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FT How To Spend It: Mayfair returns to the property forefront

An emerging art district, stellar shops and widened pavements are the backdrop for a glamorous residential renaissance in Mayfair.

Much of the recent residential building activity has been made possible by alterations to the planning regulations, which in the postwar period insisted that Mayfair’s traditionally domestic space be used as a refuge for bombed-out City firms. Over the next five years, a realignment of office to home will add an extra 110,000sq m of living room to the current meagre supply.

Fortunately, these changes have come at a moment when the world’s wealthiest have also altered their perspective on what is required to make a bigger splash. “It used to be that you either ‘got’ Mayfair or you didn’t,” says property consultant Simon Barnes, “but international buyers now want big houses, and Mayfair has some of the largest in London – at up to nearly 20,000sq m, they’re often double the size of those in Belgravia.”

FT/HTSI: SEPTEMBER 28 2015 by LISA FREEDMAN

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Evening Standard: London’s most expensive property

The owner of the most expensive property on the open market in London has offered to pay almost £9 million in stamp duty to help sell it.

The drastic move follows Chancellor George Osborne’s overhaul of stamp duty in last December’s Autumn Statement, which increased the level of property tax on homes sold for more than £937,000…

..Simon Barnes said: “Most willing sellers and buyers will find a compromise — it is all part of negotiations and this is being used as an incentive. I think it is a sweetener on this home and not a sign of things to come.”

CLICK TO READ READ FULL ARTICLE on Evening Standard website

 

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The day of the property buying agent

SimonIt seems that we may be experiencing the ‘worst shortage of property on the market since the 1970s’ (RICS 2015). Buyers in a competitive market need to ensure that they have an advantage over others when it comes to getting early and dependable notice of the right property becoming available to buy.

Now more than ever, there is real value in engaging a credible buying agent who has the kind of insider knowledge even the most serious and local buyer can never hope to hold.

 

Just stop and consider this:

How many potential buyers does a regular estate agent have on their books? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? How do these agents decide on which potential buyers to notify first when a property comes on the market?

Now, aside from what you would like to think, the reality is that agents will have lists. These lists will hopefully, but not certainly, profile buyers with property types and prices. If you are lucky enough to be the top of the list, you will probably receive the first phone call. If you do not take the call, the agent will call the person next on the list and you will already have lost any advantage you may have had; and if you are 49th on the list….

A property buying agent will actually badger selling agents daily to ensure that they are the ones to get the first telephone call about properties that match their clients’ requirements. Without fail, buying agents always answer the phone and are never off duty, ensuring that their client has an immediate advantage. On top of which, the buying agent acts as a filter, drilling down on detail with the selling agent to decide which properties are genuinely contenders and suitable for their clients.  It’s a tricky business buying a house and involves much kissing of frogs; so in reality it makes good sense to pay an expert to save you precious time and hassle and  to secure your most expensive asset and live happily ever after.

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Prime Property: When a crash is not a crash

A recent article on about London property declared that at the high end of the prime property market transactions had ‘collapsed’ and that an analysis and figures taken from Land Registry numbers by London Central Portfolio showed a ‘27.6% fall in transactions over the past year’. The problem with this analysis is that, at the very top end of the market around one in five deals are done though companies and most of these do not appear on Land Registry statistics. It is even possible that the proportion of these transactions through companies has increased over the last 12 months, but that information could only come from agents and not from Land Registry data.

My own experience is that the market continues to remain as it has been for quite a few years with serious overseas buyers intent on investing in Prime Central London and domestic buyers motivated to acquire good property that ticks all the boxes; it is certainly not ‘dead’, it has not ‘crashed’ and buyers are very much in evidence.  While it may be interesting to compare what is happening in different parts of the property market, researchers really need to understand how properties are bought and sold, what appears and does not appear in Land Registry numbers.  They should be mindful to always ensure that they compare like with like to avoid sending out inaccurate messages to the reader and prospective vendors and buyers.

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South China Morning Post (August 2015): UK agents mixed on Cameron pledge to get tough on dirty property money

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST – 5 August 2015: While agents are mixed on PM David Cameron’s crackdown, all agree impact will be limited

Simon Barnes said the money to buy property in the capital and the rest of Britain comes from legitimate sources, is verified by lawyers and banks and the buyer’s credentials checked by the buying agent or estate agent.

“You cannot approach a buying agent with a suitcase full of cash and expect to be able to buy a London mansion. It is quite wrong to suggest that the property market in propped up by dodgy deals and illegitimate money,” he said.

READ FULL ARTICLE ON SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST WEBSITE

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