It could be the stuff of World War III: Arabs, Americans and Russians trying to outfox each other and seize control of valuable land. A new terror crisis? A stormy session of the UN? No: this is a typical scene from central London's super-wealthy and overheated housing market, where the rich and famous compete for the rarest of commodities -- a perfect property in a prime location.
The whole of the London property market may be hot at the moment, with the average asking price nearly £379,000 (US$757,000), the property Web site Rightmove said, but central west London -- from Kensington and Holland Park in the west, through Bayswater to the north of Hyde Park, past the mews of Mayfair and Knightsbridge and down to Belgravia and Chelsea in the south -- is at melting point.
Rightmove said that in Kensington and Chelsea, average property prices have soared by £120,000 to £1,329,878 this month and by £620,000 in a year.
There are two reasons for this extraordinary increase. The first is pure economics: there are far more wealthy buyers than there are homes for sale. The second is status: when the world's wealthiest buyers want to add another prestigious address to their real estate portfolio, they look to Pimlico rather than Paris, to Marylebone instead of Manhattan.
"London has what the world's richest people want -- security," said Charles Peerless of Winkworth estate agents. "It speaks the new universal language of English, has an easy air hub at Heathrow, good schools, a welcoming tax regime for foreign owners and the world's financial capital in the City."
Peerless has visited Singapore, Dubai, the US and Shanghai, to explain London's property market to wealthy would-be buyers.
"The number of high net-worth individuals [HNWI] is expanding more rapidly in North America than in Europe for the first time since 2001, while Singapore, South Africa, Hong Kong, India and Australia have seen the highest growth in HNWI numbers," explained Liam Bailey of Knight Frank, an estate agent that at any one time has about 300 of London's most expensive homes on its sales books.
Bailey says Britons now buy only half of the most expensive homes in prime central London, where apartments routinely cost over £1 million and houses usually over £2.5 million. That share drops to just 40 percent of the "super-top-end" homes costing more than £4 million.
The surge in overseas interest means central London's market is the hottest in the country and now operates to totally different rules to those of other major cities in the UK. For one thing, foreign buyers don't have a home to sell in London, so they add to demand without helping to maintain supply. Therefore prices go up faster and competition intensifies.
Another issue is safety. "Security is key," Peerless said. "Although fear of terrorism has eased, there's a lot of concern that any property lived in by a wealthy buyer's family must have the security associated with exclusive new developments in the very prime areas of London -- CCTV, direct access from underground car parks to flats, and so on."
The underlying economic attraction of London has rarely been stronger. City bonus payments this winter have hit £8.8 billion, of which about 60 percent will be spent on property. Oxford Economic Forecasting, a consultancy, says the City's financial institutions -- where average annual pay is already over £120,000 -- will add another 12,700 to their staff by the end of this year.
Over 65 percent of Fortune's Global 500 companies, a key barometer of the world's financial operations, have chosen London as their European or world headquarters. The capital has more foreign banks than any other city.
So where does this leave British buyers in the capital?
"Wealthy Brits buy a small mews house or pied-a-terre in London, then have a main house or estate in the country," said Robert Bailey, who believes the summer will see another influx of foreign buyers just as domestic purchasers start their holidays.
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