Prime CBD residential London property values had shown almost no drop – in fact, less than 5%.
So says Lanice Steward, managing director of Anne Porter Knight Frank (APKF), drawing on data supplied by APKF's associate, Knight Frank, whose headquarters are in London and close to the action.
"The position with the other London properties is very different, Knight Frank reports that outer London areas fell by over 15% in the last year while urban residential properties in most of the UK have fallen by well over 30% - and, it is said, continue to decline."
Jon Neale, head of development research at Knight Frank, has also highlighted the plight of developers in the UK. He calculated that over 60% of UK developments not yet launched are now on hold, in many cases because banks have frozen their assets pending the emergence of a clearer picture of the economy. Many developers, he said, are now selling sites to raise cash and bolster their balance sheets.
As in SA, said Steward, speculators with cash are now on the hunt for the bargain buys being offloaded by investors and developers, often at below 50% of their former value: 21% of buyers are now speculators, says Neale.
Neale, says Steward, expects a further across-the-board value drop of 10% in the next 12 months but believes that the territories which have seen the biggest drops (e.g. Yorkshire) will also see the earliest and most dramatic recoveries.
"As I have pointed out before, that small group of buyers with a yen for a UK or French rural retreat should buy now. The KF Development Land Index shows price drops of over 40% in the North-West Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber, while in the Bordeaux area centuries old vineyards can be had for R200k per hectare," Steward says.
For more information contact Lanice Steward on 021 671 9120 or send an email.
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