Prime London sales suffered a big drop of 14% in the past year even though offers held up.

Latest figures from Knight Frank show there was only a 4% fall in offers made during the same period up to June compared to 2025.

Healthier

Outer-London sales were healthier, although the number of transactions in the past year were still 7% down on the previous 12-month period, while offers were up 5%.

Rental values are continuing to climb as a result of the Renters’ Rights Act, Knight Frank says.

The increase in rents was 3.3% in the year to June in prime outer London, which is the highest figure recorded since June 2024, a time when rents were still coming down from pandemic-era highs.

There was a smaller 0.9% annual increase in prime central London rents. Supply has been less constrained in higher-value markets, Knight Frank says, as more discretionary owners let their property out due to the current weakness in the sales market.

Speculation

Tom Bill, Head of UK Residential Research at Knight Frank, says: “For the prime London property market, it signals another summer of speculation ahead of the autumn Budget.

“With the Government seemingly unable to cut spending meaningfully or introduce broad-based tax rises, we could see a repeat of last year’s smorgasbord approach of smaller wealth-based rises like the higher-value council tax.”