Top London properties to slump 50% from peak to trough
Luxury residential properties in London are selling for 40% of the price they fetched at the peak of the housing boom and are set to fall further, according to estate agents.
Jeremy McGivern, who runs property consultancy Mercury Home Search, bought a Kensington property for a client last week that was 40% below the price it exchanged at last year. He said: “Ultimately many [top] properties will fall more than 50% – there are already examples of this, particularly from forced sellers who need to free up cash.”
Large price hikes by ambitious vendors at the market’s peak in late 2007 are partly to blame for the size of the falls, according to agents.
Alex Michelin, head of Kensington-based estate agents Finchatton, agreed that property prices could fall by 50%, but said there were exceptions.
Trevor Abrahamson, head of Highgate-based Glentree Estates, which represents 95% of the residences on the iconic Bishop’s Avenue in Highgate, one of the most expensive addresses in London, said properties might fall 50% below their original asking price.
Abrahamson said Jersey House, a 20,000 sq ft, eight-bedroom home on Bishop’s Avenue, was on the market for £45m (€48.9m) and had just received an offer from a serious bidder for £28m, nearly 40% below the original asking price. He said the offer was refused, and did not comment on how much the vendor was likely to accept.
Richard Cutt, head of the Mayfair office at Knight Frank, is more bullish about Mayfair prices. He said at the moment international buyers were more interested in modernised property in Mayfair, which he believes has fallen up to 20%. He said unmodernised property in areas such as Kensington and Chelsea had fallen between 35% and 40% in value.
The news comes as estate agents are being forced to closing Mayfair offices as sales of £10m-plus properties stagnate. Last month Financial News’ sister paper Wealth Bulletin revealed that a fifth of Mayfair’s estate agents have shut up shop over the past six months. -- Write to Tara Loader Wilkinson at twilkinson@efinancialnews.com
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