by Zoe Dare Hall. Thoughts of the coming year in the central London property market inspire a curious cocktail of optimism and fear for agents. The market is “on fire”, as Howard Elston, director of Aylesford International, puts it. Foreign buyers will continue to dominate the picture and new areas are becoming magnets for international wealth – Battersea’s vast Nine Elms regeneration area, for example, Marylebone, whose new boutique developments are breaking previous price ceilings and Mayfair, no longer Belgravia’s poor cousin.

But prime London’s market sizzles beneath an ominous shadow: the threatened Mansion Tax. Until the May 2015 election, no one can know exactly what the tax – Labour’s proposed 1 per cent annual levy on homes worth £2m or more – will mean for property values. But Trevor Abrahmsohn, director of Glentree Estates, who sells some of London’s most expensive mansions in Hampstead’s The Bishop’s Avenue, sees it in dramatic terms. “It will drive a coach and horses through the finely balanced dynamics of the residential property market, the like of which has not been seen since the Second World War.”

“Many owners of high value homes aren’t prepared to wait and take the risk, so they’re downsizing in anticipation. That’s a trend that’s likely to continue next year, with more renters likely to target the top end of the London property market as a result, says Camilla Dell, partner at Black Brick buying agency. “But non-doms will continue to flood in, despite a new capital gains tax on profits from April 2015,” she adds of the new announcement that overseas investors in UK property will have to pay tax on any profits.

Among those non doms, Chinese buyers will come to the fore in London next year, says Rachel Thompson, a partner in The Buying Solution, branching out from the new-build riverfront developments that have typically attracted them to more traditional period properties, while Middle Eastern buyers will increasingly diversify to the commercial sector.

For those with aspirations of digging deep in Kensington & Chelsea or Westminster, 2014 will be the year to do it before their local councils – who are already clamping down on mega-basement conversions – put a stop to the practice entirely.

As for areas on the up, the South Bank is “the most exciting contemporary urban quarter” and firmly on the prime central London map now, according to Savills, who predict 25 per cent growth over the next five years. New projects include South Bank Tower, an overhaul of the 1970s King’s Reach Tower, where 173 flats will launch in Spring from £650,000 through Savills and CBRE.

The South Bank’s competition will come from The Strand, soon to be rebranded “North Bank” and to become a “world class destination”, according to Ben Babington from Jackson-Stops & Staff, who are marketing the new 353 The Strand development, with apartments costing from £2.35m. Neighbouring Covent Garden and the “city fringe” are also part of the WC2 overhaul and will see buyers migrate from the likes of Mayfair.

Overseas, residency will be the buzzword in 2014. Following in Portugal’s footsteps, Spain recently launched its “golden visa” scheme, offering residency to non-EU nationals in return for at least €500,000 in Spanish property. Malta has introduced a new Global Residence Programme for non-EU nationals and similar incentives are taking off in the Caribbean, where the success of St Kitts’ citizenship programme has driven Antigua and Grenada to launch similar schemes. Barbados is also making it easier for buyers to invest by relaxing the amount of time they can stay without needing to renew their visas.

Spain will be hoping for some light at the end of the tunnel, now that it’s officially out of recession. Bill Gates has shown a vote of confidence by investing in the Spanish construction industry FCC and Ibiza’s property market is set to continue to fly next year, with British buyers back in force. “But don’t expect any bargains,” says Alex Vaughan from Lucas Fox. “For that, head to Barcelona, the Costa Brava or Marbella, whose markets have seen big price drops but are now recovering.”

Italy – whose luxury property market saw prices fall by up to 20 per cent this year, according to Linda Travella from Casa Travella estate agency – is hoping to tempt investors by reducing buying costs from January (you’ll save around €12,000 on a €1m home) and Tuscany will be the place for Italian bargains, says Paul Belcher from Ultissimo. “The large supply of luxury properties, some at distressed prices, will put the brakes on price rises for at least another year,” he says.

So, mixed fortunes await in London and incentives galore are on offer in weaker markets abroad. Where will you invest?

Fierce competition for property has brought back a much-loathed spectre of boomtime, and not just in London by Ed Cumming

You have endured the estate agents’ pointy shoes and tiny cars, and at last found a home you can imagine settling in. You’ve worked out the finances. Taking a deep breath, you’ve made an offer, perhaps haggled a bit over the price, and had the offer accepted. There have been months of stress, but you are finally set to exchange. Mentally, you are already in the removal van and plotting a trip to Ikea, when the call comes. Someone has made a higher offer. All that hard work is undone in an instant.

Being gazumped is probably the most infuriating thing that can happen to a house-hunter. It was a tell-tale feature of the booms in the Nineties and Noughties, but since the financial crisis of 2008 it has been much less common. Vendors have struggled to find any bidders for their property, let alone more than one.

Yet parts of the market, particularly in central London, are now steaming ahead. According to Rightmove, prices in the capital increased by one per cent in October. The average asking price went up to £544,232. Analyst Hometrack estimates that in the same period there was a two per cent increase in the number of buyers registered with agents, while the number of properties on the market fell 1.6 per cent. Buyers are paying 95.2 per cent of the asking price, nearly back to the 2007 peak of 95.7 per cent.

The Government’s Help to Buy scheme, which guarantees mortgages for first-time and new-build buyers up to £600,000, is only fanning the flames. Since the scheme launched last month, it has already boosted demand.

As a consequence of all this, competitive bidding on properties big and small has become a common occurrence once more. Returning with it has been its ugly sister, the gazump.

“Gazumping is well and truly back, and with force,” says Caspar Harvard-Walls of buying agency Black Brick. “The last time we experienced a market like this was in the heady days of 2007. Back then, fierce competition was mainly confined to Knightsbridge and Belgravia. Now it is happening much further outside the traditional core prime central market. This is partly because buyers have been priced out of super prime and are looking further afield. But also there is a constant lack of supply of sensibly priced, well-located properties that aren’t in some ways compromised.”

One factor is the influx of foreign money to the capital. Favourable tax laws, combined with the capital’s evergreen attractions, mean that overseas buyers are prepared to pay a premium – and act fast – to secure a piece of the action.

“Two weeks ago, we had an apartment in Portland Place that was under offer to a local British buyer,” says Simon Deen of Aston Chase. “They were gazumped by a Chinese buyer, who exchanged contracts within 72 hours of seeing the apartment, and 48 hours from when her solicitor received papers. She was buying the flat for her daughter, who will be studying in London.”

To those in the heat of things, the new intensity of the market can be challenging. Lea Karasavvas, a London-based mortgage broker, was gazumped three times in 48 hours last week, on properties that proved the situation has spread beyond central London. In Clapham and Earlsfield, in south-west London, offers on two-bedroom flats around the £550,000 mark were beaten by offers £30,000 and £40,000 higher than the asking prices. In Guildford, meanwhile, a four-bedroom house was beaten by an offer £20,000 higher.

“What’s unusual is that these clients could hardly be better prepared,” Lea says. “They have done everything you are supposed to do: they’re chain-free, with decisions-in-principle for mortgages and all their documents are ready to go. But still they are getting gazumped. It’s a sign of an overheated market: in some ways it’s a good thing, of course, but it is very frustrating for the people involved. They are doing everything right; they’re just being pipped by the aggression of the market.”

In certain parts of the countryside, too, gazumping is making a comeback. According to agents, the market there is behaving even more oddly than in town.

“I have seen a marked increase in gazumping this year at the top end of the country house market,” says Edward Heaton of Heaton & Partners. “What has been unusual is that houses which have sat for several months suddenly find themselves with two or three prospective buyers. It often begs the question why the buyers didn’t get on and try to secure the house earlier, rather than waiting until someone else makes a bid. It’s almost as if they need the reassurance that someone else likes the house. Inevitably this leads to one or more parties being disappointed.”

Estate agents usually work for the vendor, of course, not the buyer. Gazumping might not be polite, but if it gets a higher price for the property on sale – and a bigger fee for the agent – they will not be complaining.

“The property conveyancing system in this country allows a period of time for the buyer to carry out his due diligence before exchanging,” explains Howard Elston of Aylesford International. “If you want to minimise the chances of being gazumped, get ‘your ducks in a row’ before you make an offer. Speed is what every vendor wants to see to be convinced that you are serious. Consider offering a non-refundable deposit to get a lockout agreement. The ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ is a thing of the past. In London, the values have reached such dizzy heights; the more time you give a vendor the more you face the possibility of losing the property.”

If it all sounds a bit ruthless, then it is the new reality in London and parts of the South East. If you want to guarantee not being gazumped, perhaps your only option is to head to the North or parts of Scotland, where the market has yet to bounce back in the same way. But if you are joining the masses squabbling for a tiny number of properties in the most desirable areas, different rules apply. Be fast, be prepared, and hope for the best.

Thinking of moving?

Have all your finance ready before you offer. Cash trumps all, but mortgage agreements in place can help speed things along.

Chain-free deals can move much faster than properties in a chain.

Exchange as fast as possible. Make sure your solicitors know that you are keen to close.

Be direct with the agent. Clear communication adds credibility to your offer.

Say that your offer is conditional on an exclusive basis, depending on the property being withdrawn from the market as soon as your offer has been accepted.

Consider a formal lockout agreement. This is legally binding and designed to protect both parties, but can take a while to draw up.

Offer a non-refundable deposit to the vendor, guaranteeing the sale unless the buyer pulls out for different reasons.

Fashion shoots, hired Bentleys, new kitchens… There are no half measures when it’s time to sell, says Zoe Dare Hall

Some may consider its money to burn, but Cire Trudon candles that cost up to £700 a pop are merely the finishing touch for interior designer Nicola Fontanella, who completed the £1million redesign of a Regent’s Park mansion, now on sale for £42million.

Fontanella, founder of Argent Design, commissions almost every piece bespoke for her clients. On the stairs of Lethbridge House on Cornwall Terrace, for example, as well as an original Lowry seascape, there’s an £80,000 hand-cut Venetian crystal chandelier. Known for her Hollywood staircases, she has chosen a design in white onyx with illuminated Lalique panels for the house, and she is keen on exotic skins, stingray decorates everything from desktops to drawers. The walls are coated in cashmere wallpaper and wood pilasters are wrapped in lacquered goatskin, hand-dyed by craftsmen in Columbia. “The minute you enter the driveway to a property, every detail has been designed for a purpose. I can go to four countries for one piece of furniture,’ says Fontanella, whose clients include Madonna.

Vendors and developers will go to extraordinary lengths to sell a luxury lifestyle through soft furnishings and designer accessories. ‘You stock the fridge with goodies from Fortnum & Mason, hire a Bentley for the driveway and say “look how we live”, says Mark Crampton from buying agent Middleton Advisors, who sees plenty such ploys in his North Surrey patch, including St George’s Hill and Virginia Water.

Selling a lifestyle

Styling doesn’t necessarily stop at the property, either. Sometimes it involves providing a new whole identity for the owner, too, as Lucy Powel’s from Brahm Interiors discovered. “The day after buying a London house from a developer, one overseas client asked for all the soft furnishings to be reinstalled as the place didn’t feel the same without them. He also asked us to buy his clothes (he gave us his sizes) and CD collection and tells him where to eat and which members’ clubs to join. We created the ultimate style profile for him,’ says Powles.

‘Every brand that goes into the property is crucial to forming the profile of this inspirational life. We’ve worked with clients who hire everything from Steinways to beautiful women for the photo shoot. Vendors wish potential purchasers to walk around thinking, “I want to be the guy who lives here.”

Spending tens of thousands dressing a home to sell it may seem a pointless expense, especially when the new owner starts from scratch when they move in, but it is common practice. James Wyatt of Barton Wyatt estate agents recalls the buyer of a mansion on the Wentworth Estate in Surrey. “The owners could not sell for £3.75million, so spent £1.5million on remodelling the property. It sold for £6millionto a local couple who promptly ripped everything out, including the new £100,000 kitchen.”

But a certain level of styling is considered essential to set one multimillion-pound property apart from another. That means Chloe clothing and Louboutin shoes in the wardrobes (luxury brands loan items for the right calibre of project) and other hints of grandeur such as stationary embossed with the address, using a logo that is echoed in the frieze of the coving and monogrammed towels.

Daniel Kostiuc, who runs the interior design house Intarya, was called in to transform a small tired Kensington mews house specifically to sell. “The owner spent more than £100,000 on removing walls and converting the basement and we used a lot of glass, mirrors and slim line furniture to make it look bigger than its 1,000 Sq Ft. It sold instantly for double the amount the owner had paid for it a year before,” says Kostiuc, whose signature style includes £2,000 embroidered cushions, silk damask on the walls and hand-painted murals.

One Chelsea owner had a similar windfall when he called in the architect Hugo Tugman to make his ground/ basement-floor flat appear more inviting. “We removed some of the floor, turning the basement into a funky, double-height space and the flat sold instantly for £3million – twice what he had paid before the project,” says Tugman.

He adds, “Viewing is an emotional process- most people react to what’s in front of them, rather than being able to see what the property could look like.”

The owners of a house in Belgravia were hoping for that knee-jerk reaction to their eye for design, having spent £150,000 on dressing and refurbishing their property. This work added approximately £1million to its value, according to Simon Godson, partner at WA Ellis, which marketed the house for £7.25million.

Room Service

Added value may not always be quantifiable, but styling can make the difference between selling or not. Russell & Cheryl Agius, both actuaries in their early forties, built The Glade, a neo Georgian six bedroom mansion in Kingswood, Surrey, less than five years ago. When they decided to sell it – for £2million – they spent 10 per cent of the build costs on refurnishing the house, so that it was in line with brand-new properties on the market. “It’s no use building a Rolls Royce then dressing it in cheap seat covers,” says Russell, who sourced “classic meets contemporary” furniture from Italy and shipped it over.

Although some homes can be styled with a specific client in mind – for example, a £10million apartment in an Italianate Holland Park mansion might have a dark palette and marble features throughout to attract Middle Eastern or Russian buyers – high end show-home dressing can nonetheless start to look a bit formulaic. That’s why interior designer Louisa Grey travels the world to source one off objects that will inject personality into a client’s home.

“House styling has made the same transition as Victoria Beckham. It’s more about being refined and natural than flash and showy these days” says Grey, who adds that a Moroccan wedding blanket or Larusi rug, specially made for the house, are ideal statement pieces.

She is about to put her talents to the test as she prepares to sell her own three storey Islington House. Every room has been repainted, uplifting aromatherapy oils are dotted around and in, the bathroom, Pantene products have been replaced with Aesop toiletries and hammam towels – with her partner under strict instructions not to use anything. “The last thing buyers want to see is towels that have been used in the morning,” says Grey.

A vital consideration is that prospective buyers know where the dressing ends and your real life begins. “One African client bought a flat in Marylebone and negotiated the price on everything in it, including the owner’s laptop,” says Camilla Dell of buying agency Black Brick.

Would you buy a house on Friday 13?

Superstitions can be a deciding factor when hunting for the perfect home. Here, estate agents reveal some of the most unusual superstitious behavior they’ve seen.

Ben Everest, partner at LDG: “The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture, so we see a lot of offers incorporating that figure, e.g. one property on the market for £595,000 went under offer at £5,888,888.”

Jo Eccles, director of Sourcing Property: “We have a surprising number of buyers who won’t exchange or complete on Friday 13 due to superstition.

“We also once had a client who wouldn’t buy property with certain door numbers – to the point where she wouldn’t even view a property which had the wrong door number, even if it was perfect. In the end, we settled with a compromise where the residents in the Mayfair block she bought gave permission for her to remove the flat number from her door, and also from the letterbox in the communal hallway.”

Camilla Dell, director of Black Brick: “Asian buyers, particularly the Chinese, are superstitious about numbers which greatly impacts on a property search. The majority of these buyers won’t purchase anything with the numbers 4, 17, 19, and 53. However, properties numbered 1, 2, 6, 8, and 68 are deemed lucky, and are therefore desirable. Believe it or not, these things can significantly influence the search and what property we end up securing for our clients.”

Julia Price, sales and marketing director at Pentland Homes: “A couple who have recently moved into a property at our development in Kent have purchased over 20 homes, and say they have only had good experiences living in even numbered properties, compared to their experiences in odd ones.”

Camilla Dell, director of Black Brick: “Vastu Shastra is an ancient doctrine that bases its designs on directional alignments, and is hugely important to our Indian client base. The vast majority of London properties do not comply with Vastu, making finding the right property almost an impossible task. Many of our Indian clients will therefore buy off plan, so they can influence the positioning of certain rooms to ensure they face in the right direction.”

Richard Barber, partner at W.A.Ellis: “Historically, feng shui has played a matter of importance for Chinese buyers. They much prefer waterside properties as this indicates positive feng shui and creates a feeling of harmony and nourishment within the property.”

Now for the good mews

Enterprising owners, architects and developers are bringing mews houses into the 21st century, with stunning results, says Christopher Middleton

We ought to look down on mews houses. After all, they were designed for horses and servants: inferior accommodation, hidden from view behind the main house. But we don’t. In fact, quite the opposite has happened. London mews are some of the capital’s most desirable addresses: pretty, peaceful and almost uniquely British. Neither are they static pieces of architectural history. Enterprising developers are turning these most traditional of buildings into stunning 21st-century homes, and buyers cannot get enough of them.

Simon Fenwick’s home on Princes Mews, Bayswater, is just such an example. It looks textbook from the outside. Go inside, however, and you walk off the cobbled street into an airy, open-plan room, more modern art gallery than parlour.

Look down, and you can see through a glass floor into the basement; look up, and you can see through a series of transparent stairs and skylights, to the sky. It’s as un-Victorian as you can get, as indeed is the price tag: a shade under £2.7 million. Not that this is London’s most expensive mews house by any means. One is going in Belgravia for £7.5 million, while if you want a big house for yourself and somewhere handy for the servants, then £25 million will secure you a mansion-with-mews combination in Cadogan Square, Knightsbridge.

In fact, such is our love of these peculiar little streets that it’s increasingly hard to find a mews property for less than £1 million, and that’s not just in the more famous postcodes. There is a mews house in North Kensington, next to a petrol station and beneath the Westway flyover. Its price? £1.45 million. Proof, if more were needed, that mews houses are having a Cinderella moment. Estate agents can’t get enough of them on their books.

“Across prime central London, there is a real shortage of mews houses. Competition is fierce,” says Camilla Dell, managing partner at Black Brick, a property-search agency. “We had an Italian client recently who was looking for a secure second home in London, but we found that many apartment buildings wouldn’t accept her dog. In the end, the solution was to buy her a lovely mews house near Hyde Park, for £2.78 million. But we had to pay the asking price and move quickly.”

Many buyers are reaching the same conclusion, also reasoning that the freehold you often get on a mews house is a better bet than the leasehold common with other high-end London residences.

“With a freehold , buyers can lock up and leave the house as they want, because they don’t have a huge annual service charge,” says Alan Waxman. His firm, Landmass, has just spent two years converting a house in Belgrave Mews North. Freeholders also have greater scope for building works. Another factor that sets mews properties apart is just how British they are. New York and Paris boast town houses and apartment blocks the equal of any in London, but they have far fewer mews. For many, this is part of the streets’ appeal, but they are not for everyone. “By and large, most Russian and Middle Eastern buyers don’t wish to be seen buying properties where the horses and servants were once kept,” says Richard Barber, head of W A Ellis.

Oliver Lurot, of Savills, agrees: “These properties appeal most to the English or, at least to anglophiles. We like our own little castle, with our own front door, and not having neighbours stomping around above and beside us. “Foreign buyers only live in a mews house for a short space of time, as a rental. They want the quaint, English life, but for a limited time only.”

Mews living has some drawbacks, of course: chiefly, the lack of a garden and light. Mews used to be famously dingy. Agents in Belgravia or Bayswater speak of the sinking feeling they can get in a mews basement, when the client asks to see what the place looks like when the lights are switched off. Not a problem at Princes Mews, says Simon Fenwick, whose transparent design lets him work in the basement. That said, it took complete gutting and redesign of the house to make that possible. “When I bought this place, it had been let out to students for some years and it was uninhabitable,” he recalls. “There were holes in the roof, and brick floors on which the horses used to stand. “Now there are four floors instead of two, the ceilings in the non-bedroom floors are 2.7 metres high. I have fitted soundproofing all round and spent £25,000 on Danish wood flooring.” As well as all manner of architectural and engineering cunning, and building the street’s only roof terrace on the top of No 48 Belgrave Mews North, the developer Alan Waxman has deployed a series of interior design exclusives: a set of 10 photographs from the collection of the late director Michael Winner, as well as a £40,000 steel-and-crystal glass grandfather clock (only other owner, the Queen).

“When you have a more compact property like a mews house,” he explains, “you provide added value by applying your imagination and by creating extra space.” To this end, he has boosted the square footage from 1,750 to 2,720. “In many ways, designing a mews house is more akin to designing a yacht than a property”, says Oliver Lurot. “You’re working with limited space, and in many cases, you don’t have windows either at the back of the house or the sides.” Often, too, the original structure of the house can be 100 years old or more, adding further complexity.

Not at St Barnabas Mews, in Pimlico, though. This group of eight mews houses was constructed not in 1908, but 2008, on the site of a former antiques warehouse. Walk down St Barnabas Street, SW1, and the only clue to the existence of this new mews is a small, electronically operated gate between numbers 23 and 27, where No 25 should stand. Activate this gate and you find yourself in an extraordinary 21st-century mews. Children play in the cobbled street. Cars are hidden away in a subterranean car park. Press a button first thing in the morning, and your vehicle will be brought to the surface by lift. “Traditionally, mews houses haven’t been attractive to families, because they’re rather small and cramped, and don’t have gardens,” says Sorrel Basher, who works for London’s biggest owner of mews homes, Grosvenor Properties (founded 1677). “Here, though, we have made full use of lateral space. There’s more room inside, and the gated street is safe for children to play in.” Of course, the weekly rent here (£1,800) is 21st, rather than 19th century.

For all their modern adornments, mews houses appeal because they still offer a more old-fashioned way of life. In the heart of prime London, they offer something like an old village street. People know their neighbours, and aren’t constantly disturbed by traffic. “Living here is an extremely sociable experience,” says Simon Fenwick. “There are families dotted up and down the street, we have a proper street party every year. Because it’s a dead end, there are no cars driving through. What’s more, everyone keeps an eye out for each other. They’ll often pop their heads in if they’re passing your front door. It is what London life used to be like. Only without the discomforts.” All the benefits of the capital’s rich history, in short, together with privacy and gorgeous contemporary finishes. Small wonder that the servants’ quarters now belong to the masters.

By Denise Roland

Investors have rushed in to reserve luxury homes planned for the revamped Battersea Power Station, with 600 of the 800 properties already claimed after just five days on the market.

The buyers are the first to advance on the redevelopment of south-west London’s iconic behemoth where the price tag per square foot exceeds £1,000.

Investors paid reservation fees of around £2,500 for each of the properties, which ranged from one-bedroom flats to townhouses, with river-facing penthouses commanding the highest asking price of more than £6m.

Overseas buyers will be courted in coming weeks during various international sales exhibitions, following the market launch in London last Thursday.

The wave of enthusiasm from buyers puts Battersea Power Station Development Company chief executive Rob Tincknell comfortably on his way to meeting an ambitious target to sell all 800 properties by the time construction starts in September 2013.

Strong investor interest in the historic site is believed to signal a move outside the traditional prime London housing market as supplies in prestigious neighbourhoods like Kensington and Chelsea dwindle.
“Battersea isn’t prime central London and prices are already in excess of £1,000 per square foot,” Camilla Dell, founder of broker Black Brick Property Solutions LLP, told Bloomberg.

“So investors are betting on prices reaching similar levels to prime, which is a gamble.”

The redevelopment, by a trio of Malaysian giants – SP Setia, Sime Darby and the Employee’s Provident Fund – comes after nearly three decades of dereliction for Battersea Power Station, considered a prime example of 1930s Art Deco architecture.

Construction work on the site will involve the removal and individual rebuilding of the four iconic white chimneys of the Grade-II building, to avoid their possible collapse due to corrosion.

Preparatory work on the site began in 2012, with the first properties are expected to be completed by 2016.

The Property Power List

You can’t measure influence like you can cash in the bank. But the 25 entries on our list represent a cross-section of the most important people working in the selling and buying of British homes. It includes those who work in the property field day-to-day, as well as those who exert their power from the fringes. Some are royal, some are wealthy, some are titled and many most definitely are not. All of them play a crucial role in how and where we live, as well as how much we pay. With the property market set for another turbulent year, their position in British society is as central as ever.

1. Sir Terence Conran
Designer, restaurateur, 80
In those dark, long-away days, a home was a place that merely accommodated you, rather than impressed other people. Then Conran brought the world Habitat, providing stylish sofas and chicken bricks for whole generations of first-time flat-buyers in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. As those young people became more well-heeled, he supplied them with up market furniture (Conran Stores) as well as places to eat (Bibendum and Quaglino’s). British homes today just wouldn’t look the same without him.

2. Lord Rogers
Architect, 78
Richard Rogers’s Pompidou Centre in Paris was the first high-profile structure to wear its innards on the outside. Pipes, flues and ducts became design features, rather than ugly embarrassments. While not exactly transforming the face of Britain’s suburban streets, Rogers’s philosophy made a huge impression on designers both interior and exterior, still in evidence today. Its latest manifestation is Neo Bankside, the four block apartment development overlooking the Tate Modern, where stainless steel, screwdriver-like supports on the outside make way for fewer supporting walls (and thus more space) on the inside. Now 35 years old, the Rogers practice is today called RSH, to include fellow-directors Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour.

3. Prince Charles
Heir to the throne, 63
When the Prince of Wales built his dream village of Poundbury, just outside Dorchester, he was mocked by some architectural and social commentators. They looked down on the idea of a newly built, “instant” community. In his defense, the Prince said he wanted to “create urban areas that encourage a sense of community and pride of place, and which will foster the wellbeing of those who live there.” While some people still retain a snooty attitude towards the concept, increasing numbers of developers now seek not to plonk new homes in the middle of nowhere, but to provide schools, shops and sports facilities to go with them. For instance, Kings Hill (near West Malling in Kent) was a disused airfield. Now it is a thriving community. As for influence, just look at the size of spanner the Prince put into the works when he didn’t like the proposed new development at Chelsea Barracks.

4. Phil Spencer
Home finder, television presenter, 42
Unlike a lot of television presenters, Phil Spencer has actually worked in the property field. He set up his house-search firm Garrington Home Finders in 1996, when Location, Location, Location was just a phrase, rather than a television programme. Since then, there have been 16 series of the show, plus numerous spin-offs. While onscreen partner Kirstie Allsopp plays the more intuitive, foot-in-the-door role, Phil embodies the facts-and figures approach. As per his books Adding Value to Your Home and How to Buy Your First Home.

5. Kevin McCloud
Designer and apostle of self-build, 53
Kevin has almost single-handedly transformed what could have been dismissed as a minor, crackpot hobby (building your own home) into a thriving industry. His television show Grand Designs has run to seven series, spawning Grand Designs Live exhibitions up and down the country. His latest book is called 43 Principles of Home, and his design firm is called Happiness Architecture Beauty (HAB). In the same way that the Grand Designs building projects stay just the right side of madness, so McCloud manages to stay just the right side of pretentiousness.

6. Kirstie Allsopp
Television presenter, writer, 40
Never was a human being more suited to house hunting than Kirstie, a woman blessed at birth by the no-nonsense fairy. Like Phil Spencer, she started up a home search agency (Notting Hill). She established a reputation for tenacity and toughness, matched only by nosiness and an insatiable interest in other people’s homes. Pre-Kirstie, the traditional UK house-hunting mindset was all about you versus the vendors, but she has shown what can be gained by adopting the hitherto unthinkable approach of being (shock, horror) nice to estate agents. Then wheedling out information with gifts of fresh latte.

7. Duke of Westminster
Landowner, 60
In the great Monopoly game of life, the player who’s been dealt the best cards is Gerald Grosvenor. He owns not just Mayfair and Park Lane, but substantial amounts of Belgravia, too. The most recent annual report for the Grosvenor Group shows that it made pre-tax profits of £394.8million, and had property assets worth £5.46billion. All from 300 acres of land which came into the family around 1677, and was mainly swamp. Far from being known as the cruel-hearted squire, though, the Duke has a reputation for taking an interest in the community, not just the cash. When Waitrose got permission to open a branch in Knightsbridge, they were forbidden to sell newspapers and greetings cards. This was in case it affected the newsagent’s business just up the road.

8. Simon Thurley
Chief executive, English Heritage, 46
With the Government making noises about how local planning authorities should have a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, Thurley is cast in the role of the white knight defending the countryside. In all, there are 374,081 listed buildings in England, most belonging to ordinary home-owners. While many of them complain about the pettifogging excesses of the heritage “police”, few argue that protection of the past is not important. What’s more, Thurley is a paid-up historic home dweller himself. He lives in a medieval merchant’s house in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

9. Chancellor of the Exchequer
Currently George Osborne, 40
At a stroke, the puller of the purse strings can make the property market dance to his tune. With one hand, he can dish out a stamp duty vacation, with the other he can launch a stamp duty vendetta against those trying to get out of paying that particular tax. The biggest task facing him at the moment, of course, is how to get young people onto the property ladder. First it was First Buy, now it’s New Buy – but could we soon be saying goodbye to Britain as a nation of home owners

10. Lucian Cook
Director of residential search, Savills estate agents, 40
Lucian became a land agent after doing a land economy degree at Cambridge. As well as being principal author of the firm’s quarterly market review Focus, he has established a beyond-in-house reputation. He came up with a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies, entitled Taxing Mansions, in which he wrote: “Recent proposals for a ‘mansion tax’ claim that it would be a precisely targeted and efficient tax that would be paid only by the very wealthy. And that high-value residential property makes an unfairly modest contribution to tax receipts. These claims are flawed.” Guess what? The mansion tax idea was dropped in the Budget, in favour of a stamp duty rise on properties above £2million.

11. Liam Bailey and Grainne Gilmore
Property analysts, Knight Frank estate agents, 40 and 36
Twin fonts of wisdom and statistics at up market estate agents Knight Frank. She’s an economics journalist who produces report on London property, particularly on builder and buyer attitudes. He’s head of residential research, and as well as pronouncing on current market conditions, carries out bespoke research projects on behalf of developers, investors and funders. Both are tangible evidence that the top-end estate agent these days needs more than pinstriped suits and swanky offices in Belgravia.

12. Nick and Christian Candy
Interior designers and development managers, 38 and 37
Of the two somewhat publicity shy siblings, the more visible is Nick, who did human geography at Reading, then worked for KPMG and J Walter Thompson. They started out in the Nineties, buying an Earl’s Court flat with £6,000 from their grandmother, doing it up and then selling it for a £50,000 profit. Now Candy and Candy have gone global (Russia, Qatar, Dubai, Nigeria), and clients include Kylie Minogue, Lakshmi Mittal and Gwyneth Paltrow. A Monaco penthouse they redesigned sold for a reported £200million. Their greatest London hits include 21 Chesham Place, a former telephone exchange in Belgravia (apartments £10million-plus), and One Hyde Park (current asking price £18.5million for a three bedroom apartment).

13. Lord Linley
Furniture and interior designer, 51
Another member of the Royal family who has helped reshape the face of up market UK property, having pioneered the idea of the show-home plus. Instead of hiring random furniture to deck out new build properties, top-of-the-range developers now commission the noble Lord to do a full fit-out. Buyers get the whole set-up, full of Linley-designed pieces. Purchasers are prepared to pay well over the sum-of-the-parts for swanky apartments as well as a dusting of royal design magic, as at big new developments The Lancasters (Bayswater) and The Lakes by Yoo (Cotswolds). With home-design clients now including Oprah Winfrey and perfumer Jo Malone, this has proved a fruitful domestic diversification for Linley from designing hotel rooms and yacht interiors.

14. Tony Pidgley
Chairman, Berkeley Homes, 64
Pidgley is proof that you don’t have to be a public-school-educated smoothie to make it in the property world. A Barnardo’s boy, he was adopted at the age of four by a family of travelers, and raised in a disused railway carriage. He left school at 15, set up a haulage business, became a millionaire five years later, and started Berkeley Homes in 1976. One of the first people to start building non-box-like homes, in response to the bad reputation of new-build housing estates.

15. Paul Shamplina
Founder, Landlord Action, 40
Positioned very much at the sharp end of land lording, Paul Shamplina is the kind of person you want on your side. As well as operating a telephone advice service for owners who’ve got out of their depth, the feisty Mr S operates as a pro-landlord political campaigner and as a very practically minded effecter of evictions. He wants squatting to be made illegal and had carried out 15,000-plus evictions at the last count.

16. Mark Clare
Chief executive, Barratt Developers, 54
Clare took over at Barratt in 2006, after 12 years with British Gas and Centrica. He arrived just in time for the economic crash, resulting in lay-offs throughout the firm, as high levels of debt had to be reduced. Clare has since rescued the company from immediate danger, adopting a policy of quietly buying up land (£1.3billion worth reportedly acquired since May 2009), and building fewer houses (11,000 last year, as against 22,000 pre-crash). At the same time, he improved financial returns (operating profits rose 40 per cent in the last quarter of 2011). Standards remain high, though, as Barratt is the only major developer to have held a Home Builders Federation five-star award for three years running.

17. Ed Mead
Television and radio front man, director, Douglas and Gordon estate agents, 52
Outgoing, motorbike-riding spokesperson-cum-newspaper and magazine contributor, distinctly unconventional. Typical of his all action style is the way he famously once helped Telegraph Property get a scoop by climbing through the first floor Window of a Chelsea mansion. It had been occupied by a squatter who was posing as the owner and accepting payments from would be tenants.

18. Stuart Law
Chief executive, Assetz, 48
Blogger, house-price analyst and founder of Assetz, a private investor organisation which voices the concerns and promotes the interests of 40,000 buy-to-let and would-be buy-to-let investors in the UK. And that figure looks like it’s going to increase over the coming months, as first-time buyers find it hard to get on to the property ladder and are increasingly forced to rent. Not so long ago, buy-to-let was seen as a busted flush; now, it’s landlords who hold all the cards. Especially in London, here average rents are £1,212 a month, compared to the national average of £716.

19. Bob Weston
Founder and chairman of developers Weston Homes, 56
He began the business in a spare room and, 25 years later, has turned it into a company with a £100million-a-year turnover. His developments are concentrated around the edge of the capital and the Home Counties. These new builds are aimed strictly at low-to middle- income earners, with prices ranging from £150,000 to £700,000. Despite being a former conservative parish councilor, he says government policies are preventing the building of affordable housing. An Essex man, the home ground of his local football club, Colchester United, bears his name: the Weston Homes Community Stadium.

20. Alex Michelin and Andrew Dunn
Founders of top-end design and development firm Finchatton, 35 and 36
Their story is not dissimilar to that of the Candy brothers (see entry 12), only Michelin and Dunn were school friends Charterhouse) rather than brothers when they set up their firm 10 years ago. Typically, their first project was in up market Mayfair, and sold for twice what they paid for it. Since then, they’ve gone international, but always in the plusher parts of the globe (Cap Ferrat, Caribbean), and for super-rich clients (e.g. Simon Cowell). They’ve done £840million worth of developments so far, and have £300million worth up-and coming. Projects include a £25million triplex apartment in Chelsea, and a small apartment block (The Lansbury) next door to Harrods.

21. Charlie Ellingworth
Founder, Property Vision, house search agents, 55
It was nearly 30 years ago that Charlie Ellingworth set up Property Vision in order to help cash-heavy but time-light house buyers find a place that matched their dreams and price range. Detachment from the actual business of selling helps Ellingworth retain a more objective view of the property market, as expressed in his entertaining blog musings. So whereas most estate agents are too busy selling to ask any wider questions, Ellingworth dares to question whether it is a good thing that large numbers of high-end homes in central London are being bought by overseas buyers who may only live there for a few weeks per year.

22. Melanie Bien
Mortgage and personal finance expert, 38
Melanie worked for mortgage advisers (Savills) Private Finance, before recently setting up her solo consultancy venture Bien Media. As well as being at home with high finance, she is adept at communicating money matters to the less fiscally clued-up, as demonstrated by the titles of her books – Renting Out Your Property For Dummies and Buying and Selling a Home for Dummies. Famously irked by a Kirstie Allsopp tweet about the shortness of her black dress when appearing on BBC Breakfast. This was gleefully picked up by the tabloids, and presented as a blonde versus brunette spat.

23. Klas Nilsson
Chief executive, Northacre developers, 70
Brought up in Sweden and trained as an architect, Nilsson moved to London in the Seventies. From the beginning, he made a specialty of building new, modern interiors behind original facades. Look at the names of the projects (The Bromptons, The Phillimores, The Lancasters), and you will see they are mostly in up market areas, a short Chihuahua’s walk from Kensington High Street. The secret of Northacre’s success is that rather than just being a firm of builders, it is a three-headed creature, comprising development management (Northacre), interior design (Intarya) and architecture (Nilsson Architects).

24. Camilla Dell
Managing director of Black Brick Property Solutions buying agency, 34
When tough-talking Camilla Dell offers you a property “solution”, she means “bargain”. In the five years since she set up Black Brick, she reckons she has helped buyers from all over the world acquire £300million worth of London property. She gets an average of 10.5 per cent off the asking price each time. She reckons a quarter of those deals have taken place off-market, by putting private sellers in touch with private buyers without the property ever being officially launched on to the market.

25. Lord Foster
Architect, 76
Well into his seventies, over a four decade career Norman Foster has designed a staggering number of the world’s most recognizable structures. From Wembley Stadium with its distinctive arch to 30 St Mary Axe (the “Gherkin” to most) in the City. His style has mellowed slightly over the years: the high-tech, machine-influenced HSBC Main Building in Hong Kong, from 1986, is a world away from the smooth contours of City Hall, by Tower Bridge. But he shows little sign of slowing down. As well as a £50bn proposal for a new airport on the Thames estuary, Foster & Partners is behind the futuristic, circular new Apple headquarters.

By Graham Norwood

From the outside, Carrick Villa looks like a perfect neighbour for the rest of the architecture fringing Regent’s Park in central London.

The villa may be just two storeys, detached and with four bedrooms, but it is at one with the terraces laid out nearly 200 years ago by John Nash. Carrick’s exterior is painted in the same cream as the other 600 properties lining the park and regulated by the Crown Estate. It even has the same crenellations as the larger house next door.

Step inside the villa, however, and you see how mistaken you were. This is no period gem, but a modern one. There are no architraves, ceiling roses, cornices or panelled rooms, which you will find in the rest of the park’s houses. Instead there are modern hardwood floors, smooth lines and walls with keypad-controls and touch-screen panels.

Wander around and you find programmable lighting scenes, a media-room equipment hub and air handling (that’s air conditioning to you and me).

This is a modern wolf in traditional sheep’s clothing. But that, after all, is the point.

“It’s got all the toys inside, but from outside it looks like a period house that was put up with the rest of those around Regent’s Park,” explains Daniel Daggers of selling agent Knight Frank. “Contemporary features are now mandatory in a house at this level of the market in this location. This is why people pay a new-home premium.”

It is quite a premium. At £7 million (Knight Frank, 020 7586 2777; www.knightfrank.com) Carrick Villa is an example of a trend sweeping house building. Homes that look old on the outside yet are strikingly new behind the front door. Properties like these appeal to buyers with an eye for classical design, but who have a fast-moving professional lifestyle ill-suited to the restrictions on improvements that come with the real McCoy.

Some of the new houses following this ”old outside’’ trend use parts of genuine period buildings. These are often large schools, hospitals and offices. Then new flats and houses are built alongside or even within.

Other developers, as with Carrick Villa, build completely from scratch, skilfully making the architecture of the modern building blend in with its older surroundings.

For buyers, the advantages are numerous. Firstly changes can easily be made, from turning a cinema room into a gym or knocking through two rooms to make more space for the family. The genuine period building would probably be listed, making those substantial modifications difficult, at best.

They also come with guarantees for the equipment and usually for the structure, too. This is reassuring, even for affluent buyers.

“Many international clients love period features, but are fearful of buying properties that are very old. The perception is there’s a higher chance of something going wrong,” says Camilla Dell of Black Brick, a buying agency that finds homes for high-net-worth purchasers, often from overseas.

“New-build property that replicates period styles offers the perfect compromise,” says Simon Barnes, another buying agent.

There is no shortage of evidence that the trend is catching on. For example, house builder St George is constructing a scheme of 90 flats and houses in what, at first sight, appears to be a Georgian terrace at Camberwell, south London. In the main, however, these are new-builds.

“It was important for us that the scheme retained the distinctive character of the original buildings and respected the conservation area in which it stands,” says St George’s Mark Griffiths.

There are plenty of other examples, often in areas rich in ”real’’ period and vernacular architecture where local planners have forced developers to emulate traditional design.

Retirement developer Beechcroft, for example, has built houses for the over-55s at Stow-on-the-Wold using traditional Cotswold stone, giving the scheme a 19th-century look (£395,000 to £465,000, 01451 833809; www.beechcroft.co.uk).

At Cleveland Court, situated between the commuter towns of Dorking and Leatherhead, a development of 15 homes has been built as a grand Georgian house. The whole scheme sits in four acres of parkland with views to Box Hill (£575,000, Savills, 01483 796810; www.savills.com).

“This combination of old appearance and new construction is a good thing,” Daggers says. “It gives people established style and modern convenience. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Pros

Little maintenance for first few years
Well-equipped, well-planned
Good energy efficiency
Often with parking

Cons

Rooms can be small, particularly spare bedrooms
Gardens are sometimes small
Style can lack character, especially inside
Often ”thin’’ walls, so limited sound insulation

By Graham Norwood

The election could bring house sales to a halt at what is traditionally the busiest time of year. Graham Norwood offers tips for sellers and finds bargains for buyers.

Last week’s report that the housing market could be facing a double-dip recession, with March showing the slowest rise in prices for eight years, is hardly buoying to the spirits. To add to our woes is the impending election, which, experts predict, could bring the housing market’s traditional spring sales-fest to a complete halt.

Rightmove, the housing website, says that the rise in prices in England and Wales was the lowest it has ever recorded for the month, in part because of a surge in people putting their home up for sale. While that could be a nightmare for anxious vendors, lucky buyers could get a home at a bargain price. But will it make any difference to the housing market whether it’s Dave or Gord in No 10 after May? And what should buyers and sellers be doing in the meantime?

There is growing speculation that next week’s Budget will be followed quickly by the calling of the general election; from then until well after polling day, if the past is anything to go by, buyers will sit on their hands.

Analysis of sales since 2003 by housing market commentator Henry Pryor shows that 25.3 per cent of British annual house transactions occur during the March-May period, so in theory the election could slow or halt a quarter of 2010’s sales.

But the worry now is that the belt-tightening likely to be announced by the new government — of whatever colour — will prolong market torpor well into the summer and even beyond. Worse still, a hung parliament may result in a second election in late 2010, further delaying house sales and a wider market recovery.

Even before the election gets under way, there are some signs that the underlying position of the market is not as strong as some have believed.

Hometrack, which analyses data from 1,600 estate agents offices in England and Wales, shows recent price rises occurred in fewer than 30 per cent of postcode areas — more than in the bleak periods of 2008 and 2009 but far below the 45 per cent seen before the downturn, or the remarkable 80 per cent seen back in the heady days of 2004 and 2005.

Until recent weeks there was a shortage of homes on sale compared to buyers, right across Britain, but evidence suggests the reverse is now true. A photographer hired by many London estate agents reports a 40 per cent rise in business — meaning more homes are on sale now. Likewise buying agents, often tipped off about homes before they go on sale to the public, report their email inboxes filling with new instructions.

At the same time, the prospect of a too-close-to-call election this spring is deterring buyers.

“Forecast budget cuts and potential tax rises are causing many prospective purchasers to wait and see. The sooner an election, the better,” says Alex McNeil of Bramleys estate agency in Calderdale, Yorkshire.

“Too many uncertainties are causing an uneasy feeling among buyers. Get the election done as soon as possible,” pleads Mike Sarson of TW Gaze estate agency in Suffolk and Norfolk.

HOUSE SELLING ADVICE

“Sellers in an uncertain market should do three things,” says David Adams of Chesterton Humberts estate agency. “They can have more open days, have larger and better brochures, and finally they should get the agent to take out more national or regional advertising.”

These are tactics being pursued by Nigel and Gillian McCartney, who live near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. They say they must sell by the summer, whatever the state of the property market. They own a five-bedroom farmhouse, with six more bedrooms in a separate barn and cottage, which they run as a b & b (applemount.co.uk), and their property has more than six acres of land.

“We live on the edge of the catchment area for a school that’s just won an excellent rating from Ofsted,” says Nigel, a telecommunications consultant. The house is for sale at £1.45 million through Savills (01284 731100).

HOUSE BUYING ADVICE

However, the McCartneys may have to fend off predatory house purchasers if the market struggles during the next few months.

“Buyers must exploit the election. They must know what drives a vendor to sell when the market is slowing — is it a death in the family, debt, or some other issue that means they must move fast, come what may?” says Tracy Kellett of BDI Homefinders, a buying agency.

“Information is king and when you know how urgently a vendor needs to sell, you can negotiate accordingly. There are opportunities for buyers if they do their homework.”

But opportunistic buyers should act quickly. Many agents believe the long-term consequence of more straitened times after the election will be that sellers and buyers alike will sit on their hands until economic improvement; homes will be withdrawn from sale and moving plans will be deferred for one, two or three years.

“In the past people have voted for one party or another hoping it’ll get in and leave them alone. The difference now is we know whoever wins, they’ll be after us for tax rises and spending cuts,” David Adams says.

“What that may do to the property market is an unknown quantity — and rather worrying.”

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE MARKET AFTER THE ELECTION:

Lucian Cook, Savills “Without doubt, and probably regardless of which party wins, an outright majority would be the best outcome for the housing market. Sellers expecting to cash in on a perceived demand-supply imbalance could be disappointed. Buyers may have an opportunity to bid in a less fiercely competitive market, but should not expect a rush of stock to the market.”

Robert Bailey, buying agent “Foreign buyers are capitalising on sterling’s weakness and we predict this will continue, especially if a hung parliament contributes to the pound’s woes. Long term, the central London housing market will continue to do well. Recent months have shown that people will tolerate higher taxation rates in exchange for the quality of life available in London.”

Mark McAndrew, Strutt & Parker “We reckon the market is going to kick off with a vengeance after the election. Over the past few months it’s been an excuse to sit tight and not do anything.”

Drew Wotherspoon, John Charcol “With the result of the general election not quite the forgone conclusion it was a few months ago, we are likely to see a negative effect on mortgage pricing, particularly fixed rates. The markets simply cannot abide uncertainty. So, while all logic dictates that variable-rate mortgages are still the product of choice for most, with pricing around 2.5 per cent better than fixed-rates, there is an argument for battening down the hatches now and locking into a fixed rate for at least five years.”

Tom Hudson, country buying agent, Middleton Advisers “Historically, the general election has had very little effect on the country house market. It generates more hype rather than having any real impact. If anything it is the pre-budget period which tends to be more intrusive on the market, as any stamp duty increase will always have a major impact on decision-making.”

Camilla Dell, buying agent, Black Brick “If Labour wins, it’s possible that prices will go down. Some high net worth individuals may relocate and move out of the UK as a result of tax rises. But if it’s the Tories, prices may also fall. They are likely to cut public spending more aggressively than Labour. If there’s a hung parliament and the pound plummets, then international investors will pile into the London property market.”

Penny Court, Beauchamp Estates “The best thing that will happen if the Tories win is that HIPs will be abolished and, once a deal is agreed, the need to get an energy performance certificate will be held off until a later stage in the sale. This will certainly increase the flow of properties coming to the market from timorous vendors, which in turn will open up the market in terms of choice for purchasers. A Labour win would mean no chance of abolishing HIPs, though the election of a Labour government has brought about a more active market in the past. But this time around, with the continued reluctance or refusal of the banks to release funds at the low end of the market, any government is going to face a real challenge in terms of being able to influence the market and increase the volume of sales.”

By Anna Tyzack

SOME EXPERTS BELIEVE HOUSE PRICES HAVE HIT THE BOTTOM IN CENTRAL LONDON, BUT WHO KNOWS WHAT’S TO COME IN SEPTEMBER.

There have been mutterings this week that the house prices have already hit the bottom Nick Candy clearly things they have; estate agents in central London believe prices could have reached their lowest point as early as November last year. So does this mean we have all missed our chance to cash in on the downturn?

It all depends on where you live. Hamptons estate agency produced a heat map of house prices in London this week. Chelsea (SW3) glowed bright red – where prices have risen 9 per cent since 2008. Outer Chelsea (SW10), South Kensington (SW7), and Notting Hill (W1, W2 and W8) glowed orange, as did Borough (SE1) and Brixton, while Wimbledon shone yellow. “If you are looking for the bottom of the market in prime central London, I’m afraid you have missed the boat,” says Penelope Court, of estate agency Beauchamp Estates.

But every other London borough was coloured various shades of green, indicating drops of up to 18 per cent. If the map were expanded to the rest of the country, it would also be green, apart from hot spots such as the Home Counties, Sevenoaks and Bath, where prices are bolstered by London money and a lack of supply. Halifax’s index shows prices are still falling, by 0.5 per cent in June.

Experts believe the summer bounce in prime central London prices could drop back in the autumn. “I think prices will fall a further 5 to 10 per cent, either towards the end of this year or early 2010,” says Camilla Dell of buying agents Black Brick.

In January this year I asked estate agents and property experts across Britain to say when they thought prices would be at their lowest. September 16 2009 was the midpoint. Could it be that they were about right?

Yes, if the shortage of properties on the market continues. Price rises are caused by a lack of supply and an increase in demand. “If supply for country houses stays the same over the next six to 12 months prices will continue to harden,” says Tom Hudson of Middleton Advisors, who thinks November 2009 will mark the bottom of the market for country houses.

If supply were to increase, this could push prices down again – the W-shaped recovery, rather than the V.

But right now, why would anyone sell unless they truly had to? I asked myself this question on Monday when I received an offer on my flat for £100,000 less than the original asking price. For a small flat, this is some reduction.

Perhaps in the end, recovery will be L-shaped. The rate of price decline has slowed, according to Halifax’s latest figures but unless something happens (borrowing restrictions loosen, or another Lehman Brothers) the market will remain flat for some time.

I’m going to wait until September 16 before considering this week’s offer. By then we should have a clearer idea of the shape the recovery is taking.

By Anna Tyzack

COULD THE BOTTOM OF THE MARKET BE IN SIGHT? FOR THOSE READY TO TRADE UP, THAT DREAM HOME IS FAST BECOMING AFFORDABLE – AND CANNY HOUSE-HUNTERS ARE OUT LOOKING FOR BARGAINS.

Exactly when will house prices be at their lowest? It’s the question to which every potential buyer (and estate agent) wants an answer. When I asked property experts to call the bottom of the market, their predictions (or best guesses) ranged from last Thursday to May 2010 – with midnight on September 16 2009 as the midpoint. “They don’t ring a bell at the bottom of the market,” says Trevor Abrahamson from Glentree Estates, “but if they did, it would be ringing now. Over the next few months prices will hit the bottom.”

Prices have already come down so dramatically (40 per cent in some cases), that people are beginning to see value for money. “It’s not about timing, it’s about the opportunity,” says Chloé Macintosh from Fulham, who wants to spend about £1.5 million on a new property. “If I fall in love with a house I don’t want to miss out.”

Chloé, an architect for interior design website www.mydeco.com , lives with her husband and two sons in a spacious four-storey Victorian house. She’s put in a new kitchen and landscaped the large garden, “but we know it’s not our perfect house”, she says. For the past two years she has dreamt of creating a lateral family home in a commercial-style building, but was priced out of the market by property developers. “It was difficult to find opportunities at good value. They would get snapped up as soon as they appeared on the market,” she says. With less competition from developers, she believes now is her chance to move up the property ladder. She put her own house on the market before Christmas, but when it didn’t sell immediately, she reduced the price from £910,000 to £850,000. It sold earlier this week for just under the asking price. “It was bought by a family with daughters working in London,” she says. “It was exactly what they were looking for. Now I can start looking for what I want.”

Catherine and David Ainslee, from Newbury in Berkshire, are also determined to move. They built their six-bedroom house, Watermeadow Lodge, six years ago, but are now after somewhere with more land. “It suited us before, but now we want more space for our two sons to run around. We fully accept the dire financial situation but we don’t want to put our lives on hold,” says Catherine. “It’s all relative – although our property will sell for less than we originally hoped, we will also be buying one for less too.” They’ve put their house on the market for £950,000 with Knight Frank, and are prepared to extend their mortgage on the next property. “If you can get a mortgage and have a steady job, life goes on,” says Catherine.

It’s not only those with families who believe that now is a good time to shop. First-time buyers Celine Herweijer, 31, and her fiancé Mike Johnstone, 27, have started looking for a flat in Primrose Hill, north London. “We have a 25 per cent deposit and it’s a complete buyer’s market,” says Celine. “We were ready to buy in 2007 but when prices started falling we sat tight and waited. In those days, a lot of my friends who were buying were outbid and the whole experience was very stressful.”

Celine and David are looking to spend between £350,000 and £400,000, and will start putting in offers within the next fortnight. “We’re renting at the moment so we’re not desperate to move, but if we find the right flat at the right price we will.” Estate agents John D Wood have told them that two-bedroom flats in Primrose Hill have fallen in price by 10-15 per cent, and will drop a further 5 per cent by the end of the year. “We could wait another six months and prices will have come down further. But if you can get that much off now, you win anyway.”

According to Tom Hudson, of buying agents Middleton Advisors, lifestyle buyers will characterise the market in 2009. They are financially stable, and moving not out of desperation, but because they want to take advantage of a quieter market to buy their ideal house. “They may be moving for a new job, or want to be nearer a particular school. Or they see now as a good opportunity to buy,” says Hudson. “People might have been looking in an undersupplied market for 24 months and want to get on with life. There’s a strata of buyers who have September as a cut-off date.”

Prices are expected to fall another 5 to 10 per cent by the end of the year. But over the past few weeks buying agents have noticed a shift in buyer mentality. “People realise there’s still quite a lot of property on the market and it is highly unlikely they will have to bid against a competitive purchaser,” says Camilla Dell of buying agents Black Brick. “And sellers are realising that if they hang on, they will only sell their property for less.”

Ed Mead of London-based estate agent Douglas & Gordon has also noticed a change of mood: “We have now clearly moved on from the market which was characterised by a 75 per cent lack of confidence on buyers’ part and 25 per cent funding problems,” he says. “Buyers are really out in droves and are willing to buy, at the right prices, but getting a mortgage is best described as a nightmare.”

For those that can get the finance (or don’t need to borrow), there are some attractive offerings, although it’s worth taking the time to research where the biggest drops have occurred. Price falls have been geographical: well-heeled parts of London and the Home Counties have been hit hard due to the stockbrokers and bankers affected by the banking crisis.

But for many, the dream is becoming affordable: a town house in Belgravia, belonging to designer Jane Churchill, now costs £3.95 million (was £4.5 million), while for under £500,000 you could buy a three-bedroom flat in Chelsea, or a pretty mews house in Battersea. Medium-sized houses, such as Chloé Macintosh’s in Fulham, hover around the £800,000 mark, and enormous houses in Hampstead or the nicest parts of Clapham cost about £1.75 million.

Further out, a listed country house or rectory need no longer cost more than a million. Although it is still tricky to find a bargain in West Berkshire and Oxfordshire (largely due to lack of supply), in the West Country, the Midlands and the North, and second (or third) home hot spots, properties that would have once sold in two weeks are open to offers from buyers with cash in hand. “By the time the market has bottomed out it will be too late,” says Dell. “Our advice to buyers is to get stuck in now.”

Of course, some clever people will hold out, and buy when prices are lowest. But even so, they cannot expect to capitalise on their investment soon. After prices have bottomed, experts expect them to plateau for a year or more, while excess supply is soaked up. “No one wants to catch a knife when it’s falling, but people with cash don’t know what to do with it,” says Trevor Abrahamson, who has seen three recessions.

“I think the window of opportunity will be quite short, adds Camilla Dell. “We might just look back on this time and say it was a good time to buy.”

“There’s more stock across every sector but good properties are still incredibly hard to find. These are apartments on a first floor or above in the best buildings, or houses on the most desirable side of the square or street in sought-after areas,” says Mandy Bissell of Black Brick, a buying agency.

She says estate agents ensure sellers get good prices by asking for “under market value” to encourage buyers. “There may be only three or four interested parties compared to eight or 12 last year but it’s enough to ensure battle commences. The end result is a sealed bid with the property selling for over market value.

Tax changes are creating an exodus of foreign residents. Jessie Hewiston meets one American who has decided to get up and go.

All over London, the bags are packed and the tickets are booked. The ‘For Sale signs’ have gone up and the removal vans are parked out the front. The non-doms are on the move.

Take Mark Roche. The 54-year-old retired architect is leaving London and moving to Spain to escape the effects of the tax changes.

This is just what the Government didn’t want. The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, recently scrapped plans to tax the offshore assets of the country’s 120,000 registered non-domiciles – foreign residents who don’t pay tax in the UK on their overseas earnings.

He is still sticking to part of the taxation shake-up, however, levying a 30,000 annual charge on non-doms who have lived in Britain for seven years and longer. He is also charging Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on UK homes owned in overseas trusts, another change that will hit the non-doms where it hurts.

Whatever tinkering the Government does to the fine detail, it will be too little, too late for Mark. Because of the impeding levy, the CGT changes – and the increase in the congestion charge that means he will have to pay 25 a day to drive his 4×4 out of his garage – he has decided to sell up.

According to Treasury figures, at least 3,000 of the UK’s non-doms, who between them spent 16.6billion in this country last year, are expected to leave when the changes come into force next month. Ask an estate agent, though, and he or she will tell you the figure is far higher. A 30,000 charge may not be too much of a concern to a hedge fund multi-millionaire, but it is to Mark. Raised in California, he ran his own medium-sized architecture company, Mark Roche Associates, until he retired six years ago, selling it on to his former employees. His company specialised in designing shops; clients included Nike, Mango, Herms and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Before going solo, Mark worked with Richard Rogers for eight years. ‘I suppose, out of all the non-doms in this country, perhaps a third are City-boy high-flyers,’ he says. ‘I suspect the majority, though, are like me: small entrepreneurs. I feel I’ve made a good contribution to this country. I have put food on the table for 15 employees, paid tax for them, and I don’t think I would have been in a position to do that had I not been a non-dom. ‘For multi-millionaires, 30,000 is a drop in the ocean.

But to me it is a lot of money. I also have an investment property that I’m trying to sell by April. If I don’t, I’m going to be hit by the new CGT. I can see clearly that any money you save can disappear into the coffers of the Government simply by its changing the rules.’ Mark bought his home in Hewer Street, W10, a 10-minute walk from Ladbroke Grove Tube station, for 625,000 in 2002, just before he retired. The former Unigate dairy was a shell, derelict for more than 20 years. Mark spent 240,000 turning it into his home. It is now on the market for 2.6 million through Marsh & Parsons. The result is striking. The ground floor has a huge living room plus a guest bedroom and bathroom. On the upper floor, a living room with a huge vaulted ceiling, kitchen and master bedroom merge into one another in an extravagant display of the virtues of open-plan living.

There is also a 500sqft office by the front door, which Mark rents out, bringing in 1,050 per month. He also rents out the property for magazine shoots at 1,000 a day. ‘I’m now moving to Spain, which is not the most logical choice, as it’s not a tax-efficient regime,’ Mark says. ‘Many people do it by living there for less than six months a year, so you avoid being domiciled in Spain and subject to its tax. I intend to keep a holiday property in London to visit friends for one month of the year. The other few months I plan to travel. ‘For me, the most important point about being a non-dom is this: you’re not paying tax for elements you will probably never use. A non-dom is someone who does not intend to stay in the UK; they only intend to stay for their business life. ‘When they retire, they are most likely going to leave, and all that tax they pay is then lost because they are not taking advantage of medical facilities or pensions – all the services that older people require. I feel justified that my non-dom status is relevant and that it helps the economy.’ In response to the Government’s proposals, Aylesford estate agency has opened a branch in Geneva to handle property sales for non-doms relocating to Switzerland. ‘Alistair Darling’s U-turn has done little to reassure my clients,’ says Aylesford’s Andrew

Langton. ‘A worrying number of them are non-doms who are still seriously considering moving out of the country. They think London is too expensive to function, capped off by the congestion charge on 4x4s going up to 25. The feeling is that the Government doesn’t want them here. The bottom end of the market is already suffering because of the credit crunch; now the top end of the market is likely to be affected too.’ Camilla Dell, a partner of Black Brick buying agency, believes that her clients are more worried by the CGT changes than the 30,000 levy. ‘I have clients with multiple investment properties in London who, after April, will have to pay CGT, and are planning to sell before then,’ she says. ‘The result will be that we’ll suddenly have a lot of non-doms selling at the same time and there’ll be more choice and flexibility at the top end of the market, something we haven’t seen for the past 18 months.’

London still has the most expensive real estate in the world, with top-whack properties going for twice the price here as in New York, Hong Kong and thriving Moscow, according to research by Hamptons International.

Its study of leading global cities found that the capital can command £4,000 per square foot. Presumably it was put together before the secretive Candy brothers, who make all interested parties sign confidentiality agreements, released figures for 1 Hyde Park, now claimed to be achieving over £5700 per sq ft. New York, at number two, fetches a mere £2025 per sq ft.

“When people become wealthy, one of the first things they buy is property, and one of the first cities they go to is London,” said buying agent Camilla Dell of Black Brick Property Solutions. “There are many fewer Russians out there now, compared to 2006; I have heard they have moved on to Paris. We expect buyers from China to be the next big thing.”

London is even further ahead of UK rivals such as Bristol at £930 per sq ft, Edinburgh at £840 per sq ft and Brighton at £590 per sq ft.