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Fly into London on Tuesday morning and back to Milan, Lisbon, Madrid or Paris on Wednesday evening. This is the emerging pattern I am seeing among some owners of super-prime property: a weekly day or so visit to London that has become a way of life. The capital might not be their full-time base any more but it is still an anchor for social and business life; the city remains important to them.
This behavioural shift, which began during the pandemic and has been accelerated by tech and tax changes, has seen some of Knight Frank’s wealthiest clients move their primary residences to outside the UK. Likely as a result, budget allocations have been reassessed at the very top end, for those buying a home here.
Buyers in this demographic continue to tell me that four or five years ago, they would have allocated £20mn-£40mn; today £10mn-£20mn feels like more suitable exposure to the UK and its prime residential market. These still considerable budgets will, clearly, still secure sizeable residences and service in some of the best buildings, but it remains a material drop in spend. In the US, there is a similar pattern; many New Yorkers have moved upstate for quality of life and travel into Manhattan for 48 hours of the working week. Similarly, if life has taken them to Florida, lured by no personal income tax and a competitive 5.5 per cent corporate tax rate, the same arrangement is evident — the dip-in, dip-out pattern flows up and down the East Coast.
In London, £1.86bn was spent across 107 sales above £10mn during 2025. Compare this to 2021, when there were 168 sales totalling £2.95bn. Although the average price is almost the same, there were 40 per cent fewer sales of £20mn-plus homes in 2025. Yet more than 340 billionaires were minted in 2025, according to Forbes — a number now totalling more than 3,000 worldwide, with a combined net worth of more than $16.1tn; a growth partly driven by surging AI stocks, booming equity markets and big IPOs.
So why do budgets for London super-prime property remain more conservative than they once were? Ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, the UK government’s sentiment towards wealth and the punitive stamp duty system are key elements impacting the market, in my opinion.
But another issue is likely supply, and the diminishing number of new apartments with footprints of more than 280 sq m. At the peak of prime planning consents (2015, for new developments with an average value in excess of £32k per sq m) there were 2,900 consented apartments in the London pipeline. That number is now 500. If you dig down into these 500, the number with more than 280 sq m is 30 or 40. Very top-end buyers don’t have the choice they used to in super-prime new build, though this is mitigated by an increase in £5mn plus listings (up 67 per cent since 2016/2017).
On stamp duty, future governments need to address the way property transactions are taxed; the current system is not working and acts as major grit in the system, which is impacting the UK housing market at all price points. If a £14mn apartment is rented for £18,000 a week for three years, the total spend is less than the stamp duty an overseas buyer would pay on the same value home. London’s super-prime rental market is booming. The number of tenancies started in 2025 above £5,000 per week were up 17 per cent compared to 2024. Above £20,000 per week, the number was 63 per cent higher than the previous financial year, according to Knight Frank data.
Renting suits many wealthy buyers currently in a holding pattern, as well as those concerned with the medium-term clarity around taxation and the geopolitical landscape. This fever at the top end of the rental market underpins the point that people are not leaving London in droves. They might not be buying in the way they used to, but they’re not leaving.
It is five years since the last pandemic lockdown in the UK, and time has given many wealthy former Londoners a long enough stint to acclimatise to the lifestyle in a European city or in the hot deserts of the UAE. Yet for many, the itch to return is becoming increasingly evident — they are scoping the market for a possible purchase in 2026.
London is just too good to be ignored for too long.
Rupert des Forges is head of prime central London developments, Knight Frank
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https://www.ft.com/content/1107e15c-1790-4310-a9b0-157fb5265919
