Where is the premium market heading?
In my previous article, I reported the positive activity we saw at the start of 2024 in the premium market with new listings on the up, supply on the rise, and demand increasing with more sales being agreed.
According to the Land Registry, there were 176,984 property sales between July and September 2023 across England, Wales, and Scotland.
5,742 of these properties were sold at or above £1,000,000 and made up 3.24% of all transactions.
This just goes to show that there is definitely still plenty of movement at the top end of the market and there is no signs of this stopping according to the latest wealth report from Knight Frank.
Their wealth report highlighted that the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) globally rose 4.2% during 2023 to 626,619, an increase that more than reverses the decline witnessed in 2022.
The number of wealthy individuals globally is expected to increase by 28% over the next five years and that equates to a further 176,272 people with a net worth of at least £23,500,000 by the end of 2028.
What has this got to do with the UK premium property market you might ask?
Well, 22% of these UHNWIs are planning to buy residential property.
House prices have proved remarkably resilient in the face of higher borrowing costs and of the 100 markets tracked in the Knight Frank Prime International Residential Index (PIRI), 80% recorded a flat or positive annual price growth during 2023.
Luxury property prices climbed 3.1% on average and investing in bricks and mortar appears to be high up the agenda for these individuals.
The old saying of ‘Don’t wait to buy property, buy property and wait’ comes to mind.
The same can be said for agents of don’t wait for these high net worth individuals to come find you, but go actively find them yourself and build a relationship.
How is this done I hear you say?
These individuals are very likely to be on LinkedIn and I believe this is such an untapped opportunity for estate agents wanting to operate in the higher end of the market.
There are over 1 billion users on LinkedIn, of which 16.2% users are active daily, and 48% are actively monthly.
My initial advice to you is go find the local high net worth individuals in your area and connect with them on LinkedIn.
You then just need to post regular educational content on the higher end of the market to capture their attention and keep them interested.
If you are feeling brave, you might even drop them a message asking if they would like to be kept updated on the property market or if they know of anyone in the market looking to buy or sell locally.
One estate agent I recently started working with has already begun two conversations with sellers following the above strategy rather than just sending out unsolicited mail and hoping for someone to call them.
Some of you might not know where to start with how to target these high net worth individuals in your area and if that is you, we need to talk.
Thank you for reading.
Simon
P.S. You can CLICK HERE to catch the second instalment of my UK property market update and be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to not miss any further updates.