Some buying agents have batted away the many signs of an improving housing market but one says the Boris Bounce is likely to create a huge boost for prime London.

Fraser Slater, chief executive of buying agency Ludgrove, says: “With a vastly improved political backdrop, the threat of a hard-left government removed and Britain’s transition out of the EU settled, we expect 2020 will be the year the prime London property finally regains its mojo.

“Strong pent-up demand, limited stock availability and the backdrop of a record five year-long property bear market is likely to provide upward momentum and we forecast prime London prices and volumes to grow around 10 per cent and 20 per cent respectively in 2020.”

He says there are nine key factors behind the predicted boom.

1: adjusting for inflation, prime central London prices have fallen -28% from 2014 to 2019. Historically very similar real-terms declines were recorded at the point of previous troughs in the market in 1992 and 2008, says the agency;

2: the 2014-2019 Prime London property recession at five years in duration has been the longest in 30 years, making a bounce well overdue;

3: relative to the mainstream London property market, prime London prices are near a 10-year low, making ‘trading up’ more affordable;

4: there are “extreme levels” of pent-up demand and a limited availability of stock;

5: rental values are rising as supply diminishes in response to government tax changes – a trend Ludgrove expects rents to harden further in 2020 as the full impact of mortgage interest tax relief changes take effect from April;

6: future housing supply in London’s central Zone 1 is set to decline significantly on the basis of recent ‘construction starts’ data;

7: Sterling still trades near a 40-year low against the Dollar making UK properties appear cheap;

8: finance is cheap with mortgage costs having fallen 39 per cent since the peak of the market in 2014; and

9: there remains a possibility of a stamp duty cut in the upcoming March Budget.

“The last five years has seen an almost perfect storm of negative news flow affecting prime London property, and we are now confident a sunnier climate is on its way” insists Slater.

“Having studied past bear markets as a former fund manager, market bottoms are characterised by extreme negative sentiment, despondency and despair with the recovery in price typically being a function of an amelioration of negative news flow and fundamentals … And it is in this context we are confident we will look back on the dark days of 2014-2019 as a time when a bull market was ‘born in pessimism’.”

Data from HM Revenue & Customs shows tax receipts from stamp duty fell a further 5.2 per cent between 2018 and 2019, part of a broad decline in income since late 2016.

The figures have prompted a demand by Jackson-Stops’ chairman Nick Leeming that the government wake up to the fact that the duty is unpopular.

“In order for the UK property market to thrive again and provide the economy with the extra boost it requires, we need the stamp duty pledges Boris Johnson made in his original campaign to be Prime Minister to come to fruition” explains Leeming.

“We’ve already started to see some initial green shoots of recovery in the London market as demand among buyers increases, however ensuring this confidence follows through to sellers to unlock supply of homes is vital.

“Recent research of ours shows that 41 per cent of consumers believe there should be a wholesale reduction in stamp duty across all price brackets, while more than a quarter think government should abolish stamp duty on all homes under £500,000.”

There is growing concern that broad pledges on stamp duty made in the second half of 2019 by politicians – ranging from a wide-ranging call for its reduction to more specific proposals about shifting emphasis from buyer to seller – appear to have fallen away since the General Election.

The only specific manifesto pledge on stamp duty from the victorious Conservatives in last month’s General Election was to introduce a three per cent surcharge for non-residents buying UK residential property for investment purposes.

“It all currently rests on the changes Chancellor Sajid Javid decides to implement in the upcoming Budget” explains Nick Leeming.

The high-end estate agent who has quit his post after being found to have posted pictures of clients’ houses on Instagram has been named.

Last week The Times made reference to speculation that an agency was being sued by clients upset at seeing images of their properties on an individual agent’s Instagram; but now the Financial Times has identified him as Knight Frank’s Daniel Daggers.

The FT, and other national papers quoting the FT, say that Daggers was nicknamed Mr Super Prime on his social media hashtag, and had claimed to have successfully sold £3.85 billion of properties, including a £95m mansion at London’s St James’s Park, bought by a US billionaire, and an unmodernised off-market house sale in central London worth £45m.

As of last evening, Daggers’ Instagram profile referred to himself as “The Luxury Real Estate Advisor”; amongst the images posted is an eight-page presentation of his 2018 and 2019 performance which includes £241.67m in sales deals.

Estate Agent Today contacted Knight Frank after emails to Dagger’s Knight Frank address received an out of office message saying: “This mailbox is no longer monitored” and giving enquirers the email address of a Knight Frank negotiator.

A statement to EAT from Knight Frank itself says: “Knight Frank can confirm Daniel Daggers resigned in November 2019 and will leave the firm in February 2020.”