FOCUS ON… CHELSEA In our second feature on my favourite parts of London, I am focusing on the elegant and highly desirable area of Chelsea. With its white stucco houses, beautiful garden squares and chic boutiques and restaurants, it is undoubtedly one of the most sought-after parts of London to live. But dig a bit deeper and there’s far more to Chelsea than first meets the eye, as I have discovered over the years. Jonny Dyson The one that got away I have only ever had one fishing ‘experience’, and it was certainly one of the better ones – a weekend fly fishing on the river Test near Stockbridge, which was a rather idyllic way to spend a couple of days in the early summer. So, what has this got to do with moving to Chelsea? Well, when you work in property there are often a number of times that you let a property ‘get away’, and my biggest error was a flat in Paultons Square in Chelsea. It was 1999 and I found a real do-er upper, a basement two-bedroom flat with a small patio garden to the rear. It was on the market for £110,000, which was right […]

FOCUS ON…NOTTING HILL Having lived and worked in various parts of London for 27 years I have built up an encyclopaedic knowledge of this amazing, ever-changing city. Many people have suggested that I share my knowledge, recollections and recommendations about some of my favourite parts of London and so, finally, I have put pen to paper (or rather keyboard to screen). Focus on… will be a regular feature on our website and I’m kicking off with the much-loved area of Notting Hill/Holland Park Jonny Dyson The rich and famous Ever since Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts graced our screens with the film of the same name in 1999, Notting Hill has been synonymous with the acting and music ‘set’ in the early noughties. From a personal perspective I remember days before the internet when various household names would be regulars in our office – from Madonna to Robbie, Geldoff to Noel & Liam, they became regulars through our doors. No security, no makeup, and surprisingly few airs or graces, they were just regular humans trying to find a home. The not quite so rich and famous Notting Hill has always had a bohemian feel, and even today the rich and […]

NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2022 Welcome to the first of our more regular blogs. Every month or so we will delve into the world of prime London property, with the intention of giving you more of an insider view of what’s really going on in the market.Many of the statistics you read in the press are usually well out-of-date, not least as it usually takes around three months to update the land registry which follows the conclusion of a transaction that may well have been agreed two-three months before then. We will be looking to give you the inside track as to what is actually happening on the ground right here and now. If you would like us to focus on any particular subject in the future, please do drop us a line and let us know – we’d be happy for any feedback.In this update we will touch on three areas – interest rates, international buyers and off-market properties. End of an era for cheap borrowing For most of the past decade the UK base rate has not exceeded 0.5%. As we write, the base rate has just gone from 2.25% to 3%, the biggest hike since 1989. The era of […]

NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2022 Temperatures rise on many fronts The prime London market isn’t exactly reflecting the weather, who would have thought an English summer would see 40 degrees!….but that’s not to say it isn’t feeling pretty hot in parts. Here are a few stats to put this in context: Prices continued to rise across prime London in July ending the month 7.7% higher than last year and 4.2% higher than their pre-pandemic average (2017-19). This represents the highest growth rate since January 2015. Prime rental market is up 25.8% on last year (note this reflects coming off a Covid adjusted low, but rents are circa 15% above pre-Covid levels). Due to extreme supply shortages, year-on-year new lets were down over 45% in July, leading to the lowest number of properties let in the month of July since the LonRes database began (2005) Knight Frank reported the number of offers accepted across the capital in July was the highest for ten years, “underlining the current strength of appetite for higher-value property in London”. High value property transactions are exceeding pre-peak levels. THE GOOD, BAD & UGLY UPDATE At the beginning of the year we took our lead from spaghetti westerns, little […]

NEWSLETTER WINTER 2022 What lies ahead in 2022? Happy New Year to all. We have great expectations for 2022 and see the combination of rapidly rising rents, pent-up buyer demand and extreme limits of stock pointing in one direction as far as the prime London market goes. The return to normalisation of interest rates is something to be aware of needless to say, but the prime market is less sensitive to the cost of finance than the broader mortgage reliant national market. Please do have a read of our thoughts and experiences below. The Good The prime London market is at the start of a cyclical recovery. In contrast to the broader national market and, more recently, the country hot spots, until last year the prime London market had shown little signs of recovery from its average 20% fall in values from the 2014/2015 peak. Pent-up demand is obvious, as was illustrated with the easing of international travel restrictions in Q4 last year which translated into overall transaction levels for 2021 exceeding 2019 and for the over £5M sector reaching levels last seen in 2013. Prime rents are appreciating rapidly and are back to being well above pre Covid levels. […]