For many years, the news has been awash with facts and figures about the shortage of housing in the UK, a shortage that inevitably pushes prices ever higher.

The focus on this problem becomes heightened at each General Election campaign and the 2017 campaign was no different with each party seeking to outbid the other with unrealistic house building targets that inevitably won’t be met as has been the case for decades under Governments of all political persuasions.

In 2015-16, the total housing stock in England increased by approximately 190,000 residential dwellings. Although this was more than 10% higher than the previous year it remains some way off the estimated 240-250,000 new homes needed.

Punishing land banking house builders, addressing the effective monopoly enjoyed by the big house builders, giving local authorities more powers, freeing up part of the green belt, applying punitive taxes – for example an additional 3% stamp duty on second homes – and many other solutions have been put forward over the years with varying degrees of success. None has proved particularly effective.

The Government’s Housing White Paper, Fixing our broken housing market, published earlier this year, extends to over 100 pages of proposals about how to deal with the problem of supply and consequent cost. However, it makes no mention whatsoever of one approach that never appears to receive any serious attention – restricting property purchases to UK residents. Irrespective of nationality, it would make sense if the purchaser of a UK property resided in the UK.

Put simply, it doesn’t matter how many houses are built in the UK, there will never be enough to meet demand because demand is not simply coming from the 65m currently resident in the UK but from across, Europe, Asia and America.

Years of London property purchases by the super-rich from Russia, China, America and various other countries are well documented but it’s not just London that overseas investors are setting their sights on. Liverpool, Manchester and other parts of the UK are proving equally attractive.

What’s more, it is no longer the super-rich alone who are snapping up properties across the country. Middle income earners from across the world, especially China, are finding UK property an increasingly attractive proposition. This has been exacerbated the weakness of sterling following Brexit.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this phenomenon is the fact so many of these properties are bought solely as investments rather than as homes or even as rental properties. In other words, they sit empty, appreciating in value whilst huge numbers of British residents become priced out of the property market, are forced to rent, to live with friends and family or to join the ranks of the 4,000+ rough sleepers on our streets.

Would some restrictions requiring purchasers to be present, be so radical? The Government could establish a cross party group to examine this possibility. This would go some way to taking any political heat out of the proposal.

Furthermore, there are plenty of international examples to demonstrate this can be done effectively.

Property can only be purchased by residents in Singapore and Iceland. Others impose less rigorous but arguably sensible restrictions. Non-residents in Poland, well those from outside the European Union anyway, must obtain permission from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to purchase a home. This permission will only be granted if they have either lived in the country for five years or more or can demonstrate some other form of significant connection to the country e.g. marriage to a Polish citizen. Similarly, Denmark and Hungary impose some limits on who can buy property within their borders and Australia has imposed some restrictions as a direct result of an explosion in overseas property acquisitions, primarily from China.

Critics will argue that Government shouldn’t interfere in the market, that imposing some sensible restrictions in this area threatens the important message that Britain is open for business or that it could be damaging for our successful property market. Scratch the surface and these arguments fall away. Take the first and third arguments, Governments often interfere where markets are not working properly and few would argue our housing market is working well. Britain is open for business, move here, contribute and there will be nothing to stop you buying a home.

What do you think? Should eligibility restrictions be imposed on home buyers or not? Let us know by completing the AAT Housing Supply Survey 2017. It shouldn’t take more than two minutes.

The writer Samuel Johnson famously coined the phrase “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.”

When a bank grows tired of London, especially in the wake of Brexit, it simply moves to Frankfurt.

While very little is currently known about the terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union, the financial services firms that call the capital home have already been formulating their own exit strategies.

Brussels-based think tank Bruegel has predicted that Britain’s financial services sector could lose up to 30,000 jobs as businesses move their operations to the continent. US banking giant JPMorgan plans to move hundreds of jobs to Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg, while HSBC will send 1,000 staff to Paris.

The exodus is being driven by the desire to preserve passporting rights, which allow companies to provide financial services in all EU member states. Without them, firms must be granted permission to operate in each country.

“It’s likely that UK firms with EU bank accounts will have to apply for new licences in orders to continue operating,” explains Ali Alani, CEO at Imperial FX, a money transfer company based in London. “This could be lengthy and costly, impacting the business’s’ bottom line, and increasing their risk to investors. Firms based in the EU aren’t subject to these changes.”

Fears for fintech

Big banks aren’t the only ones concerned about the effects of losing access to European markets. London’s fintech companies are also negotiating the business impacts of Brexit while searching for a way forward. Industry body Innovate Finance found that venture capital investment in the UK’s fintech startups fell from $1.2 billion in 2015 to $783 million last year.

Analysts attributed the 34 percent drop to the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. The fall in funding signals an abrupt change in fortunes for a city that was named the world’s leading fintech hub by professional services firm EY in February 2016. Now some of the capital’s most successful fintech firms are following their big-bank peers to Europe.

Taavet Hinrikus, CEO of money transfer giant TransferWise, has said that the company will shift its European headquarters from London to the continent by the time Brexit negotiations are finalised in 2019. Electronic payment processing firm PPRO, another of the capital’s fintech giants, has already begun setting up an office in Luxembourg, according to a Guardian interview with CEO Simon Black.

Meanwhile, European cities are looking to capitalise on the Brexit jitters shaking London’s startup scene. In the days after the referendum, a van bearing a billboard with the slogan “Dear startups: Keep calm and move to Berlin” was spotted driving around the capital. The advertisement appeared to have been placed by a political party in Germany, which is proving to be a top destination for UK talent.

Fight or flight

In a presentation at London Fintech Week 2016, Berlin’s Senator for Economics, Technology and Research, Cornelia Yzer, claimed that 100 London startups were planning to move to the German capital. No matter where in Europe the UK’s innovative young businesses go, top talent is sure to follow. If London loses its status as a world-renowned fintech hub, companies that choose to stay in the city could struggle to attract and retain staff.

“The biggest problem that we see now is the access to people. About half of our staff comes from outside the UK with the majority of those people coming from Europe,” says Christoph Rieche, CEO of Iwoca, a London-based provider of flexible credit to small businesses across the EU. “If we’re not able to hire all of these people as we are grow, then it reduces our ability to get the best person for the job.”

Fearful firms should rest assured: London’s once-promising fintech ecosystem isn’t going to disappear overnight. While the shrinking availability of talent and capital is a concern for the finance industry, the true impact of Brexit won’t be realised until exit negotiations are through. On the plus side, analysts who predicted an economic crash after the referendum have (thus far) been proved wrong.

Despite the clamour at the polls, data from PwC shows that the UK’s economy still managed to grow at a rate of 2 percent last year. Whether they’re faced with an impossibly rainy day or a commute on a cramped tube, Londoners are renowned for their ability to endure less-than-ideal circumstances. It’s this spirit of perseverance that will help sustain the capital’s fintech ecosystem in the face of years of Brexit uncertainty.