Despite a pandemic, global travel restrictions, Brexit and several lockdowns more money was spent acquiring properties worth £10 million and over in 2020 than in 2019. There were 56 super-prime deals in the first eight months of 2020 alone, according to Knight Frank estate agency.
Travel restrictions deterred many foreign buyers while domestic buyers sought to move from city centres to the suburbs and beyond, pushing prices for prime central London homes down by 4.3 per cent in 2020. Meanwhile the value of country piles worth £5 million or more rose by 7.9 per cent last year, according to the estate agency.
This year Knight Frank and Savills believe that prime central London prices will recover their losses to end the year 4 per cent higher while Beauchamp Estates, another top-end agency, is forecasting a 15 per cent increase in sales of homes priced at £10 million or more, with prices growing by 2 per cent as international investors return. So what were the most notable deals of 2020?
There were three standout home sales of £100 million-plus, all completed in the first half of the year:
£210 million Cheung Chung-kiu, the Hong Kong-based Chinese property magnate, paid £210 million for 2-8a Rutland Gate, a 45-bedroom mansion close to Hyde Park, at the beginning of the year. Formerly owned by the Saudi royal family, the 62,000 sq ft mansion will become Cheung’s London home once refurbishment is complete, according to Beauchamp Estates, which brokered the deal.
£146.8 million An unnamed British buyer bought three apartments at No 1 Grosvenor Square, a former US embassy, to convert into one mega penthouse. The sale, via Knight Frank and Savills, includes a glass box-style rooftop apartment with large panoramic terrace for £137.5 million plus the two apartments below it on the top floor of the original embassy. The buyer exchanged having only seen a video tour and brochure during the first lockdown although he visited before completing the deal in October.
£104 million Christian Candy, the property tycoon, sold his mansion — created by turning seven houses into one large home — on the coveted Nash-designed Cambridge Terrace overlooking Regent’s Park for about £104 million shortly after the first lockdown, according to Bloomberg.
Around the same time that the penthouse at Lodha’s No 1 Grosvenor Square sold (see above) a £55 million flat in the development sold to another buyer. It was a good year for the square with a 5,000 sq ft unmodernised flat at No 47 previously owned by the Onassis family selling to a Saudi businessman — a deal done in less than ten hours by Wetherell estate agency — for £18.6 million.
There was a frisson of excitement in the property press when developer Nick Candy completed on the lease of Providence House in the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea for £49.57 million. The move registering as a “sale” on Land Registry. If the house were actually for sale it is rumoured to be valued at nearer £250 million. Interestingly his brother, Christian, who gifted the house to Nick, won the right to claim back £1.92 million paid in stamp duty paid when he originally bought the lease.
Belgravia Gate, a townhouse on Grosvenor Crescent next to the Lanesborough hotel, near Hyde Park Corner, was sold to a family from Hong Kong for £45 million.
A detached five-storey, seven-bedroom, house in The Glebe, a luxury gated development in Chelsea, sold for £43 million in April during the first lockdown. Also sold for £43 million was a large red-brick mansion at the top of Campden Hill in Kensington, west London, according to Prime Resi.
A Saudi billionaire bought a six-bedroom house on Belgrave Square for £38 million and there were several sales for £30 million near by including a 8,500 sq ft penthouse on Stratton Street in Mayfair and an apartment at Twenty Grosvenor Square. Meanwhile a newly refurbished eight-bedroom house on Upper Phillimore Gardens in Kensington was sold by Knight Frank for £29.95 million in October.
There were also several large country deals. Mandy Lieu, 35, a Malaysian model, bought Ewhurst Park in Hampshire for £28 million. She plans to turn the former seat of the Duke of Wellington into an organic farm, micro farm and holiday lets.
Windsor Park Hall in Englefield Green, Surrey sold for £21.5 million. The agent Beauchamp Estates said the lavish property was sold to a Russian billionaire who liked the look of Winfield House, the American ambassador’s residence in Regent’s Park which inspired the design of Windsor Park Hall, and decided he wanted his own version. Winfield House hit the headlines this year with reports that President Trump was keen to renegotiate the lease with the Queen.
There were multiple deals for about £20 million in London locations that regularly feature in lists like this such as Eaton Square and Wilton Crescent in Belgravia, The Boltons in Chelsea, and Hampstead Garden Suburb and the Bishops Avenue in Hampstead. The Boltons was recently named the most expensive street of the decade with an average selling price of £36.6 million between 2011 and 2020 in a survey by Mouseprice, a property data website.
A deal that just falls short of the £20 million-plus category of super-prime sales but is worthy of note — especially after his long-awaited Christmas No 1 — is the sale of singer George Michael’s former Highgate mansion for £19 million to one of his fans, Stephen Cameron, last month.