London agent slams stamp duty, tax and planners

The central London agency W A Ellis has tried to defuse speculation over high numbers of foreign buyers and rising prices in the capital by describing the sales market as sobering - even though it says sales below £2m have surged ahead.

Richard Barber, a partner at the firm, says statistics across several prime central London postcodes actually show a 10 per cent drop in transaction levels for existing homes.

Amidst the hyperbole surrounding the market and the endless speculation regarding a property bubble, there is a rather more realistic and sobering story emerging he claims.

Undoubtedly the market beneath £2 million has surged ahead, fuelled in some part by foreign investment. However, if one looks at the transaction levels within the prime central London postcodes - SW1, SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10, W1K, W8 - one can actually see a diminution in overall transaction levels he says.

The firm suggests that sales above £2 million are exceptionally low.

Barber says that within SW10 there have been 58 transactions under £2m in the last three months but only four above £2m. Within SW7 there have been 35 transactions under £2m in the first quarter of this year and only 17 transactions above £2m in the first three months of 2013 and 2014 combined.

W A Ellis has long been an outspoken critic of the Coalition government's stamp duty regime which Barber says continues to penalise transactions at even marginally higher values over £2m.

He also rails against the prospect of a mansion tax and councils objecting to homes which are extended into much maligned basement space, saying they threaten transaction levels at the top of the market.