by Liam Bailey
The rules around super-prime are changing, along with the traditional golden postcodes.
The Wealth Report, Knight Frank’s annual analysis of wealth and property investment, provides an overview of the performance of 100 prime residential markets.
In this article, we have taken the opportunity to drill into three markets in more detail to explore the geography of an even more rarefied sector of the market: super-prime houses or apartments that sell for over US$10m.
Our maps provide a view of both the density and the extent of these sales. Individual sales are grouped and their locations identified on the heat maps. It should be noted that some confidential sales are omitted from the analysis.
London, traditionally the world’s largest super-prime market with over 240 sales in 2015, saw a decline in sales volumes last year – partially as a result of currency movements (which affect our dollar-based calculations).
Total sales in London fell below 200 units allowing New York to claim the title of largest super-prime market in 2016 – a surge of new-build units in Manhattan helped to push the number of deals struck beyond 270. Hong Kong, with over 220 sales, shunted London into third place.
Hong Kong displays a relatively dispersed super-prime market, with clusters of sales on Hong Kong Island, into Kowloon and the New Territories.
London’s super-prime distribution reflects the development of prime residential neighbourhoods over the past 200 years. While Hyde Park and Regent’s Park play a dominant role in defining the super- prime market geography, the recent expansion of prime London with high value sales spreading along the river towards the City of London and areas further east is clearly illustrated.
This expansion of super-prime and prime sales into new neighbourhoods is a feature likely to be replicated by other markets as gentrification and regeneration take place in key global cities.
London
This is the original super-prime market. A bold claim maybe, but the influence of the great London estates through the eighteenth century, augmented by the genius of nineteenth century builder/speculators such as Thomas Cubitt, created an architecture and streetscape that more than anywhere else in the world has defined the language of urban wealth.
Take a walk from Hampstead through Regents Park into Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington, Chelsea and on to Holland Park – it would take you a day to complete and you would never leave the city’s gilded enclaves.
