Tory-supporting agent says Cameron pushing housing market into recession

A high end international London estate agent says a Brexit will lead to increased sales of homes in prime central London as foreign investors pile in to take advantage of newly-cheapened properties.

David Adams, managing director of John Taylor UK, says he is a Conservative party supporter but is shocked at how David Cameron and George Osborne have painted a picture of Brexit being bad for London's high end housing market. 

“There's been a lot of shrill scaremongering and as a property professional I want to set the record straight” Adams says.

"If the pound falls by 20 per cent after a Brexit, then property prices also become 20 per cent cheaper to buyers in France, Italy and everywhere else, and demand will subsequently increase, creating an upward pressure on sales volumes” he insists.

He says in 2011, when there was a dip in the value of the Pound against the Euro, there was "a flood of EU money into the London property market [and] London became the fifth biggest French city by population.”

He claims there would be an added incentive for European buyers to invest in Britain because, shaken by the prospect of the EU breaking up, they would look to the UK property market as a safe haven.

Despite his overt party political stance, Adams says the Tories have put London's market on the verge of a recession - with the rest of the country possibly following suit.

"The impact of the world's highest transaction taxes at 15 per cent to purchase a second home in London, 28 per cent capital gains if you sell, and 40 per cent tax if you die, has been a sharp fall in both property prices and transaction levels at the top end" he claims.  

"This fall in price and sales volumes during 2015 is now, understandably in 2016, cascading downward to the price brackets below, which were not directly hit with all these taxes. Sales volumes are collapsing in the £600,000 to £1.5m bracket and prices in some areas have started to fall" insists Adams.   

He says a Remain vote may worsen matters "and lead to a wider retail market downturn, because of a combination of too much tax, and a rising pound, and negative sentiment." 

He concludes with another blast against Cameron: "Regarding the flight of capital seized upon by the Chancellor as a consequence of a potential Brexit, we estimate 60 per cent of the non doms in London are leaving because of the unstable continual changes in taxation in the UK, under this government.”