Luxury property values in central London fell for a fifth month in September following a round of job losses at investment banking firms

Central London Property Prices Falling

It has long been the case that central London’s luxury residential property prices rely almost exclusively on super-sized City bonuses. When Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy in history last month, more than eight hundred jobs were lost at the investment banking firm, with more losses expected soon. The City of London Corporation estimates 42,000 jobs in banking or financial services will disappear over the next year.

According to an index compiled by Knight Frank LLP, the estimated average value of a house or apartment in the city’s nine most expensive neighborhoods fell another 1.8% from August Property values declined 4.5% from September 2007. The index covers homes mostly valued around £1 million ($1.8 million)

It’s unsurprising that confidence is still low in the housing market, especially bearing in mind that prime London buyers are disproportionately drawn from the financial services industry.. Luxury homes in central London will almost certainly continue to decline through 2009 and won’t recover until 2010, bringing their decline in value since September 2007 to about 15%. Liam Bailey, head of residential research, Knight Frank

Which is actually rather an optimistic estimate, considering that a recent report by Nationwide Building Society show prices have already fallen 12.4% in the last year across the country.

Even the “super prime’” properties costing over £10 million fell in value from August. The smallest monthly decline was for homes worth less than £1 million. Central London’s luxury residential real estate market has joined the slide in values affecting the rest of the U.K. London and southeastern England accounted for more than 75% of sales of £1 million+ houses last year, according to  HBOS Plc.

Certainly the short-term outlook is not positive with City experts predicting that borrowing could become even harder than lenders have admitted, since the Bank of England quarterly survey of credit conditions released yesterday was carried out before the past two weeks of financial turmoil. Almost 40% more lenders told the Bank that the availability of secured loans such as mortgages had grown worse in the past three months than said it had improved; 17% more lenders said that secured loans would be harder rather than easier to come by in the next three months.

With Dubai government owned property investment company Limitless pulling out of a deal to buy stricken London-based property developer Minerva, and rumors of foreign investment companies needing to liquidate their portfolios quickly to cover cash-flow short falls, it would seem London is going to be hit at least as hard as the US.

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• Nationwide Building Society - PDF Dowload
• HBOS Halifax House Price Index - Word Document download

Luxury property prices values in central registered their first annual drop in five years following a drop in consumer confidence and fears that the UK is about to enter a recession. One bright note is the Ultra-Luxury segment, which still seems immune

London Luxury Property Prices Falling

Knight Frank, a London-based real estate consultancy reports that property prices in London’s 9 most expensive neighborhoods dropped 1.6% from August 2007. Values fell 1.3% from July, following drops in the previous three months. In fact, house prices across the U.K. have now fallen ten straight months and London is only now catching up with this trend.

According to the Nationwide Building Society, the average property has seen £20,000 wiped off its value and now stands at £164,654 and demand from buyers remains subdued.

Nationwide is known for its “conservative,” predictions, so this is actually a warning shot across the bows of property prices in the UK. Expect to see further drops this year and no recovery at least until end 2009.

Home-buyers are being affected “by pessimism in the financial services sector, particularly relating to the size of this year’s bonuses,” Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s head of residential research, said in the statement.

Homes worth less than £1 million are the most affected, with appraised values down 9.2 percent from a year ago, because prospective buyers still rely on mortgages to make purchases.

Ultra-Luxury properties worth more than £10 million gained 2.9% from July, or 19% more than a year ago, basically because of demand from wealthy overseas investors paying cash.

Knight Frank describe these as “super prime” properties and suggest they “have proved immune from the downward trends elsewhere. There are now signs that the gap between this sector and the rest of the market is growing.”

Recent price records set include the most expensive basement flats in London, the sale to Lakshmi Mittal of the most expensive home in London for £117 million and the record price set for a luxury flat in St James’ Square.

Knight Frank compiles its monthly index from appraised values of representative properties in Mayfair, St John’s Wood, Regent’s Park, Kensington, Notting Hill, Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Belgravia and the South Bank neighborhoods of London.

I visited the “Top Marques,” show in Monaco this weekend and bumped into Knight Frank’s on-site representative, Nick Brennan, who is a London-based sales director, dealing with luxury property for sale in the Bahamas.

Knight Frank chose to sponsor this year’s show, in the hope of meeting potential buyers, and when I asked Mr. Brennan how things were going, he smiled, shrugged, and said, “I ran out of business cards the first day.”  Which, if you are English (as both Mr. Brennan and I are) this  means, “Pretty damn fine thank you very much.”

Realistically, if some one can afford a $200,000 car, they are probably wealthy enough to be potential buyers of luxury property in the Bahamas, so a real estate agent sponsoring a luxury supercar show is not as outlandish as one might think.

One of the promotional tools Knight Frank were using at this show was a DVD giveaway of their “One Hyde park,” development. Produced as a promotion for both Candy & Candy and the development itself, stunning is the word that comes to mind. I have a copy and will hopefully be sharing sometime soon. Watch this space.

The cars them selves were pretty spectacular, (if a little boring – I must be getting old) although I would think they could afford to pay some one to polish the fingerprints off a little more regularly than they did. I only saw one fingerprint polisher the entire time I was there.

In the meantime, this is an excellent example of thinking outside the box, and certainly worth bearing in mind when considering appropriate venues for high-end property promotions.

Which also brings me to the opposite end of the spectrum. The broken promise, or “Getting it wrong on purpose,” which seems to be a prevalent marketing attitude, even when marketing a high-end show such as this one. I purchased two “V.I.P” tickets to the show, at just over sixty dollars a piece. After arriving at the show, I discover that all the tickets are “V.I.P” tickets and this entitles you to be able to pay $5 for a lousy cup of coffee, served by a surly waiter prepared to pretend he doesn’t speak English or French when you complain about said lousy cup of coffee. On top of that - they wouldn’t even let me drive the Lamborghini ‘round the Monaco F1 course.

Why bother? A massive advertising campaign, some of the most expensive brochures I have ever seen and then annoy the life out of everyone by treating them this way. Remember when your mother told you that you were special and then later said everyone is special. Yes – if everyone is a V.I.P – no one is a V.I.P. I doubt I will be returning next year unless I get a free ticket.

As usual, the news regarding the condition of the luxury real estate market appears at odds with many statements coming from the real estate agencies.

At a recent luxury real estate auction in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, properties were quickly taken off the block after receiving no bids. One penthouse condominium in Williams Island for example, was previously listed for $5.6 million, went on the block for $5million, was dropped to $2.5 million and immediately withdrawn.

Those properties that did sell, invariably sold for much less than previously offered. Two bay-front properties on Venetian Islands sold for $500,000 and $1 million – the last time they changed hands, back in 2005, the same properties sold for $2 million and $2.75 million respectively.

Yet at the same time, The Star quotes SKY Sotheby’s president Chad Roffers as saying: “The high end is resilient. Certainly the market has corrected since the peak of 2005. What we are seeing is that quality waterfront inventory is holding value." Which rather contradicts the prices achieved.

Unsurprisingly, many of the sales went to foreign buyers.

In London, much the same story unfolds. Prices realized and analysts opinion are in sharp contrast to the real estate agents opinions.

Savills are predicting that the amount of money available to invest in high-end properties will fall by as much as 65% this year. This thanks to smaller bonuses in the city as the banks start to feel the effects of mortgage write-downs in the USA sub prime market. Traditionally, London’s luxury property market has relied heavily on bonus laden financial brokers propping prices up.

Having said that, Knight Frank claims to have sold 40 of the 80 available apartments in the One Hyde Park development. Once again, the bulk of the sales were to foreign buyers – of the 40 sold so far, 13 were to Russian buyers, 10 to Middle eastern and just 8 to British buyers. One would have expected them all to have sold by now in a strong market, but the average sale price is around £20 million.

Donald Trump hit the news recently also. A recent press release from "Ultimate Homes," said:  Donald Trump’s  much-publicized Palm Beach mansion has a new price: $100 million. Along with the $25 million price reduction, Trump also turned the listing over to Lawrence Moens, a Palm Beach broker who has a reputation as a low-key but highly effective dealmaker.

When it debuted on the market in 2006, the estate’s $125 million price tag made it the most expensive property for sale in America and generated a great deal of attention. It took the No. 1 spot in that year’s edition of Ultimate Homes, and, most importantly, it was one of the first, if not the first, to break the $100 million price point.

While the media always has focused on price, what makes this estate so important, according to Moens, are the 6.75 acres and almost 500 feet of unobstructed oceanfront. Also significant is the location itself, which he describes as “prime, one of the most desirable places on the Eastern seaboard.”

Another change, according to Moens, is the potential that the property could be sold as two separate parcels or a single compound.

The price change means Trump’s estate is no longer one of the five most expensive residential listings in the country, although it is still in the top 10. Unique Homes is currently compiling its annual list of the 1,000 most expensive properties on the market in the country. This list is published in a magazine called Ultimate Homes, which also will include the 10 priciest listings in each state. Ultimate Homes is a new magazine, launched this May.