Archives

Is now a good time to buy luxury property in London?

London’s premium property sector is certainly coming back to life, with overseas buyers returning and international trade getting started up again.

Sharing her perspective as the owner of buying agency Black Brick, which was founded in 2007, Camilla Dell has been featured in The Times this week, discussing the current state of prime central London property.

“We have the most enormous pipeline with over £50 million worth of properties under offer, anything from flats priced at £2 million up to £25 million,” Camilla said, adding that “The New York market is hotting up and some American buyers might think they’ve missed the boat there and decide to buy here instead,”.

Read the full article here.

Market for London’s top-end homes showing ‘signs of life’

With Savills recently reporting that prime central London is growing “for the first time since September 2014, despite the absence of international buyers”, it’s fair to say that the capital’s luxury housing market is alive and well.

Our Founder, Camilla Dell is delighted to have been featured in a new article all about the sector this week in The Financial Times.

In the piece, she shared how the market is “finally showing signs of life”, thanks to the recent easing of travel restrictions. “It started in August when we suddenly had a lot of Middle Eastern clients coming over,” Camilla explained, adding that more clients arrived at the beginning of the school term, with prospective buyers coming mainly from North America, West Africa and the Middle East.

Read more in the full article here.

PCL flats are back in demand!

We are delighted to see our good news in Prime Resi this week, sharing how our buying agency has signed eight new clients in the last two weeks alone.

All of these clients are excitedly looking for luxurious London apartments in the capital’s most exclusive neighborhoods.

“It was tumbleweed for 18 months but now it is a frenzy”, our Founder, Camilla Dell shared.

Read more in the full article here.

Why Britain’s punitive tax system risks deterring Middle East property investors

Experts are reporting that the UK’s rising tax rates are only making our residential property market less attractive to any wealthy overseas buyers.

As a prime central London buying agent who deals with numerous Middle East investors, Black Brick’s Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her perspective on the matter in a new piece for The National this week.

“Whether you are buying property in New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore or Sydney – there is significant tax and other additional costs, such as agency fees, to pay,” she said, adding that wealthy buyers should expect to pay high levels of tax when purchasing property in such a sought-after city like London.

Read more in the full article here.

60% of Britons admit to looking up house prices of friends, colleagues and lovers

New figures have revealed that 6 in 10 Britons admit to looking up the prices of their friends, colleagues and lovers’ houses – and a quarter have even broke up with their partners over it.

Reflecting on these revelations in This Is Money, Black Brick’s Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared how it was her experience, as a buying agent, that “people always want to know what others have paid for a property”.

She continued by explaining how buying agencies like Black Brick will go to great lengths to help clients find out what other people paid for a property they’re interested in.

“Before we submit an offer on a property, we always do a comprehensive “buying report” for our clients. Within the report we highlight relevant comparable sales. It’s all about the price per square foot – the price paid divided by the internal square footage. This gives our clients a pretty good idea if the price they are paying is reasonable or not, and also aids us with our negotiations.”

Read more in the full article here.

Super-rich spent nearly £3bn buying third and fourth London homes in pandemic

Despite the global pandemic, sales of prime property in London increased in 2020.

Some have reported this as yet another indication of a growing gap between rich and poor.

Speaking in a new piece for The Huffington Post, our Managing Partner and experienced London property expert Camilla Dell has shared her insights into our experience of the past year at Black Brick Buying Agents.

Read the article here to learn more.

First time buyers are snapping up central London flats – at big discounts

The post-lockdown property market is opening up some pretty exciting opportunities for first-time buyers in the UK.

A new article in The Standard this week shares the story of James Underdown and Joshua Granath, a British couple who have just bought their first flat in Hackney, London for £495k.

Black Brick buying agent Camilla Dell, who has over 20 years’ experience in the property market, shared her insights to the feature, explaining why current times are revealing some great bargains for buyers who are will to resist the pandemic-born trend of leaving London.

Read the article here.

Insight – what does the 2% SDLT surcharge mean for overseas investors?

Black Brick’s Founder and renowned London prime property buying agent, Camilla Dell has been interviewed for a new piece in Property Investor Today this week.

As the news breaks over the latest Chancellor announcement to increased stamp duty tax on UK properties for overseas buyers, Camilla has shared how and why this change will affect the property market for buying agencies like Black Brick.

“It’s unlikely to be the same as we’ve seen before, when typically, stamp duties have been absorbed into the market,” she said.

“There will certainly be some parts of the market that will be more vulnerable to the 2% surcharge from April 1 and will see prices come down in line with the increase. This includes high-density new-builds in secondary/tertiary parts of London which are very much focused on the overseas buyers’ market, for example Battersea Power Station, Canary Wharf and Lillie Square.”

Reflecting on whether the surcharge will dampen overseas investment in Britain, Camilla shared: “It’s difficult to remember the last time a client asked about what impact Brexit is going to have on the London property market, so we feel this is less of an issue this year,”.

“What we’re seeing is the really serious buyers coming through; gone are the window shoppers, so what we’re seeing are committed and serious domestic and overseas buyers which is really positive,” she continues.

“Despite the current lockdown and new travel restrictions, overseas buyers will still be coming to the UK looking for purchases, including from countries such as the US. The pace at which Black Brick has signed new clients so far this year is extraordinary and a sign that appetite for London property is still strong. Since January 1, Black Brick has acquired six new clients – four from overseas (including the US and Africa) and two from the UK.”

Read more in the full article here.

London house prices: are there property bargains to be had in the big city?

London might be in lockdown now, but what will it look like when normality returns?

A new article in The Times this week discusses how our world’s city hotspots may be starting to lose their appeal, with London and New York reporting fleeing residents amid rising living costs and empty bars.

Sharing her insight as a respected London buying agent for premium property, Camilla Dell argues in the article that this won’t be seen as a flight from the city, but a race to the suburbs:

“If you’re a professional that has a budget between £600,000 to £700,000, then I can see how the thought of selling up and having a three- or four-bedroom house outside the city appeals,” says Dell, from Black Brick. “But you make that move at your peril. Will we all be working from home in five years? I doubt it. And once you’re out, it’s a lot harder to get back in.”, she said.

Read more in the full article here.