Loan Modification

Anyone driving a BMW 3-series convertible in London probably knows the price has doubled since 1991. A three-bedroom home in Chelsea fetches almost three times what it cost 18 years ago. And at Le Gavroche, the two-Michelin- star menu favored by bankers since the Big Bang of the 1980s, dinner will set you back 33 percent more than you paid when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

It?s another story in the City of London, where office rents in the U.K.?s main financial district are falling to 1991 levels as job losses and a mistimed building boom depress prices.