(Bloomberg) -- London's luxury housing market is flush with buyers, but prices keep on falling.
The number of potential new buyers hit a 10-year high last month, suggesting surging demand, according to Knight Frank's Prime Central London Sales Index, one of the longest-running gauges of home prices in the capital's toniest districts. It's a familiar trend: the September index has shown an increase in house hunters registering with the broker or viewing properties for the last four years.
Yet prices for top-end homes are mired in the longest slump in decades, according to the index. Prices fell 0.1% in the month of September, and were down 3.9% in 12 months, Knight Frank's data show. Brexit uncertainty has compounded the impact of tax hikes that initially weighed on demand.
The decline in prices at a time when there are 11.4 new potential buyers for every new property listing “reflects the fact that while many buyers are primed to transact, the political uncertainty has caused some potential vendors to hesitate,” according to the report.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Sidders in London at jsidders@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shelley Robinson at ssmith118@bloomberg.net, Patrick Henry, Lucca de Paoli
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