The numbers
What a house really costs to buy
Sixteen jurisdictions, one ten-million house, and a door that costs anything from sixty thousand to nearly two million. The acquisition cost, line by line.
Prime Central London · United Kingdom
London
The deepest prime market in the world and the one with the most expensive door: stamp duty for a non-resident buying a second home now takes close to a fifth of the price. London is bought by people who intend to stay a long time, which is why the best houses still never reach a portal.
The Ranesta Index
€24,000 to 35,000
Prime band, per m²
€60,000
Trophy, per m²
2.5 to 3.5%
Gross yield
60%
Sold off-market
17.8%
Cost to acquire
0.3%
Cost to hold, a year
Editorial estimate of prime asking bands, September 2026. Not a valuation. Typical entry €6.0 m, trophy from €80 m. Prime marketing time about 200 days.
Where exactly
Mayfair and St James's
The addresses of record: the garden squares, the mews, the lateral apartments in the buildings that were hotels. Super-prime above ten million is entirely private here.
Knightsbridge and Belgravia
The white stucco: Eaton Square, Chester Square, the terraces off Sloane Street. Family houses and the embassy market, with the deepest history of blind listings in the world.
Notting Hill and Holland Park
The villas and the communal gardens west of the park: where families with children and money actually live. More liquid, more seasonal, with a school calendar.
St John's Wood, Hampstead and Regent's Park
Detached houses with gardens, the American school, and the terraces that face the park. The market for buyers who want a house rather than a floor.
The short version
An expensive door and a quiet house
Two things define prime London now. The first is the door: stamp duty for a non-resident buying an additional home starts at seven per cent and ends at nineteen, so a ten-million house costs closer to twelve to walk into. The second is that once inside, the house is the cheapest trophy asset in the world to hold: council tax, insurance, a porter and nothing else. Buyers who intend to keep a house for fifteen years find that the door and the cheapness balance out.
The market moved sideways for most of a decade after 2014, which means the buyer of 2026 pays less in real terms than the buyer of 2014 did and gets the same square. Whether that is a bargain depends on the pound, which is the third thing that defines prime London and the reason the currency instrument exists.
Off-market is the culture here rather than the exception. The buying agents and the private offices of the big houses carry most of the supply above ten million, and a serious buyer is expected to be represented. The desk works alongside a buying agent in London rather than instead of one.
Worth knowing
Stamp duty
Up to 12 per cent in bands, plus 5 per cent for an additional dwelling and 2 per cent for a non-resident buyer; on ten million about 18 per cent
Annual tax
Council tax only, a few thousand a year; no property tax on value for an individual owner
Company ownership
The annual tax on enveloped dwellings makes corporate ownership of a home for personal use expensive
Capital gains
24 per cent for a higher-rate or non-resident seller since 2024, on gains since April 2015 for non-residents
Leasehold
Most apartments are leases; the years remaining and the ground rent are part of the price
Off-market
The highest share of any capital: most sales above ten million never see a portal
Who is buying
Everyone with a reason to be in London: American families since the dollar strengthened, buyers from the Gulf and from India, Europeans keeping a foothold, and the domestic money that never left. Non-residents pay the surcharge and buy anyway.
What the desk is working on
Lateral apartments in Mayfair and Knightsbridge above 250 square metres, family houses on the communal gardens of Notting Hill, and detached houses in St John's Wood. The desk's London mandates are the largest by value on its books.
Buying notes
English conveyancing: nothing is binding until exchange of contracts, which can take eight to twelve weeks, and either side can walk away until then. Costs are dominated by stamp duty; legal fees and surveys are small. A leasehold apartment needs the lease read by a specialist, and a house in a conservation area needs its planning history read before the offer.
In the private portfolio
Blind listing
RN-0414 · London
Lateral apartment in Mayfair
Two apartments joined into one across the first floor of a garden-square building, with a porter and a garage.
5 bedrooms480 m²
€35 m to 42 mReference RN-0414
RN-0423 · London
Villa on a communal garden, Notting Hill
A double-fronted house on one of the great communal gardens, with a garden of its own and a basement done properly.
6 bedrooms520 m²
€19 m to 22 mReference RN-0423
Open buyer mandates
- M-118A private buyer seeks a lateral apartment above 350 square metres in Mayfair or Knightsbridge, 20 to 40 million, and needs to complete before September.
The hotspot vote
London means
Questions buyers ask
For a non-resident buying a second home at ten million, about 1.8 million. It is the whole argument for holding a long time, and the acquisition instrument shows exactly where the bands fall.
Apartments in the great buildings come with porters, security and no roof to worry about; houses come with gardens and the school run. Both trade privately above ten million. Buyers from abroad tend to start with the apartment.
Not for a home you will live in: the annual enveloped-dwellings charge removes the benefit. Structures still make sense for investment property and for some inheritance positions; take advice before exchange.
Because the supply is with them. The best houses go to the agents whose clients are known to be ready, and the seller's agent will not show a blind listing to an unrepresented stranger. The desk is that representation, or works with it.
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