国际英语新闻：Crisis affects luxury London homes

BEIJING, Nov. 17 -- Luxury home prices in London are expected to fall by 14 percent next year as bankers and hedge-fund managers trade home shopping for job hunting.

    Job cuts and potential layoffs at financial institutions would likely sap demand so much this year and next that the total two-year decline in luxury values may be 30 percent, real-estate adviser Savills Plc said in a report over the weekend.

A row of estate agents signs are seen on a street in south London in this April 3, 2008 file photograph. Luxury home prices in London are expected to fall by 14 percent next year as bankers and hedge-fund managers trade home shopping for job hunting.

In April, Savills had forecast a 25-percent decline for the period, Bloomberg News reported.

    "We're not expecting any bonus money to go into the market this year and next," Savills Research Director Lucian Cook said in London. "Any recovery is not going to be fueled by the central financial hub."

    London may lose as many as 62,000 financial jobs by the end of 2009, the Center for Economics and Business Research said last month, while bonuses this year may drop by 60 percent to 3.6 billion pounds (5.37 billion U.S. dollars). Global financial institutions are grappling with more than 700 billion dollars in mortgage-related losses and writedowns and a slowdown in economies worldwide.

    Prices for prime apartments and houses costing about 1 million pounds or more were forecast to depreciate by about 20 percent this year and would probably fall by more than the United Kingdom market, Savills said.

    That reflects the slump in demand from the 300,000 people employed in financial services as companies eliminate jobs and reduce bonuses.

    Banking and financial companies in London account for about a fifth of the city's economy and employ 7 percent of the workforce.

    London's finance industry contributed more than 4 percent to the UK's 1.3-trillion-pound economy, research firm Oxford Economics estimated.

    Luxury prices would probably start to recover in 2010, when they would gain 6 percent, Savills said. The owner of a home worth 1 million pounds at the end of 2007 would probably have to wait until 2013 before values returned to what they were six years earlier, the firm said.

    "Super-prime" homes worth more than 10 million pounds have also been affected by the slide in values, particularly amid the turmoil in financial markets that led to the collapse in September of Lehman Brothers Holdings in the largest bankruptcy in United States history.

    "Overseas buyers will be looking to exploit the bottom of the market and the weak pound, kick-starting the recovery," said Yolande Barnes, Savills' co-head of residential research.

    The pound had depreciated by 25 percent against the US dollar this year, making London property attractive for international investors notably from the Middle East and South East Asia, she said.

    Prime London home prices would probably rise by 15 percent in 2011 and 10 percent in 2012, Barnes said.

    The broader UK market would take longer to recover as the recession continued.

    In contrast to London, New York's high-end market hasn't seen prices fall on a year-on-year basis.