The tradition-bound concept of ‘home, sweet home’ for the wealthy, family-minded Indian has never been so newsworthy as now, when a whopping 11 per cent of desi buyers are recorded to have rampaged through London’s premier property market, pushing the Russians – their closest competitors – to the wall. The number of Indians seeking to buy some of the best addresses in London, arguably the world’s financial capital, has spiralled according to leading estate agents. The often hand-to-hand battle between Indians and Russians for London’s premier postcodes boosted sales of homes worth five-million pounds or more by 40 per cent last year.

The furious Indo-Russki competition led estate agents to London’s rich and famous to conclude that the Indians, Russians and a stream of likely oil-rich suspects from West Asia had created a whole new category of property-buyer, aka the super-prime. These, said Savills estate agents, had managed to concentrate most of the British capital’s major monetary activity in an area smaller than 7.5 sq km, comprising the swishiest areas of Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Belgravia.

It is in this small, streets-paved-with-gold part of London that half of the five-million-pound-and-above homes sold last year, said Savills. Much of the property demand is being fuelled by Indians rushing into the premier property market in London and demanding luxury “period homes” or super-luxurious flats specially built for overseas buyers.

Newsweek magazine has already recorded the desi rush to snap up prime bits of London as a “post-colonial” turning of the tables on the former Raj. It said, “India’s superrich flock to buy expat homes in the poshest areas of London…in 2007 Indian buyers bought more than 10 percent of London properties sold for £4 million or more, topping even the Russians”.