‘A RECORD YEAR’ Zoe Dare Hall reports on the winners and stand-out sales of the London market in 2021
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or a year that started with a whimper – those long, dark days of the January and February lockdown – 2021 soon picked up apace in the prime London property market. “2021 rewrote the rules,” says Guy Meacock of Prime Purchase. “It performed in exactly the reverse of what we might have expected when Covid first hit in 2020. It is staggering, in the context of what’s been going on, how many agents are reporting a record year.” The first half of the year saw a record level of transactions in Prime Central London, supporting year-on-year growth of 1.2 per cent, “the first time annual growth has surpassed 1 per cent since Q3 2014,” says Louis Harding, head of London at Strutt & Parker. Since July 2020, sales in the £1m-plus market have been an average of 46 per cent above “normal levels”, says Frances Clacy, Savills’ associate director of residential research. Even without overseas buyers,
Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster saw the same amount of £1m-plus property transactions in the year leading up to May 2021 – that’s £4.46bn worth – than in the year to May 2019. But where prime buyers are spending their money – and what they are buying – has changed.
THE HOTTEST AREAS
For buyers preferring a central London village to the rural version, it was all about Marylebone. The area bucked 2020’s ‘escape to the country’ trend, seeing £5m+ sales rise by 36 per cent last year, says Knight Frank, and hot launches this year include NativeLand’s TwentyFive. Nearby, Almacantar’s The Bryanston (where the penthouse is for sale at £66m) is attracting some of London’s biggest spenders. There is a squeeze on local rental supply – LonRes reports the number of properties available to let in Marylebone is down by 85 per cent year on year and luxury rental
7%
INCREASE IN SALES PRICES IN ST KATHARINE DOCKS
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development, The Marlo, is mopping up much of the demand in the area. But for many wealthy families, the focus has been on space: making the move to outer prime areas such as Wimbledon, Richmond and Chiswick for huge houses and big gardens near parks. Wimbledon Village saw £213m worth of £1m-plus transactions in the year to May 2021, reports Clacy, and Clapham Common saw the greatest increase in spend (115 per cent) on £1m-plus properties compared to the year to May 2019. It’s been a stellar year in Brook Green in West London too. Finlay Brewer – which reports the best year ever for transaction levels – handled eight of Brook Green’s ten £2m-plus sales this year. They’ve seen record prices, too, including £4.75m for a house on Dewhurst Road and £5.8m on Hammersmith Grove. “There has been a lack of stock, so for the first time in a few years we’ve seen bidding wars and gazumping come back into play, which
