– London property market tumbles as glut of luxury apartments grows to 3,000
– Property crisis in London as over half of 1,900 luxury apartments built 2017 fail to sell
– London’s still high priced property causes companies to locate offices elsewhere
– At current rates, glut of London properties will take three years to sell
– Leading London-based estate agents Foxtons’ sees 42% drop in earnings, yoy
– UK’s largest estate agent issues second profit warning in three months
– Number of homes sold in December fell to 99,100, lowest level since Nov 2016
– The ‘Shard disaster’ – Ten apartments at top of London’s largest skyscraper, all priced over £50m and in five years not a single one has sold
– Property gold? Diversify and own the physical property of real gold
Editor: Mark O’Byrne
There is much talk of bubbles bursting of late. Bitcoin, bonds have been considered in this regard but so far very little consideration of the property bubbles in London, Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Long and other major cities.
London’s property market is another market to consider when looking for evidence that the party is over when it comes to frothy, record-high asset prices.
On average, UK properties take around six weeks to sell. London properties have been consistently below average, with many taking less than a day to go from ‘For Sale’ to ‘Under Offer’. However, in recent months, three London regions – West, North-West and South-West – appeared in the slowest 10 postcode areas for property sales.
According to this research by the Homeowners Alliance, West London has taken the very bottom spot after properties spent an average of 107.9 days on the market as of last month.
This is in line with other data that shows property prices in the capital have fallen for the first time since 2009.
Delicate buyers: London becomes price-sensitive
One of the first things someone outside of London says about the city is how expensive it is. They often say it as if those of us who are from there have never noticed.
Arguably, this has been the case for the last eight years or so when it comes to London’s luxury properties. But it seems many buyers are waking up to the sheer madness of paying millions for a tiny shoe box small apartment, that is in the no man’s land of Brexit and majorly exposed to the vulnerable indebted UK economy and a further devaluation of the pound.
The Guardian reports that more than half of the 1,900 ultra-luxury apartments built in London last year failed to shift. There are now an estimated 3,000 unsold luxury properties, such as these, in the capital. These are the apartments that are priced above £1,500 per square-foot.
For the slightly cheaper apartments, priced at between £1,000-£1,500 per sq ft, there are 14,000 unsold properties. The average price per sq ft across the country is £211.
In the West of London (the worst performing area in the UK in terms of days sold) Savills is marketing a two-bedroom duplex penthouse for £7.25m, a ridiculous amount. But, this is not as eye watering when you consider it has already had a discount of 39.6 per cent off its original launch price of £12m.
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