Cash Rich

Here's an interesting map showing the number of sales across the capital in August 2012. The bigger the circle the larger the sales, the deeper the colour the more clustered those sales were:



Clearly there have been more sales in the inner boroughs, but what's driving these sales?


Photograph by Michael Kyle | www.michaelkyle.co.uk

The full presentation is available to LRR subscribers but the essence of our findings goes like this. Last year there was almost no growth in the number of sales in the inner boroughs but capital values increased by nearly 7%. Simply put the market in the inner boroughs was being driven by equity, the cash rich in other words. Did this trend continued into 2012? Here's the last of the 100 or so slides in the presentation:



 Clearly the market continues to be equity driven. Marketing and sales are on the increase but just look at the difference in the number of units sold overseas, up 280% from the 2011 figure. We suspect that this demand for super prime stock may well outstrip supply forcing foreign equity to spread its net wider to incorporate the less prime areas.