Half of London’s new-home buyers come from abroad as the city’s reputation as a safe haven attracts rising investment and sustains development.

Foreigners spent more than 3 billion pounds ($4.7 billion) on new homes in the U.K. capital last year, a 25 percent increase from 2011, broker Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. said in a statement today.

London has cemented its status as a haven for foreign wealth, with home buying stoking property prices and masking market weakness elsewhere, former Bank of England policy maker Sushil Wadhwani said last month. The pound’s decline has helped attract investors from Malaysia to Russia to developments like Battersea Power Station where about half of the project’s apartments have been sold in overseas markets.

“The London development market would be more challenging without demand from international investors,” Adam Challis, head of residential research at Jones Lang said in the statement. “Since development funding from banks declined due to the market downturn, international purchasers have provided a vital lifeline to maintain supply.”

Home prices in London rose 10.6 percent in the year through March 13, led by a 38.7 percent gain in the City of Westminster where prime districts Mayfair and Belgravia are located, Acadametrics Ltd. said in a study released today. Rents in London were about 8 percent higher in March than a year earlier, LSL Property Services Plc said last month.