London’s luxury homes this month sold at the fastest pace since the market started to slide more than two years ago as overseas buyers took advantage of a weakening pound, Knight Frank LLP said.
About 250 homes and apartments costing more than £1 million (US$1.6 million) were sold this month, compared with about 75 a year earlier, said Liam Bailey, head of residential research at the London-based broker.
Prices increased this month for a fifth straight month, reducing the annualized decline to the lowest since October.
“The combination of rising prices and increasing confidence in the central London market has had a dramatic impact on the number of sales which have taken place,” Bailey said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Thousands of bankers and finance industry workers, the main buyers of luxury homes in the UK capital, have lost their jobs since the start of the credit crunch in 2007. Foreign buyers now account for more than 40 percent of purchases as they take advantage of the pound’s 11 percent drop against the dollar and 8.5 percent fall against the euro in the last 12 months.
Luxury home prices fell 15 percent in the five months following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc last September, Knight Frank said. They have gained 4.7 percent in the past six months including a 1 percent month-on-month increase this month. Prices were down 12 percent from a year earlier, the smallest drop since October when they were 11 percent lower.
“We are at the beginning of a V-shaped recovery,” said Stephen Yorke, chairman of D&G Investment Management. The company manages the £10 million Prime London Capital Fund, owner of eight rental properties in Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Belgravia.
A few properties are now fetching record prices as they attract multiple bidders, James Pace, head of Knight Frank’s Chelsea office, said in the statement.
Knight Frank recently sold a four-story family house in the area for 15 percent more than it got for a similar property on the same street in November, Pace said.
UK house prices as a whole are also rising on a month-on-month basis as low interest rates spur demand. Thsi month they increased 1.6 percent, the biggest monthly gain since December 2006, cutting the decline from a year earlier to 2.7 percent, Nationwide Building Society said on Thursday.
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