London house prices: Luxury property values down amid summer lull

If you have a couple of million spare to throw about it could be the ideal to time to invest in prime London property as post-election distortions combined with seasonal factors have made it a good time to buy.

Prime London property advisory service Huntly Hooper analysed both short- and long-term trends in supply, number of transactions and values in the central London market (Kensington and Chelsea and some parts of Westminster) to assess month-by-month and seasonal behaviour.

The firm, which advises the likes of fortune 400 family offices, has detected strong evidence of seasonal patterns over the last five years which showed that the market on average dips by 3.3% over the summer months whilst people are away on holiday and therefore there is less demand, and higher levels of supply which builds up over the course of the year.

Director Ollie Hooper told IBTimes UK: "We are using this data to therefore understand how the market could play out over the rest of this year, and based on this long term data, plus the short term data from this year, we expect that the market could indeed dip again over the next few months, before strengthening in the autumn.

"The market this year has been seriously distorted by the election, with transactions in May still 40% below what they were in May (2014), and strangely 21% down on April this year which one wouldn't expect given the election result. Values also have barely changed since before and after the election, although grew from January to April this year. This summer could be a better time to buy than waiting until the end of the year, which perhaps goes against the view that values are growing straight after the election.

Hooper said prime central London property exists in a class of its own and outperforms almost all other assets. He added: "As a firm we buy investment assets over £2m in Prime Central London for private clients, and have always found good buying opportunities every summer, facing less competition from other buyers in the market."

Robin Chatwin, head of Savills South West London said the summer market can be traditionally quiet, although this year's election has already delayed this pause.

He told IBTimes: "The general feel in the Prime London market is that many buyers packed their bags before the election to leave if the result was unfavourable.

"Whilst most have remained, they have not yet necessarily unpacked their bags and many are still deciding how to proceed in a market which, whilst not subject to a mansion tax, has still to operate within a relatively high tax environment.

"Despite this, if buyers see what they want they will move very quickly on a purchase, hence we have achieved some excellent results over the past few weeks.

Charlie Bubear, head of Savills Chelsea agreed that when theschools break up and families leave the city for the summer, this can present opportunities for buyers who remain.

"The General Election this year delayed the traditional cycle, with an uplift in activity in the following weeks," he added.

"Over the next couple of months I expect many vendors will approach agents to prepare their property for the market in early or mid September when the pace traditionally picks up.

"For those continuing to look over the summer, it is well worth speaking to agents about these off market properties, to buy now in a less competitive environment."