In an article for Robb Report this week, Black Brick buying agent Casper Harvard-Wells shares how the plunge of the pound has caused turmoil for the UK’s premium property market.
He reflected that, as a result of the pandemic, 2020 and 2021 were “dominated by domestic buyers”, making the prime central London market, which is often most popular with overseas buyers, rather soft. However, he noted that September had been unusually busy this year:
“People buying second homes don’t decide to do it yesterday, but clients who were already thinking about buying are fast forwarding what they were doing,” he said. “I had a client three weeks ago, who purchased from us at the beginning of the pandemic and has just done his flat up, say to me ‘If you’re a dollar-based buyer and not going to be buying now, the question is when?’”
Harvard-Walls also shared how he’d seen “dollar-based UHNWers buy up sterling now that they don’t intend to disburse immediately”, saying that “[This will have] a long-term impact on London. They might sit on their pounds for two years because they don’t have to do anything tomorrow,” he adds, “Property takes a long time to transact. So we won’t know the real result in this sector of what we’re talking about now until at least Christmas or the New Year.”
Read the full article here.