Saturday, Feb 03, 2007
Who said immigration wasn't an issue?
Daily Mail: One in five of UK home buyers are Polish
One in every five home buyers in Britain is now a Polish immigrant, estate agents have revealed. The new arrivals from eastern Europe are forcing up house prices as they work tirelessly to get on the property ladder. The migrants are selling their properties back home to raise a deposit - making it more likely they will remain in the UK for good - or taking out 100 per cent mortgages.
Posted by uncle chris @ 09:08 AM (188 views) Add Comment
19 Comments
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1. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
Interesting in the context of the comments - as one guy points out, most immigrants can't actually afford houses (let alone natives) so I think this may be a disingenuous article.
Sarahjane's comment strikes chords I think many of us would recognise - in quite a few ways Britain is looking like a bleak place to build a life. I am willing to believe that people come here for short-term economic gain at the cost of a likely miserable existence and that natives leave what they see as an increasingly miserable existence to find a better life elsewhere.
I also wonder if immigrants (who can) are buying houses to cash in on a Polish bubble and have bought into the idea that they can make capital gains in the UK before returning home to retire on the capital in a few years? Wouldn't it be great for natives to have such a hope of retirement. Then again, if HPC arrives, they may lose their life savings. Scary thought.
2. sovietuk said...
Again if interest rates were set at a more sensible rate (i.e at least 3% higher than currently) then there would be less incentive to buy property by speculators and prices would probably be lower. Perhaps ordinary people could then afford more than a shoebox and at the same time would have more of an incentive to put a greater fraction down as a deposit. Sterling needs to tumble a little.
3. paul said...
Hang on.
"A survey by the estate agent Connells, one of the largest agencies in the UK, found one-fifth of its customers were Polish in some areas."
"Karen Mocko, a manager at the Partick Williams Agency in Reading, said: "Poles form almost a fifth of all our clients, and it's growing all the time.""
That's a BIG leap of faith and a lot of journalistic license to conclude "One in five of UK home buyers are Polish".
This is headline attention-grabbing dodgy statistics journalism at best. Oh it's the Daily Mail - no wonder.
4. denzil said...
Paul, you beat me to it. This article stretches the boundaries of common sense and is little more than Daily Mail tripe.
I would guess that if I wandered into 60 Estate Agents shop and asked them if 1 in 5 home buyers were Polish I would get laughed out of the shop.
5. uncle chris said...
Just out of interest - 4 of my work colleagues have sold their houses (Merseyside) and moved on in the past year, and 2 of the 4 sold to polish families. Now I'm not a Daily Mail reader, but this article does reflect what I see in the Birkenhead area - infact I would say it underestimates it.
6. Jonathan said...
Paul, Denzil - spot on. Dreadful piece of substandard journalism from the Mail - there are plenty of good stories out there - this one isn't one of them. As I remember there's a corner of Hammersmith where there's a row of Polish shops - has been for years and years - now it would hardly be any more of a surprise f there were lots of Polish buyers in that area any more than Kurds in Stoke Newington, Cypriots in Green Lanes and Bangladeshis in Brick Lane.
Pah - go find another job
7. Sam said...
look at it like this, if/when the crash happens hopefully they will end up defaulting on properties too. Rather than end up in negative equity. they may just skip town and head home.
8. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
To put in an upside-down view:
We bus them in, pay them a pitance, put them in the worst jobs and sell them ticking time-bomb properties.
If I was Polish, I'd be asking if this is a conspiracy to discriminate against new EU member states! :)
9. C'mon Correction said...
This is probably true in a few places around the uk. But as a whole - "1 in 5 British home buyers are Polish" - is absolute nonense.
Sad thing is most people will see the head-line, and take it as fact.
10. Surfgatinho said...
I don't beleive a word of it! 1% I might just be able to beleive, but 20%, utter bull! Along with the Russians buying up 50%, city boys buying up 25%, BTLs buting up 40% ......
It doesn't add up and much as I am a beleiver in working hard towards a goal - I can't see the majority of Poles being in jobs that would pay well enough to get a mortgage whilst FTBs in the UK are priced out!
11. denzil said...
dohousescrashinthewoods said:
>>We bus them in, pay them a pitance, put them in the worst jobs
Ah yes but things cannot be all bad because 1 in 5 homebuyers in Britain is Polish. The Daily Mail said it M'lud.
12. harold said...
"Sterling needs to tumble a little." sovietuk
Amen to that - problem solved at a stroke.
13. enuii said...
Denzil, depends where you live as most poles don't work in affluent areas.
Ask the same question in Crewe or similar arm-pit towns and I'm sure the answer would be 1 in 5 or greater.
14. magnifico said...
Enuii, polish workers do work in affluent areas where the money is better. Accomodation is not too much of a problem if you share a room with two other people.
Sometimes I wonder if the issue of affordability depends on our getting used to high liquidity and not being able to compromise on things such as size and location of property.
15. Nohpc said...
Damn those immigrants and their tireless working to earn deposits stopping lazy chavs from getting on the rung. I have said it before and I will say it again. Polish immigrants and all EU immigrants have 100% the right to everything in the UK that we have. We need them a lot more than they need us and we should be doing eveything we can to get more of them to come here. Now if only we could set up a chav/polish exchange scheme we would be sorted.
Also, polish chicks are hot. Enough said
16. Hardcheese said...
Well........... Where I live, it is the Poles who are doing the jobs that nobody wants, and undercutting local cleaning contracts to get a foothold into companys. The thing is that they are teaming up there available financial resource to secure large houses to rent and to buy. There may be half a dozen working to pay the mortage.
And I am also lead to believe that this is down to. a) Cheaper than renting. b) Speculating that the value will keep rising with the view to cashing in later when they decide to pack up and go home. c) If the big HPC happens they just walk away anyway and default, as it was still cheaper to buy than to rent in the first place.
Welcome to Blairs Briton!!
17. Reading Man said...
Reading has a very high Polish population - it might even be the most Polish town in Britain. They even publish a Polish newspaper there. That's why it's disingenuous.
So shut up, Daily Mail - you are a very bad commercial for right-wing thinking in this country.
18. Albertini Albertino said...
Dammit. I've spent all these hours reading NoHPC's nonsense, and I've suddenly found I have to agree with him.
Polish Chicks ARE hot.
Mind you, everything else the boy spouts is pure unbridled toss.
19. Chilli said...
Yeap.... polish chicks are hot!!!!!