year to March, with Torquay and Paignton not far behind.

The increases in a relatively lowwage area push home ownership further out of reach of local people. One local estate agent said the demand in Brixham had been fuelled largely by second home buyers and people relocating to the coast to work from home.

The price rises have also seen landlords selling up or switching to short-term holiday lets, limiting the availability of properties and pushing up rents.

Researchers have listed the title deeds registered to individuals with an overseas address. They found the number in Devon has grown from 1,483 in January 2010 to 3,896 in August 2021 and in Cornwall from 638 to 1,733 over the same period.

The district with the highest number in Devon is the South Hams with 713, more than double the 305 in 2010. South Hams also has the highest rate of second home ownership

in the Westcountry, and the local council has declared a housing crisis.

As in Devon, in Cornwall foreign buyers are blamed in part for driving price increases, as wealthy individuals attracted by the beautiful Cornish coastline outbid locals for second homes and investment properties.

Recent house price data has shown big rises over the last 12 months in Cornwall. Figures from the property website Rightmove show average asking prices in St Austell went up by a fifth (20.3%) to £291,196 in the year leading up to March.

Foreign ownership of property in England and Wales has soared since 2010, reaching almost 250,000, or nearly one per cent of all registered titles. The figure is more than double the 95,000 registered to overseas companies.

The research was carried out by the Centre For Public Data, which used previously unpublished information from the Land Registry.

Official data has been published since 2010 on property registered to foreign companies, but not individuals. The Centre is calling for better data to be released on UK property, to help understand issues around affordability.

It said: “Three-quarters of the titles are registered to individuals with addresses in just 20 countries, with the main groups being the Crown dependencies and British Overseas Territories (Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands), South-East Asia and the Middle East, and English-speaking countries.

“The rise in properties registered to individuals in the Middle East and South-East Asia have been particularly fast in recent years, which may reflect second home or investment purchases by owners in these countries.

The growth in titles registered in Northern cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Salford and Leeds has also been notable, particularly since 2016, which is likely to reflect investment purchases of flats in these cities.

“Previous studies of the effect of such buyers on affordability for domestic purchasers have been limited, based on small samples or anecdotal evidence.

“The purpose of our work is to enable more systematic and better informed work on affordability, which we hope will support betterevidenced policy responses.”

The list shows people based in the Russian Federation owned five properties in Torbay, four in North Devon, and two in the South Hams.

In Cornwall, there were 22 properties registered to individuals with addresses in the Russian Federation, out of a total of 1,733 registered abroad, almost three times the 638 in 2010.