Property market predictions for 2021 – what can we expect?

Black Brick, the well-known independent buying agency founded by Camilla Dell in 2002, which provides expert advice to buyers in London, the Home Counties and the South East, recently released its December 2020 newsletter, in which it outlined its main predictions for 2021.

Below, we take a closer look at the key takeaways.  

Q1 2021 – expect the unexpected

Black Brick’s managing partner Dell and partner Caspar Harvard-Walls expect a bumpy outlook in Q1, with the expiry of the stamp duty holiday on homes worth up to £500,000, the introduction of a 2% foreign buyers’ surcharge, speculation over changes to Capital Gains Tax in the spring Budget and adjustment to life outside the EU all making things a potential rollercoaster ride for a while.

The ’greening’ of the real estate sector

The company believes buyers will become more sensitive to whether a building is ‘green’ enough. For example, are the building materials sustainable? What is the home’s carbon footprint? And what is its energy efficiency rating? (The latter is already a factor important for landlords because of regulations surrounding minimum energy efficiency standards).

The agency thinks developers will need to look at how they can incorporate this growing sustainability trend into their schemes, with ‘super-prime’ developments likely to be marketed on this basis.

“Being green will overtake being swanky,” Dell says.

The 15-minute city

The likely continuation of working from home and the shift to online shopping points to the need for a more unique high street experience, close to home rather than the office, Black Brick predicts.

This dovetails with the rising trend of the ’15-minute city’, which the agency expects to rise to further prominence in 2021 – helping London to become greener in the process, too.

The 15-minute city is a concept, being considered across the world, which puts forward the merits of a decentralised city, without cars and where everything can be reached within the magic 15 minutes on foot, by bike, or by public transport.

Carlos Moreno, a scientific director and professor specialising in complex systems and innovation at University of Paris 1, and Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo’s special envoy for smart cities, said of the 15-minute city concept: “At its heart is the concept of mixing urban social functions to create a vibrant vicinity.” Paris’s City Hall is attempting to turn the French capital into what Moreno calls a “city of proximities.”

Moreno’s 15-minute concept was developed chiefly to reduce urban carbon emissions, reimagining our towns ‘not as divided into discrete zones for living, working, and entertainment, but as mosaics of neighbourhoods in which almost all residents’ needs can be met within 15 minutes of their homes’.

The idea being that, as workplaces, stores and homes are brought into closer proximity, street space previously dedicated to cars is freed up, in turn eliminating pollution and making way for gardens, bike lanes, and extra sports and leisure facilities.

This enables residents to bring more of their daily activities out of their homes (which in major cities, including London, can sometimes be small and cramped) and into ‘welcoming, safe streets and squares’.

The concept is far from novel, but the idea of the 15-minute city has really caught on as a brand – and a philosophy – with authorities in Barcelona, Detroit, London, Melbourne, Milan and Portland all espousing similar visions to the Paris blueprint.

Covid-19 has helped to highlight the potential need for 15-minute cities, with commuting becoming a thing of the past for many people and cities left empty by a lack of workers and tourists.

With globalisation potentially receding as a result of Covid-19 – and other events such as Brexit and climate change – the idea is to reform and rethink cities as destinations primarily for ‘people to walk, bike and linger in, rather than commute to’. This recent Bloomberg article explains the phenomenon in more detail.

Mark Sutcliffe, of smarttransport.org, writes of the concept: “Instead of sucking workers, shoppers and students into congested city centres, the 15-minute approach devolves the provision of day-to-day needs to a neighbourhood, so nobody needs to travel more than 15 minutes to earn a living, buy food, see a doctor and educate their children.”

During the lockdowns, huge swathes of Central London streets have become more pedestrianised, including Regent Street. Black Brick also points to buyers already seeking out leafier suburbs ‘with character high streets’.

The agency believes high streets outside Central London will be an important driver of the post-lockdown economic recovery, with 41% of all London businesses located on high streets and their immediate surrounds, and 28% of all jobs in the capital.

“St John’s Wood is an obvious example of a 15-minute city within London, providing one reason why house prices have risen so drastically this year. White City is moving in this direction, with the new Television Centre development, while Richmond, Dulwich, Hampstead and Chiswick are all good examples, too,” the agency claims.

A year in transactions

Black Brick says that, despite the many challenges of 2020, its team still acquired £59,077,000 of property with 19% of this off-market. What’s more, on average, it saved its clients 7.1% when buying a home.

You can see the full Black Brick market update here, where it outlines its highlights and best transactions of 2020 and goes into greater depth about the possible greening of our cities, including the creation of communal gardens and garden communities.