PROPERTY NEWS The bounce-back to London begins, writes Zoe Dare Hall

THE BOUNCE-BACK BEGINS

Theatre and office life are luring buyers back to London, writes Zoe Dare Hall

As our high streets, social lives and even holiday plans start to look a little more like their old pre-pandemic selves, the London bounce-back has begun. International buyers, wealthy overseas students and corporate relocators are starting to return. But what’s really driving demand for property in prime London – particularly the “family hotspots” in the west and south-west, such as Chiswick and Clapham, says Savills, which reports 8.9 per cent annual growth in both of these areas – is the return to city life by those who fled to the country a year or so ago.

The need or desire to be back in the office a couple of days a week has been the main driver – along, in some cases, with ensuring the family’s feet were happily installed beneath that Notting Hill dining table by September in time for the start of the new school year. Where, a year ago, everyone wanted to be around greenery – whether that meant going the whole hog and moving to the countryside, or leaping on any London property with a garden, nearby park or some balcony space – now it’s all about being near a Tube or train station, says Savills’ director of residential research Lucian Cook. And as a sign that families are ready to put down city roots again, the price of six-bed houses in prime West London markets have risen by 6.2 per cent in the past year, and five-bed houses by 5.3 per cent, according to Savills.

Being reacquainted with your office desk and colleagues, though, isn’t the only reason for waving goodbye to the full-time rural idyll. Agents are seeing the creeping realisation among these country-to-city ‘boomerang buyers’ that rural life just isn’t as much fun. “We recently had a lady looking for a London property who told us there were only so many long walks she could take before she began to miss her morning flat whites and trips to the theatre,” says Harry Laflin, manager of Dexters Westminster.

“Quite a few people who moved out for country life are now suggesting that they are finding it rather boring and that ‘there are only so many pubs we can explore’ before being lured back to London,” adds Hamish Gilfeather, associate director at John D Wood & Co.

Some who sold up in certain parts of the countryside may be returning to the city quids in. Savills’ data shows the £2m+ market in the Cotswolds grew 18.5 per

8.9%

GROWTH IN ‘FAMILY HOTSPOTS’, CLAPHAM AND CHISWICK

6.2%

RISE IN PRICE OF WEST LONDON SIX-BED HOUSES

LONDON’S BACK Above: With full capacity shows, the National Theatre is luring arts-lovers to the capital. Below far left: pick up a two-bedroom pied à terre near Parliament Square, £1.49m, through dexters.co.uk, or a three-bed apartment on Ransomes Dock, Battersea, £2.195m, through johndwood.co.uk

cent on the year – versus 10.8 per cent in the country house market on average.

For the majority of those now buying in London, this was never an either/or situation. “It was always part of the plan to come back to London and keep the country home too,” comments Lindsay Cuthill, head of Savills’ country department.

The ‘escape to the country’ was never at the expense of London, agrees Stuart Bailey, Knight Frank’s head of prime London sales. “Our volume of London prime transactions improved year on year, from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021,” he says. He expects this year to be back to 2019 levels. “A bounce-back in the PCL prime market is looking likely, lead by international buyers beginning to come back to the UK,” says Bailey.

It’s not just the big family house market in PCL that’s flying. High demand for London pied-à-terres – or crash pads – means prices for PCL flats have grown by 0.6 per cent this year, the first rise in this market since the 2014 peak, according to Savills. In Westminster, rural returners are looking at modern flats in mansion blocks for around £600,000-£1.5m, says Laflin, with Vandon Court on Petty France

and Artillery Mansions on Victoria Street proving popular with these buyers.

Being near to transport hubs such as King’s Cross or London Bridge, or within walking distance of the office, in locations such as Shad Thames, Wapping or Bayswater are the priorities that George Barker at Clutton’s Tower Bridge office is noticing among weekday bolthole buyers.

“Rocketing hotel prices – by 200-300 per cent compared with pre-pandemic levels – and increasing train fares have made buying a pied à terre attractive again,” says Barker, who has just sold a fully-refurbished two-bed flat, a Shad Thames warehouse conversion, originally priced at just over £1m. “It was bought for £895,000 by a banker who moved out of London with his family during the pandemic and is now needed in the office full-time,” Barker comments. “Buyers like this have committed to a house in the country but now see it as beneficial to have a place to live from Monday to Thursday.”

It’s not a permanent au revoir to the countryside though. Laflin notes that the rural escapees he’s seeing “aren’t keen to move back to the city full-time. They’ve seen the advantages to country living – more open space, less competition for schools and larger houses. But they want a base where they can commute from during the week and get their fix of city life.” L