30th July 2025
9mins
Forecasts of house price growth made at the end of last year are falling like skittles.
Savills is the latest firm to trim its expectations, blaming a mixture of geopolitics and changes to Stamp Duty thresholds, for a slower-than-expected first half of the year. As a result, it has cut its prediction of UK house price growth this year down to just one per cent, with a total of 24.5 per cent growth over five years. Across London, it expects prices to remain flat during 2025, and forecasts just 15.3 per cent growth by 2029.
If this sounds bad, then matters are even worse in Prime Central London (PCL), where flatlining growth would actually be good news. Prices have fallen 3.7 per cent in the past year, found Savills, and currently stand more than 22 per cent lower than at the peak of the market in 2014.
The news is better in the prime suburbs, where family-oriented areas like Brook Green in west London (annual growth of 1.3%), and Putney (up 2.5%) and Wimbledon (up 3.4%), both in southwest London, are outperforming.
Camilla Dell, managing partner of Black Brick, says this is because the market is currently dominated by domestic buyers, many looking for a main family home. “They are definitely the new buyers of London,” she said. “They are fairly young people looking for family homes, in prime outer London residential areas.”
While good quality family houses are still selling well, the story is very different with apartments, said Tom Kain, a partner at Black Brick. “Lower down the pricing scale where there are more buyers, flats are still selling. But anything above £2m is quite slow generally for flats in central London.”
Fingernails are being bitten down to the quick as this year’s crop of GCSE and A level students wait to see what their future holds – sixth form, university, or a gap year, or cross parents and retakes.
Much has been written about the addition of VAT to school fees in January, and the impact it could have on house prices if parents start converging on postcodes with grammar and other high-performing state schools. Black Bricks clients, for the most part, have been able to manage the fee hike. “They don’t like it, but they have absorbed it,” said Kain.
But that does not mean that the presence of a popular senior school does not exert an influence on property prices in neighbourhoods like Brook Green, which is home to St Paul’s Girls School, or Highgate, home to the eponymous Highgate School.
Kain notes that out-of-London schools also play a role, with many overseas clients looking for a central London property with good mainline train links to their children’s boarding schools, so they can get home easily at weekends and in the holidays.
The reputation of the UK’s schools is hard to beat, and this, believes Dell, will always encourage buyers to the capital whatever the economic climate. “I have one client who relocated to Dubai and something he said really resonated with me,” she said. “He put his two sons into private schools over there and their CAT scores started to fall and fall. He ended up sending them back to London and enrolling them at Westminster School, and he now travels back and forth between London and Dubai. He could come home but he has doubts he’d be able to sell his house, or the three investment flats he bought out there.”
The prospect of the Labour Government seeking to shore up the nation’s finances by imposing a wealth tax in the upcoming Autumn budget, have been quashed after weeks of speculation.
A cabinet-level briefing given to The Times newspaper shuts down former Labour leader Lord Kinnock’s proposal for a two per cent tax on wealth exceeding £6m to £7m, which he calculated would raise £10bn or £11bn per year.
This suggests that the current administration may have learned its lesson from the non-dom debacle – ending the beneficial tax regime for wealthy overseas residents, has resulted in an embarrassing and expensive exodus of millionaires.
However, as summer draws to a close, the property market will inevitably be at the mercy of the rumour mill. A wealth tax is not the only weapon at the Treasury’s disposal. Hikes to Capital Gains Tax and/or a raid on affluent pensioners, are both still options.
Dell feels an anonymous briefing is not enough to silence the rumours and questions why Chancellor Rachel Reeves did not make an announcement herself. “I am still having lots of conversations about this,” she said. “I don’t think people feel that it has been shut down and are still panicking about it and putting decisions on hold because of it. A lot of our clients work in finance and the timing of these political milestones really does affect their decision making. Markets are driven by sentiment and an approaching budget can have a real impact on confidence.”
With a glut of property on the market, Rightmove’s July report was all about vendors desperately cutting prices in an attempt to find a buyer in a crowded market. This mass discounting resulted in a national asking price drop of 1.2 per cent in the past month. This is the biggest single-month fall since the property portal began to monitor the market in 2001.
The deepest discounts of all were of course in London, where prices were higher. And the larger the home, the bigger the discount. Prices for four and five bedroom detached houses fell 1.6 per cent in the month, while smaller homes fell by 0.6 per cent.
Whilst bad news for vendors, this drop in the price of detached houses could be a great opportunity for buyers looking to pick up a prestigious forever home. And for many detached houses, which make up less than a quarter of the UK’s total housing stock, not only have practical benefits like large gardens and plenty of parking space, but they also hold kudos.
“People value detached houses because of the privacy they offer, they are quieter than terraced or detached houses, and aesthetically they are often prettier,” said Dell. “And for many people owning a detached house, shows that you are a success in life.”
The average price of a detached home in the capital currently stands at just over £1.2m – although, in prime central neighbourhoods, you may have to add a zero to that. But even at the average sale price, a 1.6 per cent price drop represents a discount of some £20,000 in just four weeks.
After securing almost £100 million-worth of property for clients in the past year, Black Brick has been honoured with a top tier ranking in the annual Chambers High Net Worth 2025 guide – for the third year running. Camilla Dell, managing partner, is personally ranked for the sixth year running for her “legendary” ability to find perfect homes for her clients.
Chambers said, “Black Brick has a talented team with incredible insight on the residential property market and access to very select properties.”
“Black Brick maintains meticulous attention to the details of clients’ transactions. The agents ensure solicitors have a comprehensive understanding of the progress of the deal.”
“Complex and sophisticated transactions are Black Brick’s sweet spot, which is another factor that makes the team stand out.”
To view Black Brick’s ranking in the latest Chambers HNW Guide click here.
Our British clients live in the Home Counties but often visit London for work and socialising, and wanted to buy themselves a permanent base.
They wanted to be close to Paddington Station, so they could zip back and forth between their two properties with ease, and as they weren’t going to be around all the time, wanted a secure and well run building with a porter.
Since they planned to bring their dog to London with them, the property needed to be pet friendly, they wanted at least three bedrooms, and had a preference for a historic building with period features.
We found them a lovely, light, high-ceilinged apartment within walking distance of Paddington and very close to Hyde Park for dog walks. The second floor flat is in a building which had been recently renovated, sparing them the spectre of imminent maintenance bills and the disruption of work.
Taking advantage of the currently soft market for flats, Black Brick was able to negotiate a significant discount of £350,000 on the asking price, equating to seven per cent of the original asking price.
For some clients, the flexibility of renting makes better sense than buying, and this was the case with our client relocating from Geneva to London to be closer to his family.
He wanted to live in south west London, but needed good transport links to Notting Hill and to London Bridge. His style preference was a particular challenge because he wanted a stylish contemporary property, in a secluded location and with secure parking.
We searched across a swathe of London and found him a spectacular five bedroom detached house in Ham, architect designed, immaculate, and set in a woodland plot. The 3,444 sq ft property was listed for £13,500pcm. But after negotiating with the landlord we were able to secure a two year tenancy at £11,000pcm, a saving across the term of £60,000.
We would be delighted to hear from you to discuss your own property requirements. For a non-obligatory consultation, please contact us.
