An immediate result of the Conservatives election victory is that foreign buyers are back in the market. House prices are likely to go up and developers will plan for more luxury housing rather than meeting housing need.
A super-rich European family on Friday bought a house in central London for £65m, saying their decision was a direct result of Boris Johnson’s historic Conservative party election victory. The family instructed the luxury estate agency Beauchamp Estates to buy the property in an undisclosed “prime central London” location as investors and the very wealthy celebrated the Conservatives’ 80-seat majority. The collective wealth of the UK’s 16 billionaires increased by £2.1bn on Friday, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index, as the share prices of companies they controlled soared. Jeremy Corbyn had promised to “go after” the UK’s wealthy elite – including the petrochemicals tycoon Jim Ratcliffe and the Sports Direct owner, Mike Ashley – if the Labour party had won the election.
Gary Hersham, the founder of Beauchamp Estates, said the housebuyer had set up the deal last week, but put off signing on the dotted line until seeing the result of the election. “It is one of the most expensive properties ever sold in the UK,” he said.
He declined to state how many bedrooms the home had or provide any further details. However, as a guide to what that sort of cash can buy, a 12-bedroom home on Belgrave Square – just a few hundred metres from Buckingham Palace – is listed on Zoopla for £67.5m. Hersham said his agency, which specialises in selling expensive London properties to overseas buyers, had been inundated with calls on Friday from rich house-hunters who had been put off buying UK properties in fear of a possible Corbyn-led government.