Another agency records prime London house price falls

Marsh & Parsons is the latest agency to show a price drop in prime central London - homes there were down 0.8 per cent in the second quarter of the year, reports the agency. 

Across the capital’s prime market sector, not necessarily in the centre, prices dipped only 0.3 per cent in the same period.

In what it calls the outer prime area, prices appreciated 0.4 per cent in the second quarter of the year.

“With property investors frontloading their transactions into the first quarter of the year, activity was always likely to take a slight step back in the second quarter. Quarter three is unlikely to see a marked uptick in values or transactions as we enter a traditionally slower season ... but is reassuring that the UK’s decision to leave the EU isn’t having the immediately negative impact that some doom-mongers predicted” says David Brown, the agency’s chief executive.

The agency also reports that first time buyers accounted for over a third of purchases in the second qarter in prime London, as buy to let purchases dropped after the passing of the April 1 stamp duty surcharge deadline. 

Having represented 22 per cent of the prime London market in the first quarter of the year, first-time buyers grew their share to 34 per cent in Q2. Landlords, who took 36 per cent of purchases in Q1, fell to just 13 per cent in the second quarter.