Pity London’s poor property developers – because apparently it’s almost impossible to make any money building houses.
At least that’s what a report in the Evening Standard seems to say…
Get your tissues ready for a real sob story, because Battersea Power Station’s redevelopers are having an absolute nightmare. Sure, they’ve built 4,239 luxury homes safely in Zone 1. And yes, they’re charging £1 million for a one-bed flat, up to £4 million for a four-bed. But these guys just can’t manage to make a healthy profit! Not even with the world’s richest company leasing a 3,000 person office space in the middle of the whole thing. It’s heartbreaking, honestly.
That’s why they simply have NO CHOICE but to cancel 250 affordable homes they promised to provide. NO CHOICE! These deeply regrettable cuts reduces the total number of affordable properties from 636 to 386. In other words, the proportion of properties regular people can actually buy now stands at just 9% of the total.
Don’t worry though! Anyone following politics knows that our leaders are concerned with the ‘squeezed middle’ and the ‘just-about-managing’, and you can be sure that includes just-about-managing property consortiums. In short, The Powers That Be are being very understanding of the corporation’s sticky predicament. According to the Standard, ‘the proposals are expected to be rubber stamped by the council’, while the Greater London Authority ‘chose not to intervene.’ This is surely correct, as we all know a light regulatory touch is best when it comes to property developers meeting the interests of Londoners.
If there’s one thing worse than never owning a house, it sounds like owning over four thousand of them is the real problem. [Photo: Matt Brown]