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International buyers are back — what does it mean for London house prices?

With lockdown restrictions finally lifted, overseas buyers are already starting to flood in and make waves in the London and UK property market.

Our Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell spoke with Ruth Bloomfield of The Standard this week to share her perspective on the market shifts, as a buying agent of over 20 years.

“During the height of the pandemic, overseas buyers vanished.” Camilla said, sharing how in September, her phone started ringing again and her client roster now includes buyers from across North America, Africa and the Middle East keen to drop £2m to £5m on a PCL property.

Read more in the full article here.

How to sell a home in the current property market

London might be a sellers’ market right now, but “there are always homes which stubbornly fail to sell”, writes Ruth Bloomfield in The Standard this week.

Reflecting on how best to sell your home, beyond adjusting your pricing, Black Brick buying agent, Caspar Harvard-Walls has shared why he believes the next issues are the chosen agent and property access:

“The easiest to deal with is access. As a seller, being flexible as to when potential buyers can view is crucial and if this is not the case, then you need to change it quickly,” he said in the article. “Agents will quickly tire of trying to arrange viewings if the owner or tenant is difficult.”

On agents, Caspar continued: “Too many sellers choose their estate agent on the basis of their commission fee or whomever quotes them the highest marketing price and not on who is the best person for the job,” he says. “A good agent should be able to more than cover their fee.”

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.

London house prices dip despite low supply, as sellers hold putting their homes on the market until after the General Election

As we all anxiously await to find out who will be in power at the next General Election, it seems the UK property market is also holding its breath…

In London, people who are thinking of selling their homes are choosing to hold out until after the election, causing a significant 26% reduction in properties listed for sale in November.

Commenting on the political uncertainty and subsequent market impact, our Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her thoughts for a new article in The Standard:

“Near-term uncertainty will exacerbate the traditional lull in activity in the run-up to Christmas,” she predicted.

“This lull can present an ideal opportunity for buyers to strike. With only seven weeks to go before Christmas, vendors can become desperate to close a deal, and other buyers may be distracted with their festive preparations. Our view is that this can be the best moment to strike.”

Read more in the full article here.

Most likely to: East London’s Zone 1 Crossrail hotspot where house prices are still rising

The launch of the Elizabeth line is going to accelerate Whitechapel into a much sought-after London region, according a new research from The Standard.

In a new article published this week, Ruth Bloomfield reports that the area has been named “most likely to outperform” in terms of property prices over the next five years.

Sharing his thoughts as a prime property expert for London, Black Brick buying agent, Tom Kain shared his belief that Whitechapel will become hotspot for city workers who might previously have preferred a “City-fringes” home in, for example, Shoreditch or Spitalfields.

“It is going to be fantastically well connected,” he revered.

Read the full article here.

Sealed bids and gazumping return to central London in boost for property market

London buying agents have revealed how an increasing number of clients have been looking for ‘Brexit bargains’ in recent weeks.

Covered in a new article in The Standard, Black Brick Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell offered her thoughts as one of London’s most renowned buying agents for prime property in London:

“We are seeing a return of competitive bidding across the spectrum, particularly on property that is priced correctly in line with the current market.”, she shared.

“We have also seen a return of gazumping. We recently secured a flat in Canary Wharf for a client at £1.48 million. Our initial offer of £1.44 million was accepted but we were gazumped by another buyer who offered £1.5 million. Luckily, we managed to re-agree the sale at the original asking price as our client was a cash buyer.”

Read more in the full article here.

Resist the herd instinct and focus on small developments

“As irresistable as the glossy brochures of large scale housing schemes may be, many home hunters might find a better deal if they focus on smaller, less high-profile developments”

A new article in The Standard this week debates on how people should invest their money into UK property, and we were happy to chime in. As an experienced prime property buying agency in London, we’ve helped countless clients to buy property that will bring them back a great return on investment.

Sharing our insight into rental investment potential, Black Brick Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell said:

“I’d estimate that the proportion of homeowners in smaller, lower density developments in prime locations is around 70 per cent, compared with high density new build developments where more than 70 per cent of buyers will be investors”.

“In contrast”, Camilla continued, “large-scale developments are marketed as a matter of course to speculative investment buyers in Asia, who buy off-plan and want only to trade or rent out their units, not to live in them. The flats in these schemes tend to be smaller, cheaper, relatively standardised units to appeal to that market.”

Read the full article here.