London slips from the top 50 global cities rankings for house price growth

Knight Frank's Global Residential Cities* index shows that house price growth in London has slowed so much that it has fallen out of the top 50 global cities for house price growth.

With year-on-year house price growth of just 7.5 per cent, the report places London in 55th position in the final quarter of last year, below that of three regional UK cities. This includes Bristol, placed 38th in the world (10.1 per cent growth), Manchester, at number 51 (7.9 per cent growth), and Birmingham, in 53rd place (7.7 per cent growth).

Nine of the top 10 places were taken up by cities in China, with the city of Wellington in New Zealand taking 10th place.

Whilst cities in Asia-Pacific have seen the fastest rental growth for offices in skyscrapers,  London remains the most expensive city to rent an office in a tower in Europe, although rents were unchanged in the first half of 2016, albeit at a record level for the UK capital.

"London has successfully positioned itself as a world-class innovation economy, with technology and creative clusters firmly established alongside the traditional financial, insurance and professional industry hubs,” says James Roberts, Chief Economist, Knight Frank.

"The capital has the vibrancy necessary to draw in all types of skilled workers, which in turn persuades new industries that they should locate in London. The lesson of the last decade is that London must continuously attract firms and workers at the forefront of economic and technology change."

The report cites the following firms and industries as leading the next wave of innovation, generating future office demand in London:

– Born-again startups
– Robotics and artificial intelligence
– Rainmaker launch pads
– Fintech
– Scientific R&D

At Beavis Morgan, we have extensive experience in advising individuals and businesses across a range of industry sectors on all aspects of the property market.

We act for a broad range of property investors and developers who actively need advice on how to best structure their property deals, both to ring-fence and protect their property assets, as well as to minimise the tax arising from their business operations.

For further information about how we can help you with your property ambitions, contact Steve Govey or your usual Beavis Morgan Partner.

* Download the copy of Global Cities 2017 report