American investment in UK property at a 10-year high

American investors, reluctant to buy offices and hotels in their own country, are ploughing more money into Britain’s commercial property market than they have done in years.

Between January and March, funds and investors from the US bought £3 billion of commercial property in the UK — 50 per cent more than the £1.9 billion they spent in the same three-month period last year.

The data, from BNP Paribas, shows that Americans are putting more of their money in UK real estate than they have for most of the past decade. In the past ten years, US funds have, on average, spent about £2.6 billion each quarter.

Most of their money has gone on hotels and offices in London, which remains one of the world’s