By Jonathan Ford.

Previously owned by a Lebanese billionaire politician, a Saudi Prince and most recently the property typhoon Hui Ka Yan, Britain’s most expensive mansion is up for sale at an impressive £250 million asking price.

The saga surrounding 2-8a Rutland Gate — the 45-room Knightsbridge mansion that last sold for £210 million in 2020 and has been marketed at around £250 million — has become one of the most closely watched stories in London’s super-prime property market, and one that Black Brick’s Camilla Dell believes illustrates the challenges facing the capital’s top end, according to in-depth reporting in The Telegraph.

The property, once owned by Lebanese billionaire Rafic Hariri and later a Saudi crown prince, was purchased by the family of Chinese property tycoon Hui Ka Yan — founder of the now-collapsed Evergrande Group. Following Evergrande’s liquidation in 2024, a freezing injunction was placed on the mansion, halting its sale while liquidators pursue allegations that it was purchased with misappropriated funds. The property has since stood largely empty, its fabric reportedly deteriorating.

Camilla Dell offered a frank assessment of the mansion’s prospects. “It’s a compromised asset in a difficult market,” she told The Telegraph. “It’s on a busy road and shouldn’t even be residential. Most people at that level want privacy. It would probably be better as an office block or a boutique hotel.”

The piece frames Rutland Gate as a barometer of wider shifts in London’s super-prime market. Prices per square foot for prime London property have fallen around 16% from their 2014–15 peak, while the pool of ultra-wealthy international buyers has narrowed considerably. Russian buyers have largely disappeared from the market, Chinese overseas property spending faces increasing official scrutiny, and the abolition of non-dom tax status has prompted concerns about a potential overhang of high-value properties coming to market with insufficient demand to absorb them.

The article raises broader questions about London’s long-term appeal as a destination for global capital — and whether the next wave of super-wealthy buyers will choose the UK over lower-tax alternatives such as Dubai or Italy.

Read the article here.

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.

By Alexandra Goss.

Black Brick: Vendors Are Finally Accepting the New Reality on Prime London Prices

Price reductions are sweeping Britain’s property market, with discounts reaching a five-year high in prime central London — and Black Brick’s buying agents are well placed to capitalise on the opportunities this creates for clients, according to reporting in The Telegraph.

Tom Kain, buying agent at Black Brick, offered a blunt assessment of where the market now stands. “We have not paid full price for a property for a while,” he said. “After a long period of denial, vendors have finally accepted that their properties are no longer worth what they might have sold for at the height of the pandemic.”

The data supports this view. Average discounts across prime London reached 9.3% in the first quarter of 2025, according to Coutts, rising to 15% in Mayfair and St James’s. Of prime London homes valued between £1 million and £10 million that sold in the first three months of the year, 82% went for less than the asking price. Central London’s WC postcode recorded the highest proportion of properties reduced by at least 5% of any area nationally, according to Zoopla data analysed for The Telegraph.

The conditions reflect a significant imbalance between supply and demand. Rightmove reports that the number of homes for sale is the highest in a decade, while Knight Frank’s new sales instructions are running around a fifth above their five-year average — and new prospective buyers are running a fifth below it. Non-dom departures, a landlord sell-off driven by successive tax changes, and persistently high mortgage rates are all contributing to the glut of stock in prime postcodes.

For buyers with the right advice, however, the environment is creating genuine opportunities. Black Brick’s approach — rigorous pricing due diligence combined with skilled negotiation — is precisely suited to a market where asking prices and true values can diverge substantially, and where securing the right property at the right price requires both expertise and discipline.

Read the article here.

‘Gazundering’ is a tactic where a buyer makes a lower offer at the last-possible-minute, in a bid to force the seller’s hand to cut the price of their property.

Recently, there’s been an influx of such sneaky tricks. Our buying agent, Caspar Harvard Walls shared his insights in the new piece all about in The Telegraph this week, written by Alexandra Goss.

Read the full article here.

Particular towns and regions in Britain are starting to see pre-pandemic transaction levels, Ruth Bloomfield writes in The Telegraph this week.

Sharing his insights into why this may be happening, Black Brick partner and experienced property expert Caspar Harvard-Walls shared:

“In early 2019 we had Theresa May as prime minister, we were going through the agony of Brexit, and there was the worry of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. Confidence was very, very low, and transactions were low. Comparing now to then is a comparison to a real low point.”

“Overseas buyers have certainly been returning to London. They are not worried about interest rates, it is all about confidence, and they are also benefiting from the weak pound. A lot of domestic buyers in these areas work in the financial markets and have done really well in the last couple of years so they also have money to spend.”

Read the full article here.

Overseas buyers are taking up properties in London’s most luxurious hotspots, reportedly “tempted a the cooling property market and weak pound”, Rachel Mortimer writes in The Telegraph this week.

Featuring in the article, Black Brick’s Camilla Dell shared her insights as a prime property buying expert of over 20 years: “Many vendors will place significant value on securing a cash buyer for their property, particularly in a market currently riven with down-valuations and fall throughs.”

“They may even accept a lower offer for their property if the buyer is able to pay in cash. It is a buyers’ market at the moment and being a cash buyer means that you have a better chance of getting a better price agreed.”

Read the article here.

With house hunters now holding “more power”, Alexa Phillips of The Telegraph writes her top tips for getting a good deal in today’s market.

Sharing his thoughts for the article, Black Brick’s Casper Harvard-Walls recommended that buyers should keep a close eye on sale prices in the area they wish to buy in.

“They can then compare what sold previously to what they’re being offered by the agent to build a picture and tailor their offer,” he said. He continued by arguing that this is a much smarter strategy than just making offers that are 10pc below the asking price.

Read the full article here.

As the pound continues to plunge, dollar buyers from over in America are making big savings on prime central London properties.

As a renowned London buying agent for its most luxurious properties, Black Brick Founder Camilla Dell featured in The Telegraph this week to share her insight on the recent influx of overseas buyers.

“The currency exchange rate has definitely helped. We can say to our clients that their stamp duty bill is effectively paid, compared to if they were buying this time last year.”

Read more in the full article here.

With mortgage rates on the rise and the market peaking, is now an ideal time for you to downsize?

Black Brick buying agency Founder and Managing Partner, Camilla Dell shared her thoughts on the topic in an article for The Telegraph this week, commenting on how downsizers were already seeming to “cash in before the market takes a turn”.

Read the full article here.