Mayfair Market update with Jeremy Gee - CEO of Beauchamp Estates (2021)

We get  the word from the street in conversation with Jeremy Gee the CEO of Beauchamp Estates who are at the forefront of super prime property having sold the most expensive residential property in Knightsbridge in 2020 for over £200m

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Transcript

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London property homes super prime where you can find informative educational and entertaining content covering all aspects of property. So Jeremy, thank you for seeing us today. Thank you for joining us. We wanted to talk to you about what's been going on in the Mayfair market in the first quarter of 2021. So the first quarter of 2021 in the prime central London Mayfair market has been challenging, principally because we haven't got overseas buyers coming across. And although we managed to trade very well through the initial lockdown periods, this one has been different. The Streets of Mayfair are very quiet, the streets around Belgravia, Knightsbridge are very quiet. And it's been an issue, but we are aware from our discussions with our clients, they are desperate to get back to London. So it has been a difficult time. But we are seeing some activity but not enough it's going to improve. So the general excitement that we've all seen in the market has been domestically driven. And as you say, the market in Mayfair has been is very international. And you know, the general feeling in the marketplace is that what we've seen so far is going to be nothing compared to what we're going to see when the borders open is that is that the sense that you get? Definitely, I mean, we would just be on the cusp of it before Brexit, then we're on the cusp after Brexit. And now COVID has obviously put another delay in the works. But in reality, what we're seeing is enormous pent up demand. So we speak to our clients all the time, from everywhere across the globe. And they are very, very keen to get here and spend money. These are buyers from Mainland China, Hong Kong, the Middle East India, and interesting enough a big uptake uptick in activity from United States. So we know these buyers are keen to get here and spend money. So the May fair market, as you say, is has always been quite International. Is there anything about the market that you have been able to recognise, evolving during lockdown? Is it just not been enough activity to No, no, I think it's difficult to use metrics when you haven't got activity of any great degree in the market. Obviously, you're dealing with clients their own properties that don't necessarily need to sell. So a lot of them have been prepared to wait and we've advised them to wait. We can't predict when it's going to change because obviously, whereas we're heavily vaccinated in the UK, some of the countries these people are coming from don't have the same vaccination programme in place. So they have to wait for that. But our prediction is certainly not until the end of this year. But more likely, early next year, there's going to be a wall of money coming into the UK. And I always find that, you know, the word from the street as it were how we see things is quite different to how it gets reported in the media. Yeah. And as you say, a lot of people who hold property in Mayfair can afford to wait. So would you say that the market over the past years, a couple of years has just been flat, or you've seen a change in prices. It's been static. I mean, if you look at the indexes, they tend to indicate a slight drop in prices of between three and 5%. depends who you listen to. We've just seen static because again, referring to the wealthy owners in Mayfair, they don't need to sell. So a lot of them have just sat back and waited for an improvement in the market. So yeah, we've we've seen a static market, but this has been going on for a long time, this lack of price rises have been going on pre the Brexit arguments. So there is a mood and a feeling that this is going to improve very quickly once the borders are open. And are you seeing sort of from it from a development angle? Are you seeing any new innovative ways of approaching development or how the services are changing what people are providing in in in creating homes for sale? Are you seeing any of that there's a couple of things we've noticed, firstly, we've noticed a move away from the very large single houses with price tags of 4050 60 million pounds. Developers are wanting to diversify a little bit and have lower entry prices into the market. Of course in Mayfair, a low entry price for an apartment we 20 million so it is relative. But that's we've seen that we've also seen that people are building apartments are making them what we now call COVID friendly. So for example, you'd have AI recognition rather than fingerprint recognition. You don't you don't have to touch anything. There's ways that you can operate internal passenger lifts. So there's only one person or two people in at a time. So all of these changes are taking place in direct response to COVID. Going back to the big homes of 40 50 million pounds, this shift in demand and I suppose supply. You know, it's partly related to the tax changes that we've all experienced since 2013. The stamp duty that you have to pay keeping them empty, you have to pay. So are you seeing any signs of those type of homes actually being provided? As rentals, there has been a growth in the rental market for the Super prime homes. Yes, and in fact, the new growth in availability but a growth in demand. So we're lucky to have done some very important rentals on some very large properties. Having said that, the stamp duty surcharge of 2% for overseas buyers come in was coming in. And we don't believe that actually is going to have any effect on the super prime market. Because if you look at London compared to other what they might consider super prime markets across the globe, it's still relatively good value. Brilliant. Well, thank you very much for talking to us. Absolutely. pleasure. Thank you. 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