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Comment by chadgeidel | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if you are being sarcastic. The buyers driving up prices don't live in London.

From the article: "Today, 60 percent of properties for sale in this part of London go to international buyers."

Can't we solve this problem with virtualization? Build houses in the middle of nowhere, but assign a central London address.

People are paying for the location not a "brand".

Haha this is great.

On a more serious note, maybe banks could offer some sort of investment vehicle made up of homes in a certain area. The homes would then be rented out for revenue, and foreign buyers could have an equivalent financial position without driving away actual residents.

I think they are also buying the prestige of a cool place to loan to friends and the safety of a cool place to stay if wherever they are from has trouble

I had a similar idea but with lower and lower ceilings, you could have 100s of apartments at one address with 1cm ceilings, but great sq footage.

Virtualisation probably makes more sense though.

Or... miniaturize everything. Great square footage, looks huge, but ceilings are only half height. Display it with half size furniture, half size appliances, etc. Money in the bank.

And swap them into central london when the buyer shows up at the airport...

I think his point is that if commutes were quicker then regular people could move away from the city but still work there. Billionaires could still sell real estate to each other then without hurting lower incomes.

I like living in the city. I would prefer to live in one. Denver housing isn't so crazy yet that I can't afford to live here, but it's pretty close. I make a pretty damn good salary and would struggle finding a house that doesn't require significant rennovation in the city. Yes, I could move to suburbia - I could commute slightly further, etc, etc. I would prefer not to. I would prefer that my neighbors are people and not empty apartments used as safety-deposit boxes. (this is not the case in Denver, but sounds to be the case in London and other large cities).

Edit: As an example - in my neighborhood there are $300k houses in pretty sorry shape that are purchased just for the land. They are destroyed and then a $500k new house is built on that land. This is what I'm facing. I could perhaps afford $300k (although I'm gunshy to purchase in such a volatile market), but it would require IMHO another $50k in renovation to make it "livable". I'm not talking about granite counter tops and high-end designer furniture, I'm talking about roof, insulation, water heater, bathroom fixtures, yard work, etc.

Just for comparison purposes, once a large portion of your housing is safety deposit boxes here's the sort of thing you can get for $300K: http://streeteasy.com/building/5-tudor-city-place-new_york/3...

275 sq. ft. with "a half refrigerator, 2 built-in electric burners, and a microwave oven"

Yeah, that's nuts. At least $300k gets me a ~1300 sq ft single family dwelling with maybe a detached garage and a yard.

> I like living in the city. I would prefer to live in one.

I'd bet once a decent public transportation system is inline, the termination points of the larger trains will become as much city-like as the center, but much more affordable.

And Denver has a pretty good one! (http://www.rtd-denver.com/) I could go a bit south or a bit west of town and be downtown in 20 minutes. It's on my mind.

Commuting into London is already easy, huge amounts of people do it every day.

It is expensive though.

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