London’s Super-Prime Market Soars

London’s super-prime markets stellar end to the year is evidence of the influence that the pandemic-fuelled desire for more space has on residential markets, reports Abode2 luxury property magazine. More London homes sold above £5m in 2021 than in any year since 2013, following a surge of deals done in the closing months of the year.

New analysis by Savills tallies with the latest LonRes to illustrate just how buoyant the capital’s prime property market has been. Savills estimates that nearly £2 billion was spent on £5m+ homes in London in Q4; that’s more money than in any other quarter on the firm’s records (which started in 2006).

In total, there were 52 £5m+ sales in 2021, coming in just under the total for 2013 (533). In Q4 alone there were 163 transactions, which is +37% higher than Q3 2021 and the second highest quarterly figure ever recorded by Savills (only beaten by Q2 2014, when there were 166 transactions).

A spree of big super-prime sales above £20m contributed to the overall spending tally for Q4; 51 deals went through above £20m, compared to 32 in 2020.

There was also a significant uptick in the number of £10m+ transactions in Q4, resulting in the strongest quarter ever with 62 sales compared to a previous high of 50 in Q4 2014 (when buyers rushed to seal deals before new higher stamp duty tax bands were introduced).

Big-ticket sales went through in both new-build and second-hand markets. 30 new-build sales topped £5m in Q4 2021, with a total value of £558m.