An increasing number of wealthy overseas buyers are queuing to invest in top end London property which is pushing domestic London money out and driving price growth in the provinces, says Lucian Cook of Savills Research.
‘There is no denying that house price growth is currently strong, and well above the medium and long term average – especially in prime central London where there simply aren’t enough £5 million plus properties per multi-millionaire to go around,’ he says. To a degree these trends have been replicated in the country with the top end and home counties markets showing the highest growth in values.
‘City bonuses being spent in the home counties, demand from the new breed of Country Squire (a hybrid of a city slicker and country gent who seems to have reached the agreeable balance of spending part of the week making his fortune in London and the rest counting it in the country) and those who have traded their way through the housing boom pretty much everywhere, means that new applicants per property are higher than in the past two years.’
The demand has rippled across the sector. Farmland has grown in value in the past three years and marriage value – that intangible advantage of bringing land and a good quality house together in a way that maximises the enjoyment of the land and the privacy of the house ? has probably moved from 10% – 20% to something nearer 30% to 40%.
