Foreign buyers push up London property prices

Central London properties that were worth £1mn at the beginning of this year have soared in value by £900 a day.

Owners of properties worth £5mn have seen a daily increase of £6,500, while for those in the  £10mn-plus bracket the figure is £15,000 a day.

An analysis by agents Savills found that the prices of central London properties sold for £5mn or more have risen by 50% in the past year. It confirms the enormous pressure on property prices in the best locations, stimulated by record City bonuses and an influx of wealthy foreign buyers.

Prices in the key areas - Kensington, Chelsea, Belgravia and St John’s Wood - have gone up by almost a third since the New Year and Savills forecasts that prices in central London will rise 20% this year.

The firm identified five London streets where houses were sold for an average of £10mn or more last year and a further nine addresses where they averaged over £5mn.
Top of the list is Upper Phillimore Gardens and it is followed by Eaton Square, Chelsea Square and Cottesmore Gardens.

Savills research director Yolande Barnes said: “London is now the real estate capital of the world, with an increasingly footloose international community of the super-rich competing to buy rare properties.

“Demand at this end of the market is coming from a wide range of sources with the Chinese and Indians now vying with western Europeans, British and Russian buyers.”

Four of the 15 most expensive streets are in the SW3 postcode and there are three each in W8 and NW8.

Barnes said: “The evidence shows that the demand for houses in the most desirable, central areas of the capital outweigh the intense urban nature of these streets.”

Meanwhile rising interest rates have put the brakes on the housing market this month as potential buyers were put off by more expensive mortgages.

Building society Nationwide said house prices were up just 0.4% compared with a 0.6% rise in February. The average house in Britain now costs £177,083, although prices are higher in London and the South-East. – London Evening Standard