UK luxury home sales to pick up by year’s end
UK luxury home sales to pick up by year’s end
Post-Brexit market could be on the road to recovery
The UK property market is showing signs of recovery after the country’s decision to leave the European Union, the impact of which may have been overblown, an analyst with Knight Frank said.
The number of buyers registering their interest in prime homes in the UK grew “consistently higher” in July and August than in 2015, the real estate consultancy reported. Overseas home buyers have been drawn to the plunge in property prices caused by the post-Brexit weakening of the sterling, reported The Guardian.
Knight Frank expects the increase in interest to bring about an “improvement in sales volumes” in the last quarter of the year. “The fundamentals remain strong and the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote has been less dramatic than feared,” Alistair Elliott, chairman of Knight Frank, said. “Volumes and prices, especially in the residential sector, are down but activity is gradually recovering.”
The volume of offers being made on properties in the months after the Jun. 23 referendum is 6 percent lower than the same period in 2015. Meanwhile, the number of offers being accepted by vendors is 5 percent higher than last year.
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Such optimism is being bandied against an overall drop in prime residential property deals. The number of exchanges agreed on homes worth more than GBP750,000 in the period after the referendum was down 20 percent from last year, Knight Frank reported.
Several factors not related to Brexit may yet clamp down a rise in the market, such as the higher stamp duty rates on prime residential property and the additional rate of stamp duty on second homes and investment properties.
Knight Frank was recently involved in advisory work on the letting of office space to Apple at the Battersea Power Station.
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Source: Property Report