The certified financial planner at London-based Westminster Wealth Management, said that clients will always want bricks and mortar as an investment to “reach out and touch”, a key reason why house prices in areas such as London and the South East have swelled in recent years.
He said: “The public have long regarded property as a safe place to hold your money and it is easy to understand this when you see prices rising and rising.
“However, I do not believe the public should equate property to a bank account.”
Mr Gardiner also stated that there had “definitely been an influx of foreign and buy-to-let investment” into the capital in recent years.
The adviser’s comments came as pollsters YouGov surveyed consumers across the UK, which found that 49 per cent of Londoners believe the biggest cause of rising house prices is “rich people from overseas buying top-end property”.
The second most widely held view about the cause of house price inflation, at 40 per cent, is that buy-to-let investors are piling into the capital.
The majority of those surveyed by YouGov, 60 per cent, supported curbs to prevent foreign investors from buying up too much prime central property.
Two thirds of Londoners surveyed said that they would like to see London councils build more social housing, while 51 per cent want planning laws to be relaxed.
In response, Mr Gardiner said: “There have already been measures to inhibit this activity by extending capital gains tax to foreign buyers, but one suspects that they will find ways around this. Where this is a will, there is a way.”
