https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-47417655Ordinary people are being priced out of living in Manchester city centre by foreign investors buying properties, the BBC has been told.
In one new Manchester apartment block, nearly two-thirds of flats have been snapped up by international buyers.
Academics and developers say this trend is forcing up house prices and rents.
Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese welcomed investment in the city but acknowledged there was not enough housing for low-income families.
Using Land Registry documents, BBC Inside Out North West identified the owners of all 77 apartments in the One Smithfield Square development in Manchester's fashionable Northern Quarter.
The investigation found:
◾48 are owned by foreign buyers based in countries including Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
◾24 are owned by companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, which have no or relatively low rates of tax
◾20 are owned by British property companies or buy-to-let landlords
◾9 appear to be owned by the people who live in them
Many of these companies are registered in tax havens, with only a small minority of the flats owner-occupied.
The results were "a really good example" of what is happening across Manchester, said Johnathan Silver from the University of Sheffield, who also wrote a recent report on the issue for the Greater Manchester Housing Action campaign group.
"What should be homes for Mancunians [are being] turned into assets and security boxes for offshore wealth," said Dr Silver.
'Flipped on'
Manchester is currently experiencing a housing boom, with more than 14,400 residential units being built and the number due for construction over the next three years likely to exceed the previous 10 years combined, according to Deloitte.
Local developer Tim Heatley, from Capital & Centric, estimated that 90% of these new apartments will be sold to investors rather than directly to owner-occupiers.
"A lot of investors will sell that apartment two, three or four times before it ends up as a completed apartment," he said.
"It might have sold initially for £150,000 then before it's completed it could be 160, 170, 180k. So they get flipped on and on and that's how they make their profit and that pushes the prices up."