Thoughts from our Property Experts

It's not surprising that Prime Central London prices are leveling at best

by Adrian Black Adrian Black, author of this post , Tuesday 17 June 2014

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We track activity in all sorts of interesting and thorough ways - as you will have seen with our recent YOUIQ publication. In case you did not get a copy of YOUIQ you can also read it here; http://www.youhome.co.uk/brochure/YOUIQ_june_issue_2014.pdf

The total spend in our main London areas, after adjusting for inflation, is roughly at the same level as 2007.  The number of transactions has broadly almost halved - and unsurprisingly prices have broadly almost doubled.  The simple reason is that people do not want to or have to sell in a market where prices are increasing and the carry cost (interest rates) is super low.  Healthy markets exist where spend and the number of transactions both increase at the same time.

The bars on the graphs below show total spend and average price (both in £'s) of residential property in our key PCL areas and the line shows number of sold properties.  (Please note 2014 data is through March so total spend not a whole year - focus on 2013 data).

 

Total Spend versus no. Sales

Average Sold Price versus no. Sales