Real estate developers and house owners in London are rolling out special discount offers to buyers from the GCC region who are willing for dollar-denominated prices for property purchases, industry insiders said.
Buyers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, besides the UAE are said to be lapping up the offers to strike deals to buy properties mainly in the central London areas.
“We are inundated with dollar-denominated buyers [from GCC] who know and love London of old and are less interested in the immediate short-term day-to-day variations in market conditions,” Andrew Weir, chief executive of London Central Portfolio (LCP), a premier real estate buying agencies operating in Central London, told Arabian Business.
“These discounts are not property-specific but are offered to specific buyers who are dollar-denominated,” Weir said.
He said the dollar-denominated price offers represent a discount of about 23 percent, compared with the sterling-dollar exchange rate in January of 2022.
Sector analysts described the move as a classic case of troubled times calling for innovative strategies.
Industry insiders said family sized homes that would appeal to buyers from the GCC region usually have a starting price of about £2 million.
These prices are for a 3-bed apartment in Bayswater, St Johns Wood or Baker Street W1 locations.
Industry executives said GCC buyers with budgets far exceeding this were common within Prime Central London (PCL).
Weir said GCC buyers were rushing to explore house purchases under this scheme as this will be available for only as long as sterling is weak and dollar strong.
“The dollar-denominated offers, combined with the current low sales prices in Prime Central London from a historic perspective, add to the attractiveness of these deals to buyers from GCC countries,” Weir said.
Executives at other real estate consultancies said residential properties were popular among GCC buyers under the dollar-price offers.
“Second homes for their family’s summer holidays in central London have long been popular among wealthy GCC investors. Many even use them as a main residence within Europe using London as a staging post if they travel throughout Europe or to the US,” an industry executive said.
The chief executive of LCP, which specialises exclusively in Prime Central London comprising the boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster, said the firm’s clients opting for dollar-denominated deals were predominantly from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, besides the UAE.
“London still remains a favourite destination among GCC residents for their overseas property investments. For investors who are sensitive about the timing of their investments, now is widely considered to be a low point in the historic cycle,” Weir said, adding that prices have already begun to recover post-pandemic and Brexit uncertainty.
Chestertons, another leading international real estate service firm, also recently reported over a 10 percent increase in enquiries from GCC buyers for London-based properties.
The consultancy also attributed the reason for the spike in Middle East investors’ rush for property investments in London to take advantage of the dip in sterling value against the greenback, besides the softening of property prices in the UK.
Properties which would have cost $5.23 million six months are reportedly now listed for $4.32 million, leading to savings of over $1 million.
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