THE BOUNCE-BACK BEGINS Theatre and office life are luring buyers back to London, writes Zoe Dare Hall
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s our high streets, social lives and even holiday plans start to look a little more like their old pre-pandemic selves, the London bounce-back has begun. International buyers, wealthy overseas students and corporate relocators are starting to return. But what’s really driving demand for property in prime London – particularly the “family hotspots” in the west and south-west, such as Chiswick and Clapham, says Savills, which reports 8.9 per cent annual growth in both of these areas – is the return to city life by those who fled to the country a year or so ago. The need or desire to be back in the office a couple of days a week has been the main driver – along, in some cases, with ensuring the family’s feet were happily
installed beneath that Notting Hill dining table by September in time for the start of the new school year. Where, a year ago, everyone wanted to be around greenery – whether that meant going the whole hog and moving to the countryside, or leaping on any London property with a garden, nearby park or some balcony space – now it’s all about being near a Tube or train station, says Savills’ director of residential research Lucian Cook. And as a sign that families are ready to put down city roots again, the price of six-bed houses in prime West London markets have risen by 6.2 per cent in the past year, and five-bed houses by 5.3 per cent, according to Savills. Being reacquainted with your office desk and colleagues, though, isn’t the only reason for waving goodbye to the full-time rural idyll. Agents are seeing the creeping
8.9%
GROWTH IN ‘FAMILY HOTSPOTS’, CLAPHAM AND CHISWICK
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realisation among these country-to-city ‘boomerang buyers’ that rural life just isn’t as much fun. “We recently had a lady looking for a London property who told us there were only so many long walks she could take before she began to miss her morning flat whites and trips to the theatre,” says Harry Laflin, manager of Dexters Westminster. “Quite a few people who moved out for country life are now suggesting that they are finding it rather boring and that ‘there are only so many pubs we can explore’ before being lured back to London,” adds Hamish Gilfeather, associate director at John D Wood & Co. Some who sold up in certain parts of the countryside may be returning to the city quids in. Savills’ data shows the £2m+ market in the Cotswolds grew 18.5 per
