Lonres, the data consultancy monitoring all central London sales, says the number of vendors withdrawing their £2m-plus homes from the market has soared, possibly connected with uncertainty created by the threat of a mansion tax.
In the July-to-September third quarter of 2011 for example, when the mansion tax had never even been mentioned and the seven per cent stamp duty for homes valued at £2m or above had yet to be introduced, there were 188 £2m-plus homes in prime central London withdrawn from sale.
In the same period this year, however, there were 367 withdrawals.
Lonres says some were pulled directly because of the mansion tax while others were withdrawn because their sellers are wealthy enough to wait to see if values eventually bounce back to their earlier highs.
In Lonres' autumn survey of agents, 37 per cent reported that the number of London properties withdrawn from sale has increased over the third quarter with just 11 per cent of agents seeing a decrease.
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Comments
'...others were withdrawn because their sellers are wealthy enough to wait to see if values eventually bounce back to their earlier highs.' Oh dear...