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Thread: New Apartments set shocking new Record

  1. #1
    grouchy13's Avatar TW Mercenary Veteranii
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    Default New Apartments set shocking new Record

    Now I'm no Socialist/Communist by any means but I read this article and was gob smacked, Between £30 and £50 Million for an apartment outrageous at a time when the world is in one of it's biggest financial crisis,

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/0...83B0PA20120412



    London "Shard" homes create record price gap



    By Tom Bill
    LONDON | Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:31pm BST

    (Reuters) - The sale of ten apartments in London's Shard skyscraper this summer will break two records: they will be Europe's highest homes and will also create the world's most unequal neighbourhood for house prices, new research has shown.
    The apartments are spread over 13 floors in the 1,017 feet-tall Renzo Piano-designed glass spire that has become the most dramatic addition to the capital's rapidly changing skyline.
    The flats will likely sell for between 30 and 50 million pounds ($57 and $80 million) each and could attract buyers from Russia, the Middle East and Hong Kong.
    This puts them in the same price bracket as One Hyde Park in the upmarket Knightsbridge area, Europe's priciest homes to date. The one-billion pound development with Candy and Candy-designed interiors is located near the Harrods department store.
    At around 520 pounds per square foot, the average price in the SE1 postcode surrounding the 95-storey Shard is less than a tenth of the 5,000 to 6,000 pounds per square foot the new apartments are expected to fetch.
    The district around the Shard on the south bank of the river Thames is not one of the capital's smartest, although it has come up in the world since the time when it served as a model for the slums in the novels of Charles Dickens.
    "You don't get this pinnacle of value in relation to the surrounding district in any other city in the developed world," said Yolande Barnes, director of residential research at property consultancy Savills, which carried out the research for Reuters. "It's the equivalent of building the Shard in Harlem."
    The Shard has divided opinion. Some see it as an excitingly modern London landmark, while the United Nations cultural body UNESCO said the Tower of London's world heritage status was at risk because the skyscraper compromised its "visual integrity" on the skyline.
    There have also been complaints that from certain angles it dwarfs one of London's most famous landmarks, St Paul's cathedral.
    Columnist Giles Coren, writing in The Times, described the Shard as an "engorged rectilinear monument to fat-cattism" that has been "dumped directly behind St Paul's".
    The price gulf between the Shard and its environs is symptomatic of a two-tier London housing market that is fuelled at the top by wealthy overseas buyers seeking to benefit from the weakness of sterling and shield their money from global financial volatility.
    Prices for the best central London properties have risen 44 percent in the last three years, more than twice the increase across the capital as a whole, property consultant Knight Frank said.
    A growing number of foreign billionaires and a shrinking middle class could hurt the British economy by curbing social mobility, economists believe, producing an uneven distribution of wealth more typical of countries such as Nigeria or Brazil.
    A study by the government's Department for Work and Pensions shows central London is Britain's most unequal region. It found that inner London had 30 percent of those in the poorest fifth of the population, 27 percent in the richest and just 12 percent in the middle bracket.
    A spokesman for the Shard, which is being developed by London-based entrepreneur Irvine Sellar and funded by the state of Qatar, said it would act as "a magnet and catalyst for regeneration" and one local estate agent said its towering presence had already boosted interest in nearby homes.
    "The Shard is a fantasy land of its own in a district with some pretty grotty areas," Sean Mcmahon of Field & Sons told Reuters. "It has definitely increased demand and brought in interest from overseas."
    The flow of overseas money will benefit London by speeding up the regeneration of some areas, said Savills' Barnes, describing the Shard - which will also contain offices, a hotel, a spa, shops, restaurants and public viewing gallery - as "an international piece of real estate in a hitherto local market".
    But developments only benefit their surrounding neighbourhood if they are not gated off or isolated and the regeneration of whole neighbourhoods can take years, she said. "It's one thing to achieve value at a great height but quite another at street level."
    ($1 = 0.6288 British pounds)
    An amazing story but I don't know it just seems like after all the indignities following the recent Banking Crisis London is becoming a Mecca for the Mega Rich from around the world to safeguard their own fortunes while the average British family is working longer, for less to bail out banks etc etc, Troubling times.........
    Under the Patronage of the Venerable Jom Patron of the one true Shogun wealthmonger, Antipodean son IZob, Terrifying Sultan of the Blitz totalwar_legend & Warden of the Iron Throne Dux








  2. #2
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    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    Well yes, part of the British business model for years. Now its time to reap at even greater scale among those closer to home. Greetings from Greece, or Russia, or Ivory Coast, or Kongo, or etc....all will end well.
    Quote Originally Posted by snuggans View Post
    we can safely say that a % of those 130 were Houthi/Iranian militants that needed to be stopped unfortunately

  3. #3

    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    I am terribly upset, this monstrosity is going to ruin the elegant layout of London's ... well ..... I'm sorry, I thought I could get all the way through that but I can't.

  4. #4

    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    The economy is bad! No one is allowed to spend money!

    I'm failing to see the issue. Are we all suppose to wallow in the mud or something until someone says the economy is good again?
    "When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims."

    My shameful truth.

  5. #5

    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    The economy is bad! No one is allowed to spend money!

    I'm failing to see the issue. Are we all suppose to wallow in the mud or something until someone says the economy is good again?
    This is Britain, their brains cannot deal with anything other than mediocrity and disappointment. Anything else is shattering to their self-image.

  6. #6
    grouchy13's Avatar TW Mercenary Veteranii
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    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    Quote Originally Posted by Phier View Post
    The economy is bad! No one is allowed to spend money!

    I'm failing to see the issue. Are we all suppose to wallow in the mud or something until someone says the economy is good again?
    No we are not, but living in Britain myself I can see the growing disparity between the have and have not's, just like this article alludes to.

    I understand the importance of foreign investment and the central role London plays in the English and global economy but at a time when many are struggling for work, many pensions are being reduced in value and people are having to work longer and struggle to provide ends meat outside of London it just seems like that many of the mega rich within London are living in a different Universe and the sale of these apartments does little to change that world view, not to mention the recent mega rich friendly budget and bout of state bailed out banks dishing out enormous bonuses to executives.

    It just seems like their rubbing our faces in it that's all.
    Last edited by grouchy13; April 13, 2012 at 12:24 PM.
    Under the Patronage of the Venerable Jom Patron of the one true Shogun wealthmonger, Antipodean son IZob, Terrifying Sultan of the Blitz totalwar_legend & Warden of the Iron Throne Dux








  7. #7

    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    I will never have the money to live there.

    It does not bother me.

    Why does it bother you?
    "When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims."

    My shameful truth.

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    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    Quote Originally Posted by grouchy13 View Post
    No we are not, but living in Britain myself I can see the growing disparity between the have and have not's, just like this article alludes to.

    I understand the importance of foreign investment and the central role London plays in the English and global economy but at a time when many are struggling for work or to provide ends meat outside of London it just seems like that many of the mega rich within London are living in a different Universe and the sale of these apartments does little to change that world view, not to mention the recent mega rich friendly budget and bout of state bailed out banks dishing out enormous bonuses to executives.

    It just seems like their rubbing our faces in it that's all.
    Phiers/limbaugh's/snobistic/manipulated old jealousy argument. I'd rather argue its about preservation or deconstruction of democratic, liberal, and enlightened society.

    Thats all.
    Quote Originally Posted by snuggans View Post
    we can safely say that a % of those 130 were Houthi/Iranian militants that needed to be stopped unfortunately

  9. #9

    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    Quote Originally Posted by Thorn777 View Post
    Phiers/limbaugh's/snobistic/manipulated old jealousy argument. I'd rather argue its about preservation or deconstruction of democratic, liberal, and enlightened society.

    Thats all.
    You can argue it's about wombats. It won't make that argument valid.
    "When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims."

    My shameful truth.

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    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    Quote Originally Posted by Phier View Post
    You can argue it's about wombats. It won't make that argument valid.
    Yes your right. We are all free to buy democracy, to buy freedom, and to buy education. What a fool I was for saying that. Damn us many fools.
    Quote Originally Posted by snuggans View Post
    we can safely say that a % of those 130 were Houthi/Iranian militants that needed to be stopped unfortunately

  11. #11
    grouchy13's Avatar TW Mercenary Veteranii
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    Default Re: New Apartments set shocking new Record

    Quote Originally Posted by Phier View Post
    I will never have the money to live there.

    It does not bother me.

    Why does it bother you?
    What bothers me, is not the construction of the thing nor the people who will fill it's richly furnished halls but this is just another landmark on the road to growing divide in Britain and to a certain extent the growing inequalities within this society.

    What bothers me is that Millions of families are facing the squeeze, my own included while the party continues in London, after we bailed out banks, saw our pension values reduced and the government change the employment laws meaning the vast majority of us have to work past 65. I know everyone has to line up and take a bite of the sandwich but it just seems like it's all so blatant, these displays of grand wealth and privilege it's getting beyond a joke.

    Something stinks in Britain and it's not real hard to put your finger on, whether it be this growing divide between the have and have not's highlighted by examples such as these or the fact we're governed by a political elite from Oxbridge that have little or no life experience outside of their own privileged upbringing and now dominate our political theatre and then they wonder why voting figures are so low, they are all the same!, or the fact that some of the most senior police officers in the country have colluded with News organisations over the hacking of thousands of Mobile phones including murdered school Girls and War Vets and yet seem to be above reproach, you tell me brother would that not bother you?
    Last edited by grouchy13; April 13, 2012 at 01:25 PM.
    Under the Patronage of the Venerable Jom Patron of the one true Shogun wealthmonger, Antipodean son IZob, Terrifying Sultan of the Blitz totalwar_legend & Warden of the Iron Throne Dux








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