Yeah, that’s because they’re struggling to make sales and are looking for new kit. I had the same conversation with my brother about his flat in Chelsea. He didn’t believe me until he put it on the market. Hamptons over valued it to get the instruction and then quickly told him they needed to reduce the price as they hadn’t got any offers. You know a market is bad when agents are proactive. In a good market they don’t need to work to make money.
I go by what I’m told mate. I’m not there. They tell me the area is in demand, people want to live there. SW3 is a very sought after area, they tell me, and there’s only a certain amount of property there. Makes no odds to me as I’ve no intention of selling.
You’ll never struggle to sell a house in a swanky part of London. Though the prices last time I checked had fallen about 1-2% last year I think some parts more.
All true but the market is still ****. There are only a certain number of properties in the area but there also only a certain number of domestic buyers who can afford to live there. The discounted pound was supposedly going to keep the overseas investors interested but the market had overheated and investors don’t like uncertainty. The new taxes had already put them off and Brexit definitely didn’t help. Agents used to go to Hong Kong and do off plan sales exhibitions in a hotel ballroom and come back with a bucket load of sales. Those glory days are gone for the moment. Any agent who tells you London has held up is lying to you.
What and you’d believe an estate agent? It’s in their interest to pretend the market hasn’t turned to ****. There have been a number of factors stagnating the market. Brexit being one of them.
The economy is as flat as yer Nan’s tits, and the property market reflects that. There’s always regional variations and in ours the volume of new build activity has driven a price uplift locally, but generally things are flat. Consumer confidence doesn’t appear to have had the lift expected after the election and I think it’s going to be a tough year tbh.
Foxton’s are one of the agents who contact me regularly, telling me they’ve got good demand for property in the area. That’s what they’re claiming on their website too, saying actual sold prices have risen 7.57% in the last 2 years.
They’re the ultimate liars. Their agents are private school kids who are so thick that their dads couldn’t get them a job in banking. As I said, look at their share price.
They are but if they’re saying prices have risen by that much then they’ve manipulated them somehow. Where’s that stat? I’ll take a look!
If those figures are correct then I suspect they’ve cherry picked the dates so they can include one poor sales month as the base case and a strong sales month, possibly including a super sale ie a property that sold for £10m+, as the look everything is fabulous month. As I said, they’re known liars. Every other report states a rough time in the market, although things should pick up now. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....use-prices-some-of-uk-wealthiest-areas-brexit
RP’s don’t give a **** about the economic climate, their development criteria are phased over 25-30 year periods. They’ll just deliver more open market spec if the market contracts in general.
And that’s coming from an ex estate agent. What an absolute chiselling ****’s profession, no wonder you wanted out. I recently had my flat in North London valued by a surveyor, not to sell but for a lease extension. The figures he quoted me were some way below what these flats were going for three years ago.
And the buy-to-let market in London is dead due to tax changes. Which is a good thing overall, but will definitely be depressing values. Places like Chelsea and Knightsbridge might be an exception to the general stagnation of the London property market.
