Robust Demand Pushes U.K. Home Prices to All-Time Highs

Homes hitting the market in the U.K. are more expensive than ever, with prices propelled by a flood of zealous buyers, tax breaks and low mortgage rates, according to a report Monday from Rightmove.

From March 7-April 10, asking prices for newly listed homes jumped 2.1% from the roughly four weeks prior, equating to an increase of £6,733 (A$12,096) that pushed the average national asking price to an all-time high of £327,797 (A$588,909), the online property portal said.

“This is only the second time over the past five years that prices have increased by over 2% in a month, so it’s a big jump, especially bearing in mind that the lockdown restrictions are still limiting the population’s movements and activities,” Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data, said in the report.

In England, lockdown measures eased last week, and the government has said it hopes to lift almost all restrictions by the tail-end of June if strict conditions are met. Individual timelines are in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The property market has remained fully open and operating throughout wider limitations, “and is fully active to such an extent that frenzied buyer activity has helped to push the average price of property coming to market to an all-time high,” Mr. Bannister said.

“The stars have aligned for this spring price surge, with buyers’ new space requirements being part of the constellation alongside cheap mortgages, stamp duty holiday extensions in England and Wales, government support for 95% mortgages and a shortage of suitable property to buy,” he added, noting that the coronavirus vaccination rollout is also injecting growing optimism into the market.

In March, the government announced that it would prolong the stamp duty holiday. Introduced last July, the tax break scrapped the transfer tax on the first £500,000 of a home sale, for a maximum savings of £15,000.

Originally set to expire at the end of March, the initiative has been fully extended until the end of June and will taper off by the end September.

But as those economic support measures begin to come to a close later in the year, “some of the froth is likely to come off this spring surge,” though activity is expected to remain robust for the remainder of the year, the report said.

A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.

The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.

“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”

The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.

It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.

In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.

“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.

The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.

“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.

He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.

The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.

“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.

His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.

“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.

When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.

They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.

The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.

For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.

“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”

As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.

“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”

Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.

Robust Demand Pushes U.K. Home Prices to All-Time Highs

Frenzied activity despite continued Covid-19 restrictions pushed the average asking price up.

Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.