Nigerians Buy Up Luxury Property In London
Luxury property agents in London reveal that Nigerians are the biggest buyers in the London luxury property market among other Africans, having spent for their new glamorous homes in British capital nearly $400 million in the last three years.
Nigerians are London’s fourth biggest overseas shoppers by spend, averaging $640 in each shop. Some of them spend an average of $7,500 per shop in places like Harrods.
In the last three years rich Africans from Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Gabon, Cameroon and Senegal spent nearly $1 billion on glamorous residential property in London. And according to data from luxury real estate agents Beauchamp Estates, nearly half of all these expensive homes have been bought by Nigerians, usually spending for their new luxury homes in London from $22(N4.8b) to $37 million (N8.1b).
Besides that, Nigerians are London’s fourth biggest overseas shoppers by spend, averaging $640 in each shop. Some of them spend an average of $7,500 per shop in places like Harrods.
Nigerians buy more luxury property in London than any other Africans.
Source: Beachamp estates
Source: Beachamp estates
“Virtually all the transactions are for end use, not rental investment, which indicates that the African buyer market in London has significant room for growth,” confirms Gary Hersham, director at Beauchamp Estates.
“African buyers or luxury tenants in London are currently where the Russians and Ukrainians were five years ago. They have the resources and desire to purchase or rental luxury homes in Prime Central London,” he added. “It is going to be the African century.”
The Africans who are coming into London now are Africans who themselves have worked for their money, says Bimpe Nkontchou
“West African clients are very much driven by the need to educate their children,” says British-Nigerian luxury real estate agent Bimpe Nkontchou, who has lived in London for 20 years. “Education usually means putting the children on an international stage, and that’s one reason why this is feeding into the demand for property in London
According to the Nigerian Embassy in London, Nigerians spend more than $446 million a year on fees, tutoring and accommodation at British schools and university.
It is expected that about 30,000 Nigerians students would take their studies in universities across the UK by the end of the 2015. These numbers account for about seven per cent of total university population in the United Kingdom. In 2012 there were over 17,500 Nigerian students studying in British universities.
Nigeria’s student population in the UK is the third highest from non-European countries after India and China.
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