The Central London development market has proved remarkably robust during the course of 2017 and has even staged a mini recovery. Oddly though, it doesn’t really feel like it. Prices have held firm during 2017, the number of sales has increased slightly and the number of starts has also risen. Even the number of new planning applications was quite strong in Q2, albeit that was Outer Core biased. So it is encouraging, especially for government, that development activity has been maintained despite slightly less favourable market conditions.
The Central London development market is providing mixed signals. On the one hand, development starts, units under construction and completions are all at record levels and have shown remarkable resilience to turn around the downward trends that had been emerging. On the other hand, the planning pipeline (outstanding applications and permissions) is shrinking as the number of units being sent for planning has slowed, especially in Core markets.
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