New figures from one of the industry's most respected sources show that sales in the prime central London market fell by a third during the July-to-September quarter.
Research carried out for the Financial Times by data firm Lonres and analysis company Dataloft shows that just 422 properties were sold in PCL in Q3 2014.
Houses were the worst hit - transactions were down by over 50 per cent. The sales of apartments slumped by 27 per cent.
Although by far the biggest slowdown is being seen in the most expensive areas of the capital, influenced by stock market uncertainty and what some see as the threat of a possible mansion tax after the spring 2015 general election, there are signs that the slowdown is now crossing into the mainstream market too.
Hometrack says London's monthly rate of growth across all of London slipped to just 0.4 per cent in September compared with 1.0 per cent at its 2014 peak in April, reflecting weaker demand. In prime central London growth was also just 0.4 per cent in September, contrasting markedly with a peak of 2.2 per cent per month earlier this year.
Comments
I don't think anybody is surprised at the pull back from the spring madness. We'll have to see if the waves of pensioners next year are able to push the market to new heights.