For the first time, detailed sales figures have been released for London’s iconic development, One Hyde Park.

The figures not only revealed world record pricing, but pointed to a strong super-prime market. While residential markets have been slowing around the world, super-prime markets have powered on.

Facts on One Hyde Park are that 40 of the available 80 units have exchanged, sales to date total in excess of £600m; average unit prices achieved are over £20m, equating to £4,600 sq ft although this rose from under £4,000 sq ft in 2006 to well over £5,700 sq ft more recently; sales volumes rose steadily through November to January and sales also reflected London’s global city status as multi-national buyers included British (20%), European (11%), Middle East (25%), Russian (33%) and North Americans (11%).
Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, said: “There has been considerable speculation regarding the achievement at One Hyde Park over the past 12 months.

“Not only has the development broken the £5,000 sq ft barrier, but prices for apartments with a park view have been steadily nudging towards £6,000 sq ft. While the credit crunch and the world financial market turmoil meant that purchasers held back from buying in September and October, by November there was a return of confidence, with sales beginning again and volumes at a five-month high.

“The fact that London has enjoyed a boom in top end property in recent years has been well reported. Since September, the prime market and the mainstream market have slowed, activity and price growth will slow further into 2008, but at the top end of the market there has been no such slowdown.

“In prime central London prices rose by a total of 26.2% in the year to the end of January 2008, a remarkable result, but prices for properties priced above £10m rose by over 36% in the same period. In the final quarter of 2007, when price growth for all property slowed considerably and prime central London managed only 1.4%, prices for the £10m+ bracket still managed 3.8%.”