London Real Estate: Foreign Governments Making A Beeline With China, Qatar and Kuwait Ahead In Race

London' real estate market is attracting more global capital than New York. In fact, it is four times more than what New York is getting. Many foreign governments are vying to put more money into London's real estate market. In the past year, sovereign wealth funds, shelled out $8.9 billion for properties in London. As a result, London attracted 44 percent of real estate investments from foreign governments through the route of sovereign funds. This has been revealed in a report by Real Capital Analytics, a real estate research firm.

London-Centric Nations

Among the foreign countries, which are lured by London's prime properties include Qatar, which is at the top, with Kuwait, China and Norway close behind it. Already, the Qatari sovereign wealth fund owns London's most famous landmarks. They include the tallest building in Europe--The Shard, Harrods department store and the Olympic village. In the last three years, the Middle East Islamic country has spent $6.3 billion on London real estate, reported CNN.

China is also not far behind. It has been pouring money into London properties. The most notable was the $1.2 billion investments for the Chiswick Park office development where the offices of multinational firms, including Discovery, Starbucks and Paramount are located. Kuwait spent $2.7 billion on the 13-acre More London. This development on the south bank of the river Thames houses the bulb-shaped headquarters of London Mayor. Recently, Norway bought a stake in the 400-year-old Pollen Estate in the posh Mayfair area and paid $544 million to the Church of England for this 57 percent piece of the estate.

imon Mallinson who is the managing director at Real Capital, London's observed that "trophy buildings" command a bigger turnover. According to him, "London is Europe's largest and most liquid real estate investment market of foreign investors. Manhattan is only at second position with $2.3 billion worth of real estate investments from foreign governments and Los Angeles at the third place with $1.5 billion.

Tower Sales Boom

According to a Financial Times report, London's commercial property market has suddenly got into a boom phase from the relatively gloomy scene in the past 18 months. The London's skyline is going to become its biggest beneficiary. A flurry of big-ticket transactions in the past couple of weeks had seen many existing towers changing hands for record prices and many new skyscrapers getting ready to light up the capital's skyline.

Among the notable deals include Brazilian billionaire Joseph Safra paying £726 million for Square Mile's Gherkin, which eclipsed the unbelievable £600 million for which the building was sold in 2006. Canary Wharf's HSBC Tower came under an offer for £1.1 billion and broke the previous record of £1.09 billion.

Meanwhile, at the neighbouring City site, the long-stalled Pinnacle skyscraper is set to see activity in 2015. This follows the initiative of veteran developer Sir Stuart Lipton who made a deal with current owners Arab Investments and Sedco to inject more cash into the scheme.