Property comment

What’s hot and what’s not for 2019 Ready, steady, go

Heightened uncertainty around Brexit will delay recovery in the prime central London housing market for up to two years, predicts Savills, but this will be followed by a bounce in 2021, with a total growth of 12.4% over the next five years

Granny chic

‘The most popular houses on the market in 2019 will be those with outbuildings, perfect for nannies, mothers-inlaw, guests or au pairs,’ says Dominic Spencer Churchill of DS Churchill. ‘They even provide the opportunity for Airbnb income or a home office. Homes with this sort of extra space will sell fast.’ (‘Nanny state’, December 12/19, 2018)

The high life

The skyline is edging Manhattan-wards. Within the next decade, a dense knot of skyscrapers will emerge, with a record 510 tall towers in the pipeline. This year, we expect completion of the tallest residential building in Europe: the Landmark Pinnacle, E14. The 1,000ft Tulip, a viewing platform by Foster + Partners set to be the tallest building in the City, is awaiting approval

Nine Elms

Three exciting tenants are moving into Embassy Gardens—a gallery, beauty salon and Cyclebar. Along with the Sky Pool (115ft up), restaurants, boutiques and the US Embassy, this quarter doesn’t need two new Tube stops to bring people in, but it’s getting them anyway in 2020. They’ll come in handy for the 1,400 Apple employees moving into Battersea Power Station. All this will have ‘significant impact on demand’ for the area, says Jacksonstops’s Georgina Clarke

Sitting on your laurels

Brexit be damned. Nothing can stop demand for London property. Knight Frank reports a 12.5% increase in prospective new buyers in the third quarter of 2018 compared to 2017 and a 31% rise in prime central and prime outer London since January 2016. However, they’re cautious; the number of viewings undertaken before an offer was made has risen to its highest level in more than five years

Technology overload

‘Buyers do still want some tech,’ says Charles Thompson of the Thackeray Estate, but less of the ridiculously complicated wired-in speaker systems. Marc Schneiderman of Arlington Residential agrees, adding that ‘zoned mood lighting has fallen out of favour’. ‘It’s considered by many to be much more stylish to use a simple, goodquality light switch made out of a beautiful material, rather than a phone app that turns your lightbulbs pink,’ concludes Tim Hassell of Draker Lettings

Saturday viewings

Why trek around when you can enjoy a virtual 3D tour? ‘This enables a buyer to walk around a property from anywhere in the world with a computer, tablet or phone,’ explains Will Watson of Middleton Advisors. Vanessa Hale of Strutt & Parker goes even further, saying that Holoportation is the future, enabling ‘a walk through and a conversation with a virtual agent in real time. This technology will allow anyone to interact in a 3D computergenerated environment with a virtual-reality headset’

Badly made plans

The trend for renovating properties with health and wellbeing at their core is on the rise, according to Maison Communications. Many London builders are calling in experts to achieve this, such as design consultancy Ekkist, which recently worked on Ori House—a home that can be built anywhere you like (‘It’s easy being green’, March 7, 2018)—the first in the UK to meet both the Passivhaus standard for low energy and low carbon footprint and the WELL Building Standard