London `Super-Prime' Home Prices to Rise as Much as 10%, Knight Frank Says
London ‘Super-Prime’ Home Prices to Rise 10%
Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
London’s super-prime market is attracting international investors seeking to protect their wealth from financial or political volatility at home, Knight Frank said.
London’s super-prime market is attracting international investors seeking to protect their wealth from financial or political volatility at home, Knight Frank said. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Prices for London’s most-expensive homes probably will rise as much as 10 percent this year as overseas buyers compete for a limited number of available “super-prime” properties, Knight Frank LLP said.
Prices of apartments and houses costing more than 10 million pounds ($16 million), most of which are near Hyde Park, rose about 8 percent last year, the London-based real estate adviser said today in an e-mailed report.
“There have been a number of very significant sales in the first few weeks of the year, which point to the depth of wealth which is looking to buy into the top end of the London market,” Knight Frank said in the report. Buyers from 50 different countries bought homes through the brokerage last year, up from about 30 in 2008, it said.
London’s super-prime market is attracting international investors seeking to protect their wealth from financial or political volatility at home, Knight Frank said. Buyers from Russia and other former Soviet republics will boost their share of the market from 14 percent last year, the firm’s brokers predict. Chinese and Indian buyers also are likely to increase their ownership proportion, while instability in the Middle East probably will build demand from that region, Knight Frank said.
“With inflation rising in Asia, the desire to add tangible assets to wealth portfolios is proving itself to be a key driver of demand,” according to the report.
The financial crisis made it harder for luxury-home developers to finance projects, limiting the number of new high- end residences for sale.
Candy Brothers
Six apartments at One Hyde Park, the luxury-condominium complex in Knightsbridge that opened last month, sold late last year at record average prices of 6,000 pounds a square foot, according to Nick Candy, who oversaw the project with his brother Christian. He wouldn’t give their size.
London’s status as the world’s most desirable residential market may be eroded by the “popular backlash against wealth,” which has helped lead the government to raise taxes for the most affluent, Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s head of residential research, said in the report.
Increased competition from such Asian cities as Hong Kong and Singapore also may undermine London’s position as the top global financial center, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Packard in London at packard@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Blackman at ablackman@bloomberg.net.
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