London’s West End investment market dominated by £100m+ deals

Property deals worth £100m+ are dominating London’s West End investment market at the moment, with ten deals of this size totalling £2.175bn transacted this year, a record for both the number and volume of deals in this category, according to Savills.

The international property advisor reports that these ten £100m+ transactions have made up 69% of total turnover in the West End market in 2017, with Asian investors responsible for almost half - 49% - of deals of this size this year, compared to just 19% over the whole of 2016.

Domestic investors also appear to be pursuing larger lot sizes, says Savills, with three acquisitions of over £100m by UK investors recorded in the year to the end of May, the same number seen over the whole of 2016.

Savills says that the 11 transactions that took place in May totalled £583m, taking total investment in the year to date in the West End to around £3bn.

Paul Cockburn, head of the West End investment team at Savills, said: “A key characteristic of overseas demand is their willingness to target both scale and quality. With this comes the current high level of liquidity for large lots. Such is the demand of late there again seems renewed downward pressure on prime yields.”

Savills says prime yields in London’s West End market remain at 3.25% for the fifth successive month.