***Stop Press *** Chiltern Relocation quoted in the Financial Times.

Before Christmas, we had a call with Hugo from the Financial Times, asking our thoughts on the top end of the property market.

Here is a link to the article. The article is behind The Times paywall, so if you are not subscribed, here is a snippet of the piece.

Last year, as mortgage rates started to rise, buyers in Beaconsfield and its surrounding villages started to hold back from purchases. “My clients’ concern is they don’t want to buy into a falling market,” says Sharon Hewitt, who runs Chiltern Relocation, a local buying agent, and who has worked in the area for 18 years.

In November, the number of homes in Buckinghamshire sold subject to contract on Zoopla fell 42 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, while the total number of listings increased by 30 per cent. In the aftermath of the first Covid lockdown, the area’s popularity surged, causing prices to spiral. Last year, the average price of a home sold in the town was 24 per cent higher than it was in 2019, according to Land Registry data analysed by Hamptons.

“Today, if it were a borough in London, Beaconsfield would be the third most expensive,” says Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons. 

Hewitt says her buyers — most have budgets between £1.75mn and £4.5mn — are not particularly sensitive to mortgage rates but they do worry about what higher rates will mean for prices. “They are thinking: do I buy now or do I hold off?” Savills forecasts average prime prices across London’s inner commuting region, an area that includes Beaconsfield and its surrounds, will fall 8 per cent by the end of 2023.