London Olympics triggers record rent for British home
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London Olympics triggers record rent for British home

www.reuters.com   | 15.02.2012.

LONDON (Reuters) - A seven-bedroom house in London's upmarket Mayfair district will likely set a British record rent of 433,000 pounds per month as landlords cash in on demand for space during this summer's Olympic Games.
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The house has a floor space equivalent to three and a half tennis courts spread over three floors and includes a swimming pool, cinema and seven bathrooms. It can be also rented for 100,000 pounds a week.

In addition to a six-bedroom flat near the Harrods store in Knightsbridge that is for rent at the same weekly sum, it is the most expensive home on the findaproperty.com website, which displays houses being marketed by major estate agents.

"The figure is unprecedented for an open-market rental," said Jemma Scott, head of residential corporate services at real estate agency Knight Frank. " It is purely due to the Olympics which, as a rule of thumb, will see monthly rents become weekly rents before reverting to normal after the Games."

The house would likely attract interest from overseas individuals in the Far East, Middle East and Russia, she said.

London homeowners are increasing rents by up to six times to meet demand from an estimated 11 million sports fans, media and corporate clients who will come to the city for the world's biggest sporting event this summer.

The total Olympics rental market for flats, apartments or houses could be worth 314 million pounds, based on one in three homeowners considering letting out some or all of their properties, according to a survey by findaproperty.com last year.

The luxury end of London's housing market has been buoyed by demand from overseas investors looking to shield their wealth from the euro zone crisis and Arab spring uprisings. Prices for the best homes rose 39.5 percent between March 2009 and last November, Knight Frank said.

Renting homes was popular among certain wealthy individuals as it provided a greater level of privacy than a hotel, Scott said.

(Editing by David Cowell)



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