How to profit from the London property freeze

By Liz Rowlinson.

House price growth has come to a halt and sellers are struggling to shift their properties.

London’s prime property market is under mounting pressure, with house price growth at just 0.7 per cent annually — the weakest of any UK region. Nowhere is this felt more acutely than at the top end of the market.

Camilla Dell, Managing Partner of Black Brick, highlighted the severity of conditions for buyers and sellers in prime central London: “There’s unprecedented supply in areas such as Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington and Chelsea, and Knightsbridge. This can only mean that prices will come down further.”

The article points to a confluence of factors weighing on the market: uncertainty ahead of the Autumn Budget — including speculation around a new annual property tax and potential changes to capital gains tax relief — alongside the abolition of the non-dom regime, stretched affordability, and dwindling international buyer activity.

For properties above £5 million in prime central London, the data is stark. Average flat prices have fallen to their lowest level since 2013, transactions are down year-on-year, and the average time from listing to exchange has reached a record high. Over half of properties in the £3–8 million bracket have seen asking price reductions.

For buyers, these conditions represent a compelling window of opportunity. Black Brick’s expert buying agents are actively navigating this market on behalf of clients — identifying motivated sellers, negotiating below asking price, and securing best-in-class properties at valuations not seen for a decade.

Read the article here, which includes insights from leaders across the property industry, as well as sharing actionable advice on how to overcome the challenging market.

Is Rachel Reeves really destroying the housing market?

By David Byers.

Whilst we anxiously await the Autumn Budget announcement, the property market stands still.

Months of policy speculation ahead of the Autumn Budget is causing significant disruption to the UK housing market — particularly at the top end — with buyers and sellers alike choosing to pause rather than proceed, according to reporting in The Times.

Camilla Dell, Managing Partner at Black Brick, did not mince her words on the scale of the problem. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much kite-flying in a run-up to an autumn statement in my entire career,” she said — a sentiment echoed by agents across the prime and super-prime market.

The uncertainty is being felt most acutely in affluent London postcodes. Data from PropCast shows just eight in every 100 homes under offer in Mayfair and Marylebone (W1), and eleven in Paddington and Bayswater (W2) — figures that reflect both the abolition of non-dom status and the chilling effect of unresolved tax speculation. Sellers, meanwhile, are facing a dual bind: those with significant capital gains fear a CGT expansion covering primary residences above £1.5 million, while landlords are digesting reports that national insurance may be applied to rental income.

The result is a market caught in a holding pattern. Some owners are rushing to sell ahead of a potential Budget hit; others are pausing entirely until the picture clears. Meanwhile, buying chains are being disrupted as would-be downsizers sit tight rather than risk an unaffordable tax bill.

The prime central London market was already under pressure before the latest wave of speculation, with stamp duty increases, the end of non-dom status, and persistently high mortgage rates all weighing on activity. Nationally, Nationwide data shows average house prices fell 0.1% in the period, the fourth monthly decline in six months.

Read it here.

Monday Market Review: Key figures & findings from the last seven days

By PrimeResi.

Keen to keep up to date with all the latest property news from across the UK?

Black Brick Managing Partner Camilla Dell has been quoted in PrimeResi’s latest prime property market round-up, offering her assessment of London’s shifting position on the global stage.

Commenting on the capital’s prime market, Camilla noted: “There was a point when there was a perfect storm which propelled London’s market to the top of the global league, but that time has passed.”

The round-up highlighted a number of key trends shaping the prime London property market, including a fall of over 30% in Prime London sales transactions in July compared to the previous year, slowing rental growth of 3.3% against a revised 5.4% in June, and just 466 sales completing in Prime Central London during Q2 2025 — 7% below the same period last year.

The data also pointed to a significant supply shortage in new homes, with fewer than 2,200 new private homes started in London in the first half of 2025, and average UK house prices rising 3.7% annually to £269,000 as of June 2025.

Read it here.

Property market freezes as tax rises spook buyers

By David Byers and Emanuele Midolo.

Featuring in The Times this week with David Byers and Emanuele Midolo, Black Brick Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shares her thoughts on Rachel Reeves’s upcoming budget and its potential impacts on the UK property market.

Black Brick Managing Partner Camilla Dell’s assessment of the pre-Budget property market — that she had never witnessed such levels of policy speculation in her entire career — was cited across multiple Times reports as agents and analysts united in their concern about the damage being done to transaction activity.

Supporting data from PropCast underlines the severity of the freeze: just 8% of homes in Mayfair and Marylebone (W1) were under offer by late July, while affluent areas including Kensington and Chelsea (SW10) saw only 12% of listings move — roughly half the rate recorded in 2022. Nationally, the number of “hot” property markets fell from 2,156 during the Covid boom to 1,678, while “cold” markets more than quadrupled from 88 to 571 over the same period.

Read the full article here.

‘Bigger, better, costlier, and far more luxurious than we could possibly have imagined’

By Camilla Dell for PrimeResi.

Have you ever wondered what London’s property market like back in 2000, compared to now?

Its historic landmarks may still look the same, but since the year 2000 Prime Central London has changed almost beyond recognition, writes Camilla Dell, Managing Partner at Black Brick.

It is bigger, better, costlier, and far more luxurious than we could possibly have imagined back during the countdown to midnight on December 31st, 1999.

The fickle finger of fashion

Prime Central London has never been an officially demarcated location, but rather a shorthand for the best – and most expensive – places to live in the heart of the British capital.

Traditionally PCL was considered to be confined to a handful of key neighbourhoods south and east of Hyde Park. And back in 2000 Knightsbridge was first amongst equals.

But over the years careful curation of once largely-commercial districts has redrawn the map.

Mayfair was once very commercial, but developers came along and bought up unloved or underused buildings – like the old American Embassy on Grosvenor Square – and converted them into very high end, luxurious residential buildings. Simultaneously the Grosvenor Estate was working hard to upgrade Mayfair and Belgravia’s main shopping streets like Mount Street and Elizabeth Street, turning them into charming community hubs with great boutiques and cafes. More recently it has worked the same magic on Eccleston Yards, a former power station now rebooted as a complex of shops, restaurants, gyms, and offices on the border of Belgravia and Victoria, which is drawing in not just shoppers and diners, but buyers.

Knightsbridge, meanwhile, has seen its fortunes fade a little. Areas do go out of fashion; 15 or 20 years ago Knightsbridge was the place to buy a status symbol property, but I think what really lacks is a cohesive masterplan for the area like Grosvenor has for Mayfair and Howard de Walden has for Marylebone.

While Knightsbridge and Kensington, with its chain store dominated High Road and heavy traffic, are no longer objects of desire then Marylebone, once a London backwater known more for the health clinics of Harley Street than anything else, has blossomed into a property swan.

Its landowner, the Howard de Walden Estate, has worked hard to rebrand Marylebone High Street as an eclectic, artisanal destination, with a lovely weekend farmers’ market, great restaurants – including the recently burned-out Chiltern Firehouse which commanded endless column inches and raised Marylebone’s profile – and interesting independent shops.

At the same time developers started investing in prime sites in Marylebone, with new developments like Chiltern Place and The Chilterns, which helped cement its position within PCL. There is actually a waiting list to buy at Chiltern Place, which is exceptional in the current market. It has become extremely desirable.

The cost of doing business

The average price of London’s homes at the turn of the century sound impossibly cheap in today’s context. The average sale price in the capital was just £139,611 according to the Land Registry, while an average property in Kensington & Chelsea traded for under £400,000.

Price growth was rapid and dramatic in the early noughties, largely thanks to the huge influx of overseas buyers rushing into London after the 2008 financial crisis. This exponential growth has since been suppressed by tax increases and the Brexit referendum, the double whammy which stunned the market in 2016.

Nonetheless an average home in Kensington & Chelsea, the borough which contains most of Prime Central London, currently trades for more than £1.4mn, an almost fourfold increase since 2000.

According to the prime London house price analyst LonRes the average price per sq ft of a PCL property was just £580 back in 2000. Today a sq ft of real estate will cost you £1,627.

I don’t think we will see that kind of growth again. There was a point when there was a perfect storm which propelled London’s market to the top of the global league, but that time has passed. I do still think growth is possible, but just not the double digit annual growth we saw then.

There was a point when there was a perfect storm which propelled London’s market to the top of the global league, but that time has passed

Paved with gold

The seismic influence which luxurious new developments can have a local property market are clearly illustrated by changing data on London’s highest priced streets.

20 years ago, in 2005, London’s five most expensive streets were all clustered in a tiny area around the south west corner of Hyde Park according to property portal Mouseprice – and you could buy an average home on any one of them for well under £4.5mn.

Top spot went to Earls’ Terrace (average price: £4.3mn), at the time home to JK Rowling, alongside nearby Victoria Road, both in Kensington (£3.5mn), Ilchester Place, which is on the border of Kensington and Holland Park (£3.2mn), and a duo of squares – Chelsea and Carlyle (£3.9mn and £3.4mn), both between Hyde Park and the King’s Road.

Today, however, London’s property wealth map has been redrawn.

Recent research from Lloyds found that Knightsbridge, largely thanks to the presence of One Hyde Park, is currently London’s most expensive address with an average sale price of more than £21mn. Ilchester Place proves its staying power to hold onto second place (average price: £19.4mn), but Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, with its extraordinary lavish branded residences, and nearby Ashburton Place, which has been elevated by the presence of the super prime Clarges Mayfair building, are now within the top five, along with pretty, slightly bohemian Clarendon Road, north of Hyde Park in Notting Hill.

Changing spaces

Black Brick was founded back in 2007 and over the intervening years the profile and wants of our buyers has changed considerably – and so has their budget.

The off market sale of homes not advertised online was important back in 2007, with 21% of our homes sourced “under the counter”. Today that has increased to over a third because increasing numbers of vendors appreciate the privacy of selling off plan rather than having the whole world know how much their property is worth, and what their kitchen looks like. Above £10mn, as much as 80% of the properties we source for clients today are off market.

Above £10mn, as much as 80% of the properties we source for clients today are off market

In 2007 a quarter of our buyers were looking for an investment property to rent out but so far this year the majority of our clients have been after a home for themselves – as prices have grown compressing yields, taxes and interest rates risen making buy to let investment less attractive in central London. However, this trend may reverse, with a softer sales market rental yields in London are looking more attractive today than they have done in over a decade, so for those looking to diversify their wealth, or with long term plans to occupy the property in the future, buying now and renting the property out is attractive.

Our proportion of British buyers has remained remarkably stable, at about one in four, but in 2007 we were busy with clients from Nigeria, who accounted for almost half of our sales. At that time the economy there was booming, and Nigerians definitely see London as their second home.

This year there is a new breed of international buyer in town – Americans, who have represented almost a third of Black Brick’s clients in 2025.

There is nervousness around the Trump administration, and they are not necessarily relocating but buying boltholes in case they want to move here in the future. The rise of American buyers is equally thanks to an uptick in the nation’s wealth. As of last year the US had 23.8 million millionaires and more than 800 billionaires. People just travel further, go on holiday more, companies have offices in more than one country.

The world has become much more global. And as Americans have become wealthier they have started to think about buying the European home they have always aspired to – and for many Americans, European means London. They love the fact the language is the same, they can hop on a train and be in Paris in three hours, or a plane and be in Rome. Great European cities are accessible. In the US, you hop on a plane for three hours and you are still in the US.

Another big change, and one clearly influenced by the pandemic, has been a switch in the type of property our buyers want – family homes in the leafy suburbs with plenty of space to work from home. In 2007, 83% of our clients went on to purchase an apartment. So far this year, 40% have bought houses.

This change may in turn help explain their increasing budgets. In 2007 Black Brick’s clients spent just under £2mn on their London homes. So far this year they have spent an average £4.1mn.

In 2007 Black Brick’s clients spent just under £2mn on their London homes. So far this year they have spent an average £4.1mn

Line of Duty

Stamp Duty has been around for hundreds of years, but at the start of the 21st century rates were appealingly low. In March 2000 a new banding system came into force with buyers paying 1% on the value of properties valued between £60,000 and £250,000, 3% on the next £250,000 to £500,000, and 4% above that.

Today buyers pay Stamp Duty of up to 12% depending on the value of the property. Second home owners must also pay a 5% surcharge. Overseas buyers also pay a two per cent surcharge, meaning a potential top rate of 19%.

Over the past few weeks there have been rumours of the biggest Stamp Duty shakeup in living memory – a plan to replace the buying tax with a new sales tax could be announced as soon as October’s budget.

Getting rid of Stamp Duty could be a gamechanger for London. The devil will be in the detail of course, but in principle getting rid of Stamp Duty could be a great thing. It has been a disaster, ever since (the former Chancellor of the Exchequer) George Osborne started tinkering with it in 2014. It has reduced the mobility of the whole market.

Read the article here.

From swimming pools and spas to dual kitchens, have property developers gone too far?

By Charlotte Duck.

New developments are springing up across London and the UK, flaunting luxury amenities like spas, gyms and swimming pools.

What London’s Ultra-Prime Buyers Really Want From a Luxury Development

As London’s luxury residential market grows ever more competitive, developers are under increasing pressure to offer amenities that genuinely enhance residents’ daily lives — not just impress on the brochure. But with service charges rising accordingly, today’s ultra-high-net-worth buyers are scrutinising what they’re actually paying for.

“Many of our clients now consider service charges in the context of the overall purchase and whether this is something worth paying for when looking at new luxury builds,” says Camilla Dell, founder of Black Brick.

Speaking as part of a wider industry panel for Yahoo Finance, Camilla was joined by six other prime property experts to assess which amenities are driving purchasing decisions — and which are falling out of favour.

What buyers want most

Discreet security remains a top priority, particularly for international clients who leave their properties unoccupied for extended periods. Biometric access, advanced surveillance, and professional home monitoring services are all in high demand. A high-calibre concierge service is equally valued — one capable of handling the logistics of modern life, from managing deliveries to arranging hotel-standard turndown services.

Family-friendly amenities are also gaining ground, with children’s programming, dedicated teen spaces, and practical services such as school-run vehicles increasingly cited as meaningful differentiators. Elsewhere, dual kitchens, flexible hybrid work-and-wellness spaces, and sustainable building credentials with certifications such as LEED or WELL are becoming key considerations for environmentally conscious buyers.

What buyers are no longer impressed by

Swimming pools and on-site spas, once seen as hallmarks of ultra-prime living, are increasingly viewed as costly to maintain and rarely used. Camilla’s view is direct: “Swimming pools are in our opinion becoming less relevant and important for UHNWIs. In most new builds that we view, we rarely ever see the pools being used — and of course they cost a fortune to operate.”

Over-engineered technology and amenity spaces lacking natural light were also flagged as red flags among high-net-worth buyers.

Black Brick’s view

As buying agents acting exclusively in the interests of our clients, we help navigate not just the purchase price, but the full cost of ownership — including service charges that can run to tens of thousands of pounds a year. Understanding which amenities add genuine long-term value, and which inflate costs without benefit, is central to the advice we provide.

Read the article here, here and here.

A warning to vendors: “small price cuts won’t cut it.”

By Graham Norwood.

Black Brick Buying Agent, Camilla Dell, has once again shared her insights into the current UK property buying market this week.

Leading buying agent Camilla Dell, Managing Partner of Black Brick, has commented on the latest housing market data, warning that optimistic house price forecasts are rapidly being revised.

Nationwide’s most recent monthly index showed a 0.6% monthly price rise and 2.4% annual growth, putting the average UK house price at £272,664. However, Dell cautions that the broader picture is more complex, noting that “forecasts of house price growth made at the end of last year are falling like skittles.”

Savills has become the latest major agency to cut its projections, revising UK house price growth for 2025 down to just 1%, with 24.5% total growth forecast over five years. In London, prices are expected to remain flat this year, with just 15.3% growth predicted by 2029.

Dell highlights that conditions in Prime Central London remain particularly challenging. “If this sounds bad, then matters are even worse in Prime Central London, where flatlining growth would actually be good news,” she explains, pointing to a 3.7% price fall over the past year and values still more than 22% below their 2014 peak.

There are, however, pockets of resilience. Dell points to strong performance in prime suburban family areas, including Wimbledon (up 3.4%), Putney (up 2.5%) and Brook Green (up 1.3%).

Perhaps most significantly, Dell identifies a shift in who is driving demand in prime London. Domestic buyers — younger families seeking homes in prime outer London — have replaced overseas purchasers and investors as the dominant force in the market. “They are definitely the new buyers of London,” she says, describing them as “fairly young people looking for family homes, in prime outer London residential areas.”

Read the full article here.

Americans are buying mansions in London’s richest neighborhoods at cut prices

By Emma Richter.

So, well-off Americans are keen on London, but why?

Demand for prime London property from American buyers has risen sharply, with Black Brick founder and Managing Partner Camilla Dell reporting a 25 percent increase in US clients over the past eight to twelve months.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Camilla noted that American buyers are drawn to London for a variety of reasons: “There’s a real mixture — many are after period architecture, but plenty are looking for modern homes too.” She added that Americans are “much more about the neighbourhood,” prioritising proximity to shops, parks and local amenities over the property itself.

Camilla also highlighted the growing popularity of secondary and vacation homes among US clients, with many choosing to maintain a base in London while retaining their American property.

Popular destinations include Chelsea, Kensington, Notting Hill, Hampstead, Knightsbridge and Mayfair — areas that combine prestige, green space and strong community character. The favourable UK tax structure, which levies a one-time stamp duty rather than annual property taxes, has proved a particular draw for buyers relocating from high-tax US states.

Read the article here.

Labour’s impact on London’s prime property neighbourhoods

By Alexandra Goss.

Affluent non-doms are said to be leaving London amid the changes seen in this new Labour government.

London’s most prestigious streets are seeing an unprecedented volume of high-value homes come to market, as wealthy international residents reassess their relationship with the UK following sweeping tax changes — a shift Black Brick’s Camilla Dell has been tracking closely, according to reporting in The Telegraph.

The numbers tell a striking story. The volume of homes listed above £5 million across London’s most expensive neighbourhoods has risen nearly 30% over the past twelve months to a record high, according to analysts LonRes, while actual sales at that level fell 14% in the year to May. At the very top of the market, transactions above $10 million plummeted 37% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025.

The primary driver is the abolition of non-dom status, which came into force in April, combined with the decision to expose worldwide assets to inheritance tax at 40% — a combination that Oxford Economics research suggests 83% of affected investors view as a dealbreaker, with 62% planning to exit within two years unless the UK introduces a more competitive regime.

Dell offered a measured view on whether a policy reversal could stem the outflow. “Not unless they are having a horrible time elsewhere,” she told The Telegraph. “Relocation is not for the fainthearted, it is not an easy thing to do and it is not cheap. But it may stop people who are thinking about going.”

The picture is not uniformly bleak, however. American buyers have emerged as a significant stabilising force in prime central London, drawn by prices that remain 22% below their 2014 peak and a favourable currency position — even after recent dollar weakness. US and Chinese nationals each now account for 10% of international purchasers in the capital, according to Knight Frank, with some agents reporting that American families are actively relocating from the US, partly in response to political uncertainty stateside.

Many departing non-doms are also choosing to retain their London properties as European bases, renting them out or making them available to family members rather than selling — a trend that continues to support Black Brick’s fast-growing property management offering.

Read the article here.

Agent warning to vendors: ‘Small price cuts won’t cut it’

By Graham Norwood.

A buying agent has warned that despite a spate of optimistic housing market indicators in recent days, it’s still a buyer’s market out there.

His comments follow a relatively upbeat monthly housing market index report from the Nationwide, showing that prices increased by 0.6% between June and July of this year. On an annual basis, the average house price increased by 2.4% up from a 2.1% annual rate of growth in June. As a result, the average UK house price now sits at £272,664.

But Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of Garrington Property Finders, warns:“The balance between supply and demand is tipping further in favour of buyers. The summer surge usually sees estate agents’ books fill up. But this summer’s crop of new listings is being swelled by properties that were withdrawn from sale during last year’s uncertainty, as well as the thousands of homes being sold off by disenchanted buy-to-let investors.

“Despite the modest increase in Nationwide’s national rate of price inflation, in many areas prices are either flat or falling – there are simply too many sellers and not enough serious buyers. Most sellers aren’t financially distressed, but in many parts of the country those who are serious about selling are having to rein in sharply their price aspirations.

“Token price reductions of £5,000 to £10,000 just won’t cut it, and those who set their asking price too high risk seeing their home sit unsold on the shelf as buyers are spoilt for choice.

“Bank of England data shows that the average mortgage interest rate for buyers has now fallen for four months in a row, and the prospect of a further base rate cut next week could make borrowing more affordable still, and inspire more renters to consider buying.

“Even though Nationwide’s data shows that homes are now mathematically more affordable than they have been in a decade, buyer sentiment is finely balanced. Cheaper borrowing costs and abundant choice mean this is a buyer’s market, but most buyers are still being prudent and pragmatic and sellers must dance to their tune.”

Another respected buying agent – Camilla Dell of Black Brick – warns that “forecasts of house price growth made at the end of last year are falling like skittles.”

She cites Savills as the latest firm to trim its expectations, blaming a mixture of geopolitics and changes to Stamp Duty thresholds, for a slower-than-expected first half of the year. As a result, it has cut its prediction of UK house price growth this year down to just one per cent, with a total of 24.5% growth over five years.

Across London, it expects prices to remain flat during 2025, and forecasts just 15.3% growth by 2029.

In a statement Dell says: “If this sounds bad, then matters are even worse in Prime Central London (PCL), where flatlining growth would actually be good news. Prices have fallen 3.7 per cent in the past year, found Savills, and currently stand more than 22 per cent lower than at the peak of the market in 2014.

“The news is better in the prime suburbs, where family-oriented areas like Brook Green in west London (annual growth of 1.3%), and Putney (up 2.5%) and Wimbledon (up 3.4%), both in southwest London, are outperforming.”

And she says the market in prime London is currently dominated by domestic buyers, not overseas purchasers or investors, and they’re not looking in prime central areas.

“They are definitely the new buyers of London,” she said. “They are fairly young people looking for family homes, in prime outer London residential areas.”

Read more of the insights into the current UK housing market here.