Country house prices rose for the first time in two years in the third quarter of this year, analysts say.
According to Knight Frank, prices increased 1 per cent nationally for country homes valued at GBP500,000 (HK$5.5 million) or more between July and September. Buying activity is strongest in the Home Counties as London's mini-boom ripples out into the countryside.
Andrew Shirley, head of rural research at Knight Frank, says prices have risen 3 per cent in the Home Counties since March last year. This compares with a modest 0.3 per cent rise in the Midlands and falls of 0.1 per cent in the southwest and 5.3 per cent in the north and Scotland over the same period.
City of London finance workers and overseas investors have been venturing out of the London property market into the countryside since last spring.
'You can see the affects of the increases in London filtering out to the Home Counties and then spreading out more generally to the rest of the country,' Shirley says. 'More overseas buyers are buying in the posh enclaves of Hampshire and Surrey.'
Prices are rising most strongly for multimillion-pound homes, including manor houses, he says. Buyers of these properties pay mostly in cash, so are less troubled by the lack of mortgages that continue to pull the lower end of the market down.
