Inside Residential

Over the summer period we saw a sudden flurry of new instructions from the end of July and in August, compared to a relatively quiet start in June. Clients included more domestic buyers, purchasing in areas such as Notting Hill, Primrose Hill and Highgate, with somewhat of a return to mortgage financing compared to the end of last year and beginning of this year when clients were mainly buying in cash and based overseas. The upswing may be due to sellers adjusting their prices more realistically given the current market. However, we are some way off a return to a buoyant mortgage market and, unsurprisingly, cash buyers remain the most prevalent. As we head into autumn it will be interesting to see if sellers continue to adjust their price expectations and if there is a continued increase in domestic buyers. In this edition, Shamma Ahmed, based in our Singapore office, explains how we are uniquely placed to offer real estate services to our clients in Asia; Zoe Patel provides some hints and tips for sellers to prepare a property for a quick sale and Antonia Cosby considers the opportunity the metaverse may provide in terms of alternative property ownership structures.