Fairway Capital, advising the Fairway Capital Fund, has sold a c. €31.2m c. 485m2 lateral residence on Old Park Lane in London’s Mayfair, formerly part of the Rolls Royce HQ. The sale is part of a series of London residential property deals, worth c. €142.8m, that Fairway Capital has secured over the last few months of 2024 to buyers from the UK, the Middle East and Asia.
The four-bedroom apartment on Old Park Lane, providing three palatial reception rooms, a reception hall, 4.3-metre high ceilings and park views was funded by equity investors Fairway Capital and DAR Global and developed by Leconfield Property Group. The partners transformed an upper floor of a grand Edwardian building, built in 1904 to designs by Savoy Hotel architect Thomas Edward Colcutt, into the finest new lateral residence in Mayfair offering panoramic park views.
George Brooksbank, CEO of Fairway Capital says: “We have sold one of our Fund’s flagship assets, a turn-key £26.25m (c. €31.2m) 5,222 sq.ft (c. 485m2) lateral residence on Old Park Lane in London’s Mayfair, formerly part of the Rolls Royce HQ, to a young international buyer. The average age of buyers of London homes worth £25 million or more is now just 41, down 12 years in the last decade. Over the last few months, the Fairway Capital Fund has exited £110m (c. €130.9m)of trophy homes in Prime Central London to buyers from the UK, Middle East, USA and Asia, the majority being in their early 30s to early 50s. Around 50% of our sales have been to domestic UK buyers, who have mostly purchased family houses, whilst the remaining sales have been to international buyers, predominantly from the USA and Middle East, who have bought pied-a-terre apartments. At the top end of the London property market, the market is being driven by a new generation of younger buyers who are wealthy, mostly self-made, and are far more bullish and impulsive than older buyers, who are more cautious and bearish about the market.
This new wave of “young wealth” likes to buy newly built or newly refurbished homes ready to move in. These younger buyers are also driving the London trophy home market because their age enables them to take a long-term investment view on the London property market, purchasing and holding for 10 to 20 years, which makes sound financial sense given Stamp Duty costs. American buyers are attracted by the strength of the US Dollar against Pound Sterling. Middle East buyers are using London as a safe place to “park” their wealth given the current instability in the Gulf region. The wars in Israel-Gaza, Syria and Yemen and the tensions with Iran have unsettled a lot of wealthy Gulf families who like to buy in London as a property in the UK capital provides a good long-term investment and a “safe house” property far away from the Gulf.”
Image source - Fairway Capital/Alex Winship.
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