London real estate market is hot, hot, HOT

Haute Blog has covered this issue a ton lately, but we just wanted to reinforce the idea to those out there who haven’t already understood this clearly: London’s real estate market is NOT affected by the housing slump that has claimed so many other areas. That’s right, just as New York, San Francisco, and parts of Los Angeles and South Florida have seen, the ultra-luxury real estate market is thriving despite poor market conditions elsewhere.

Chalk it up to a perfect storm of financial stability among the elite for this fantastic phenomenon. In any case, the proof is in the pudding: The percentage of London’s luxury-home prices (i.e. at least $4.9 million homes) rose 1 percent, the largest gain since September’s 1.2 percent bump.

More incredibly, the annual increase was 29 percent.

Liam Bailey, the head of residential research at Knight Frank LLC, which did the study, said the following in a statement: “Properties in the super-prime sector will continue to return the best rates of growth of anywhere between 5 percent and 10 percent as overseas investors from countries untouched by the international credit crunch enter the market.”

Additionally, Britain is home to about 68 billionaires, so between the influx of foreign wealth and the already healthy stable of domestic wealth, the sun is shining bright on typically rainy London.

Via Bloomberg