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Gulf Business
a day ago
- Business
- Gulf Business
Bridging Dubai and Singapore: A private banking mission in a changing world
Bank of Singapore's head of private banking for Europe and the Middle East, Ranjit Khanna. Late one May evening, the Burj Khalifa's LED façade burst into red and white. The world's tallest tower was celebrating 40 years of bilateral trade between Singapore and the UAE, its pin-sharp stripes forming the flag of the Lion City. From an apartment a few streets away, Ranjit Khanna – head of private banking for Bank of Singapore in the Middle East and Europe – watched, phone in hand, capturing the moment. It was, he says, 'so wonderful' to see the city he now calls home illuminate the country that shaped his career. The flash of colour is a neat metaphor for Khanna himself: a banker whose roots stretch from high-school days in Dubai to three decades on the trading floors of Singapore, London and New York – and whose mission today is to fuse Asian expertise with Gulf ambition. Khanna's biography reads like a map of the modern private-wealth industry. Born to a banker father who was posted around the region, he finished school in Dubai, started university at the American University in Cairo, then crossed the Atlantic to begin his career with American Express Bank in 1990. Four years later he was back in the UAE as a relationship manager for Standard Chartered; by 2010 he was leading Coutts' Southeast Asia franchise out of Singapore. In 2023, the call came to return once more to Dubai – this time to anchor Bank of Singapore's push across the Middle East and Europe. Today, he leads a team of around 140 people, a figure that he says 'has grown headcount almost threefold in the last four or five years'. Much of that expansion has been on the front line: last year alone the DIFC branch increased its private-banker ranks by over 20 per cent, while simultaneously beefing up product and advisory benches. The client base is diverse but focused, serving three core segments: Global South Asia (including Indian and Pakistani entrepreneurs based in Dubai), GCC high-net-worth families, and international expats from the UK, Europe and increasingly, China. 'This region has long-standing cultural and economic ties to South Asia,' says Khanna. 'Many of our clients or their families have been part of the entrepreneurial fabric of the UAE for generations. That affinity, combined with Dubai's openness and strategic location, makes it a natural centre for private wealth.' He compares the regional trading culture with Singapore's own development, where merchants from Fujian, especially those from the Hokkien-speaking south, helped shape a nation. The power of a three-hub model Bank of Singapore's own evolution mirrors that same cross-cultural dynamic. Its parent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), is 'the oldest Singaporean bank' – founded more than 90 years ago to serve overseas Chinese merchants across Southeast Asia. In 2010, OCBC acquired the Asian and Middle East franchise of ING Private Bank, and formed a fully fledged, stand-alone private bank under the name, Bank of Singapore. Khanna sums it up crisply: 'We are the only independent global Asian private bank.' The Dubai office continues to expand on the deep client roots built from the bank's ING Asia heritage. Under CEO Jason Moo – appointed March 2023 from a Swiss rival – Bank of Singapore now operates a three-hub model. Hong Kong covers Greater China; Singapore leads ASEAN; and Dubai oversees all business west of the Strait of Malacca, including offices in Luxembourg and London. Traditionally, institutions like Bank of Singapore would have run EMEA operations from Europe. Khanna explains that the bank deliberately reversed this: 'We believe the Middle East has a much more important role to play.' This shift reflects Dubai's growing global influence, not just as a financial centre but as a magnet for wealth and talent. Indeed, the DIFC hub now accounts for a significant share of Bank of Singapore's global business, with ambitions to grow that further in line with the emirate's D33 vision. 'For simplicity's sake, my title is head of Middle East and Europe, ,' Khanna says. 'But really, anything west of Singapore comes under the Dubai hub.' That ambition comes at a time when private wealth dynamics are shifting. After a post-pandemic boom in asset prices, 2022 brought a correction: global wealth shrank by 4 per cent. Yet the UAE saw wealth grow by 8 per cent. 'That is on the back of really positive government federal policies, as well as investments in business and communities… and the sheer generation of wealth,' says Khanna. What's more, Dubai is now home to the world's second-largest millionaire migration after Singapore, according to the likes of Henley & Partners. 'In many ways, the UAE in particular has been a beneficiary of the largest millionaire migration in the world, rivalled only by Singapore. So for us, we are in the two of the best markets.' Building resilience, not just returns As expectations rise, so too does the need for deeper insight. 'Clients in the Middle East have become far more engaged and discerning, and they are looking for advisors who can deliver not only performance but also perspective — clarity amid volatility,' says Khanna. Bank of Singapore's answer has been to invest heavily in advisory strength and insight generation. 'To help clients navigate uncertain times, we are committed to building intellectual capital, bringing together leading minds and encouraging diversity of thought,' he says. The bank established its CIO Global Advisory Council in 2024 to support this effort. Bank of Singapore released the inaugural CIO Supertrends Report, and has continued to refine it with updates in 2025. 'The idea is to look at things from a five-year horizon rather than the immediate here and now,' Khanna notes. In February 2025, Bank of Singapore held its CIO Summit in Dubai, where thought leaders discussed strategy in a multi-polar world. This year will also see the launch of a new global asset allocation framework, which Khanna calls a major milestone. 'We employed a rigorous process to review over 60,000 portfolios, putting each portfolio through more than 24,000 stress tests… more than 1.4 billion stress tests conducted in total across eight months,' he says. 'We construct portfolios to perform reasonably well across a range of plausible scenarios, even if the forecasts of individual asset classes do not meet expectations.' The bank's diversification strategy spans equity styles, fixed income and alternatives. 'Diversification today goes beyond geography and asset class,' Khanna says. 'We are regularly discussing low volatility and high-quality equity strategies… Fixed Income at these yield levels and with rate cuts priced across key Developed Markets remains an important component… alternatives provide diversification benefits with less directional exposure to both equity and credit markets as well as inflation hedging characteristics.' Guiding families through generational transitions While investment performance is essential, legacy planning is just as critical for many families. 'We see increasing interest and awareness among our ultra-high-net-worth clients and families in relation to generational wealth transfer,' Khanna says. Bank of Singapore's Financial Intermediaries, Family Office and Wealth Advisory (FFWA) unit works directly with families to structure wealth transitions. 'They want to start this conversation early, and they are looking for suitable tools and wealth protection solutions,' he says. 'An equally important role of a private bank in supporting clients in their succession and legacy journey is fostering conversations among family members to align values, vision, and responsibilities,' Khanna adds. 'It is not just about the transfer of the financial capital but also about the human, social and cultural capital that is intrinsic to maintaining the family legacy.' The bank also advises families on philanthropy, multi-family office structures, and governance models depending on complexity and scale. A bridge between capital flows Looking ahead, the growth corridors between the Gulf and Asia will only deepen. 'Our clients in the Middle East are increasingly looking East,' says Khanna. 'The core of our investment team is based in Asia… this facilitates on-the-ground research and networks helping us identify long-term opportunities that align with our clients' return and risk appetite.' That value is matched by Singapore's status as a trusted booking centre. 'Singapore offers a powerful trifecta: political stability, robust regulation, and global connectivity. It is a neutral and trusted gateway to Asia: ideal for asset diversification and international wealth structuring.' 'We do not just carry the 'Singapore' name; we embody the 'Singapore' identity, reflecting the reliability that our clients seek,' Khanna says. At a time when the Middle East and Asia are becoming the two dominant centres of new wealth creation, Bank of Singapore's footprint and focus feel prescient. 'We are Asia's global private bank – Asian in values, global in capabilities and perspectives.' That blend of cultural alignment, institutional rigour, and global insight is what brought Khanna back to Dubai in the first place. 'For me to be successful, what do I want? I want a great brand – box checked. I want a great platform – box checked. I want to make sure I'm working with an institution that's got the right balance sheet so that we can help our clients – box checked.' Success, he insists, is not about league tables. 'If you look at the number of people we employ in the private bank, we're the third largest in the DIFC,' he says. 'What matters is when clients think about a private bank, they want to engage, we're top of mind.' As the lights of the Burj Khalifa glow once more this year – maybe next time to mark a new milestone for the bank itself – it's clear that the relationship between Singapore and Dubai is more than symbolic. It's strategic.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Climbing wall open to the public
Thursday night sessions on the climbing wall at Mount Hutt College are proving popular. PHOTO: SUPPLIED The Methven Community Climbing Wall is now open to the public on Thursday nights. The wall, located in the gymnasium at Mount Hutt College, has a per term subscription cost of $50. Methven climbing wall team member Jamie Robertson said the recent upgrade has allowed for more variety of climbing routes of different ability, safety checks/sign off of the upgrades and some upgrades of equipment, including new belay devices and anchor systems. "We are constantly looking for support for further upgrades to equipment and the wall, allowing for more opportunities for further training to community climbers, including outdoor climbing," Robertson said. Mount Hutt College physical education, health and outdoor education teacher Jarrod Coutts said before opening the climbing sessions to the public, they ran a pilot system earlier this year to test the systems with a small group of climbers. The pilot proved successful and last month they started the first of the sessions open to the public with space for 30, which runs through to June 26. A new block of sessions will run from July 17 to September 18. "There is a mixture of things that happen in a session, depending on the individual climber. Some people will learn how to belay other climbers safely through to attempting speed climbing challenges in groups," Coutts said On hand are volunteer staff there to offer friendly advice. Other climbers share guidance on how to deal with challenges and solving problems associated with climbing. Rock climbing is a recreational activity that individuals, friends, families and clubs enjoy. It is also a competitive sport with world championships and Olympic events. There are a variety of reasons why people attend the climbing sessions at the college. "Some people attend our nights for the physical benefits of strength and stability improvement, the social benefits of meeting new people or spending time with some friends, through to the mental challenge of stepping outside your comfort zone or problem solving," Coutts said. "Some people are coming along because they are just passionate climbers and want to support a really good community initiative." For information or to purchase a pass, go to Methven Community Climbing Wall Facebook page.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Lawrence Dallaglio is forced to sell his home for massive £600,000 less than advertised after split from wife: England legend 'now battling to get life back on track'
Lawrence Dallaglio took some massive hits on the way to becoming a World Cup winner and one of England's greatest rugby union players. Off the field, he's weathered the storms of cheating, drugs and brothel party scandals as well as overcoming tragedy and adversity. But now the rugby legend is facing perhaps his greatest ever challenge as he fights to get his life back on track after he was declared bankrupt in the wake of a bitter divorce ruck with his wife of 20 years. In the latest blow Dallaglio, 52, has been forced to sell the family home where he watched his children grow up to pay off his creditors. Dallaglio had hoped to pocket £3.3 million from the sale of the 'idyllic' four bedroomed property in leafy Richmond, Surrey, which he bought at the height of his career and had been his home for nearly 25 years. But MailOnline can reveal he's now sold the property at a knockdown price - losing out on £600,000 - because of the desperate state of his financial affairs. Ironically, the home has been snapped up by an up-and-coming young sports star. It's been bought by Brentford defender Jayden Meghoma, 18, who has represented England at Under 19 level and spent last season on loan at Preston North End. Land registry details show Meghoma, 19, paid £2.7 million for the property and has taken out a mortgage for £2.43 million with upmarket bank Coutts, whose clients include King Charles. While apparently making a healthy profit on the sale of the property, which Dallaglio bought for £925,000 in 2001, it emerged during an insolvency court hearing earlier this month that the equity in the home was only around £1.2million. The hearing was triggered by Dallaglio's estranged wife Alice, also 52, who was seeking an 'urgent' order allowing the immediate sale of the house. Alice, who was represented by separate lawyers from her husband, was said to have done so in the hope of staving off the imminent threat of Dallaglio's financial ruin. While the sale went through, the bid failed and Dallaglio was declared bankrupt after one of his creditors secured the order. It came two years after the sportsman, who now works as a TV pundit, narrowly avoided going bust following a petition by HM Revenue and Customs over an unpaid £700,000 tax bill. During proceedings his financial woes were laid bare after it was revealed his sports business, which he set up the year he became England captain in 1997, owed cash to a string of creditors. To prevent the firm being wound up by a court order, Dallaglio agreed to an 'individual voluntary agreement' to pay off his debts. But last year a report into his financial affairs stated Dallaglio was still being chased for hundreds of thousands of pounds in loans. The couple - who married in a romantic ceremony at Lake Como in 2005 - sold their home just months after appearing at the Central Family Court in Holborn to finalise the end of their marriage. When details of the divorce emerged, Alice's family hit back at claims the marriage had never recovered from a fling the former model had at the age of 31 with millionaire property developer Leon Butler in 2005. The affair happened after the couple's marriage reportedly hit a rocky patch following the birth of their children - son Enzo and daughters Ella and Josie. Her artist mother Lydia Corbett - who was said to have been Pablo Picasso's last muse - told how Dallaglio's troubles were at the heart of the split. She told MailOnline: 'I'm very sad about it. People marry and they divorce, I've been divorced twice so I know what it's like. It's horrible, it's painful for the heart and it's not fair. 'He did very well, I loved him, but he's going through a bad phase and we hope he's alright.' Certainly Alice - who met Dallaglio in 1992 when he was still trying to make his mark in the game - had plenty to contend with herself when Dallaglio dropped the ball on a number of occasions. Their marriage survived a succession of scandals dating back to the late Nineties when allegations of wild partying emerged, while Alice was at home looking after the children. Her affair came two years after the rugby ace allegedly slept with a married mother, leading to the woman divorcing her husband. Four years earlier, Dallaglio was stripped of the England captaincy after he allegedly confessed he had used prostitutes in Amsterdam, and was accused of using and dealing cocaine and ecstasy. He told an undercover newspaper reporter he had been a teenage drug dealer and reportedly added: 'I made big, big money from dealing in drugs. 'Why do you think I know so much about drugs? I was surrounded by it. I used to drive from one end of London to the other with five or six ounces of it (cocaine). 'That's how I used to make money before I took up rugby.' Dallaglio also allegedly boasted how he and two other players had taken ecstasy 'and then a couple of wraps of coke' to celebrate winning the 1997 Lions series in South Africa. At the time, Dallaglio claimed he had been 'naive and foolish' but admitted he had experimented with drugs in his late teens. He said he was now 'completely against drugs', adding: 'I will always regret the effect that this has had on everyone.' The incident led to him being fined £15,000 for bringing the game into disrepute on top of legal costs amounting to £10,000. In 2020 he found himself caught up in another sleazy scenario when a court heard Dallaglio made 'payments of up to £10,000 at a brothel' in Holborn, which also offered clients cocaine. Wood Green Crown Court heard how undercover police raided a Georgian townhouse in July 2019 where a gang were running a vice operation supplying £300-an-hour prostitutes as well as Class A drugs. Using evidence from card machines found in a secret compartment in a basement lavatory, prosecutors compiled a spreadsheet of payments made at the address. They included four from Dallaglio's account on March 22, 2019, amounting to a total of £10,500. One of the transactions, for £7,550, was paid into the account of one of the defendants, a Romanian madam aged 22. Dallaglio was interviewed under caution but was not arrested and did not give evidence in the case. Dallaglio's scandals off the pitch seem at odds with his powerhouse performances at the back of the scrum during a glittering career. At 6ft 4ins and weighing 17 stone, he earned 85 caps playing for England - including 22 as captain - and was a key member of the 2003 World Cup winning squad. He was also picked for the British & Irish Lions on three separate tours, and won five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups in the all-conquering Wasps teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Dallaglio has told how he was inspired to make something of his life following the tragic death of his older sister Francesca in the Marchioness riverboat disaster in 1989. At 19, the trainee ballerina, who had performed for Princess Diana, was the youngest of the 51 victims who died after two boats collided on the River Thames in London. Dallaglio - who was brought up a Roman Catholic - was 16 at the time and a boarder at Ampleforth public school in North Yorkshire. The tragedy happened during the summer holidays and Dallaglio had also been invited to attend the party that night but declined because of a headache. Dallaglio has told how the possession he valued above all others was a small wooden chest full of possessions that belonged to Francesca. He told how the chest contained 'little treasures, like her diary, ballet shoes and jewellery'. In an interview in 2011 Dallaglio said: 'Losing a member of one's family is a terrible thing, particularly for us, having been very close-knit. I became quite driven after that. 'I thought: "I now actually need to pull my finger out and do something that's going to bring everyone together."' While rugby had just been a hobby up until then, Dallaglio - the son of an Italian father and an English-born mother of Irish descent - had already enjoyed a colourful childhood. Before Ampleforth Dallaglio attended private King's House School in Richmond where, as a 12-year-old chorister, he sang at Andrew Lloyd Webber 's wedding and provided backing vocals for Tina Turner's 1985 smash hit We Don't Need Another Hero. He also backed performances by Barry Manilow and appeared onstage in the West End in the Lloyd Webber musical Evita. After retiring from the game in 2008, he has also worked as an after dinner speaker alongside his TV and radio punditry. He set up his own charity Dallaglio RugbyWorks following the death of his mother Eileen from cancer in 2008. After some initial huge success, Dallaglio refocused the charity on a social inclusion programme, aiming to help teenagers who have been excluded from mainstream education. He has also taken part in several physical challenges, including cycling events, and has raised millions of pounds in the process. Already an MBE, he was also awarded an OBE in 2008 for his contribution to sport and charity. Despite his controversies, Dallaglio has insisted that he had never been happier than the time spent at his Richmond home with his family. He once told how he would end his 'fantasy 24 hours' drinking champagne with Alice there. The couple often hosted dinner parties at the house where Dallaglio - author of My Italian Family Cookbook - would rustle up dishes inspired by his father. As Dallaglio faces rebuilding his life, neighbours told of their sadness as the couple had become much loved members of the local community. One said: 'They have been here for years, and we have watched them raise their three children in the house, it's such a shame to see them go.'
Vancouver Sun
3 days ago
- Business
- Vancouver Sun
'Happy to be pain free': How a robot named Gina gave a B.C. woman her life back
For 44 years, Maureen Coutts worked tirelessly in hospital operating rooms, helping others on their road back to health. As an OR nurse, it meant marathon days on her feet, sometimes seeing daylight come and go. Those decades exacted a heavy toll on her body, and by the time she retired in 2018 — after a brief and aborted attempt to return to work — she'd been in debilitating pain for three years. A hip joint with no cartilage and with bone grinding on bone, left her in agony and a limping waddle that made her look, she said, 'like a demented penguin.' Coutts saw many advances in the medical field during her career, but in late April, she became the beneficiary of one, becoming the first patient in Western Canada to have a total hip replacement surgery done with a robotic assist. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. The prospect of being the first in the region to have the Mako Robotic Arm system operate on her hip held no fear for the 71-year-old. When Dr. Tim Kostamo, the orthopedics division head at Burnaby Hospital, called her to gauge her level of comfort with the procedure, her response was immediate. 'I said, 'Yep, sure! Why not?'' said the White Rock resident, who'd worked at Vancouver General Hospital, Delta Hospital, Surrey Memorial Hospital and Peace Arch Hospital in her decades of nursing. 'I think it's because over the years in my occupation, I've seen so many changes for the better. New things coming in, technology, computers, cameras … and I'd grown along with that. 'I'm just happy to be pain-free. That's the thing that I think about every day. I don't think about, 'Oh, I'm the first.' That part isn't that important. I'm going to get my life back. 'I have a seven-year old granddaughter … And for her, last summer was the worst. She would want to go certain places, and I'd say, 'I have to drive, I can't walk. 'But this summer, we can.' Burnaby had been performing total and partial knee replacements with the Mako system since the start of 2024, but this was the first total hip surgery. Kostamo had spearheaded the effort to bring the robot to B.C., starting the process when he began to feel his skills plateaued. With robotics on his mind, he visited five different U.S. cities to see the workflow in their hospitals, settling on the Mako because of its track record and comprehensive data. The Prince George native presented his findings to the Fraser Health Authority, and it took two years of meetings before it was given the green light. Funding for the $2.3 million machine was the easiest part, he said. So was naming it — Gina, after the wife of a donor. 'Everything moves slowly in our health-care system, when you want any change,' he said with a rueful chuckle. 'There were a lot of meetings. … Our hospital foundation was amazing. I met with them, like, once, and they're like, 'yes, we'll do it.' Our community donors were super behind it. 'So it was a two-year journey of, 'Hey, what can I do to improve the outcomes for the patients?' deciding on this particular robotic system and then going through the bureaucratic pub crawl to make it happen.' Kostamo called his surgical team a well-oiled machine, speaking to Postmedia after a day when he'd done eight joint replacements, a sample of the hundreds he'd do in a year. 'I have a retired orthopedic surgeon who's my assistant,' he said. 'He's actually the one who taught me how to do joint replacements 20 years ago. He knows my every move. I know his every move. It's like a dance … it's like a tango. We don't even have to say anything to each other. We know exactly what's happening next.' 'Gina' is now another partner to join the dance. While the Mako system is another step forward, the Star Trek future of autonomous surgery remains the fiction part of sci-fi. Of the 140 or so steps in a knee replacement, the machine only helps with about five of them. Orthopedic surgery, Kostamo said, sometimes resembles 'wanton violence.' The vigorous manipulation of joints can cause green medical students to faint when seeing it for the first time, and it seems closer to carpentry than surgery when the doctors pull out various power tools — or good old fashioned hammers and chisels — and pound away at the body. With a robot-assisted hip replacement, the Mako is involved in the reaming: the preparation of the hip socket, usually done by a sure-handed surgeon with a power drill capped by a special grinding head. The arm is the same one used for knee replacements, but the head with specialized attachments is changed . Guided by CT scans which give a three-dimensional view of the joint, the Mako can make more accurate cuts and guiding, keeping the patient's geometry — such as the leg length, the distance from the centre of the pelvis to the hip — intact. But it can't move the head of the femur back into the acetabulum, the cup-shaped socket in the hip bone, and can't gauge the force needed. Too little, the bone won't set in place. Too much, and the pelvis could break. 'It helps us make the cuts very precisely, but it can't move the patient onto the table. It can't position the patient, can't open the wound, it doesn't have judgment yet to know if something's gone sour, it can't fix it,' said Kostamo. 'For surgeons, we're still a long way from AI taking us over. 'It's exciting. But these things are not massive changes. They're sort of incremental changes. But if you don't pursue these incremental changes and these innovations, then you're not going to keep getting better. But it's exciting that technology can help us to continually improve and, I'm excited that at Burnaby hospital we were the first in the province, and now the first in Western Canada to do a hip with it. It's been a triumph for our team. And so it's good to have some good news out of the health-care system.' With more than 100 knee replacements — and now one hip — under their belt, the orthopedics department has had a 15 per cent improvement in the precision of implant placement (how close the implants are to being perfect), a better range of motion, and quicker healing times. The time it takes for the procedure has reduced too, as the surgical teams get better acquainted with the technology. A month on from surgery, Coutts is walking the halls of her apartment building, mounting stairs properly, and looking forward to keeping up with her husband on walks. 'I would say another in couple of weeks, and I probably won't need this,' she said, looking at her cane as she moved with just the trace of a limp. 'The outcome of the patient is so close to our hearts,' said Kostamo. 'We live and breathe how our patients do after surgery. For us, it's so great when patients do well. 'When I'm in the office and I have patient after patient coming in and I've restored their ability to walk, they have no pain, and they're so happy, it's the most wonderful thing.' jadams@ @
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
The house price nightmare ‘hollowing out' London
Tucked just behind the Victoria & Albert Museum, Kensington's Egerton Crescent is an elegant half-moon of handsome 19th-century terraces, their white facades and wrought-iron balconies overlooking a patch of private garden. In the early part of last decade Egerton Crescent was dubbed 'Britain's most expensive street'. As London boomed, you could name your selling price if you were lucky enough to own a house here. But things have changed in the capital. Coutts, the King's bankers, says 82pc of properties in 'prime London' sold for less than the asking price in the first three months of this year. Land Registry records suggest prices in Kensington and Chelsea have dropped by 15pc in the past year, and Coutts says vendors are having to cop an average discount of 9.3pc. 'The market has changed dramatically,' says Christian Lock-Necrews, the head of the Kensington and Chelsea office at estate agency chain Winkworths. 'I've done this for 20 years, I'm long in the tooth. It's unquestionably a very difficult market, because buyers are hesitant. 'Clients can't bury their heads in the sand. It may be a difficult pill to swallow … Sometimes it's not a 2pc or 3pc drop, but a 10pc drop.' Problems are not confined to the top end of the market. Average house prices in London are now growing more slowly than anywhere else in Britain. Asking prices in London are only 0.7pc higher than a year ago, according to online property portal Rightmove. In North East England, they're up 2.8pc, and in the North West 3.9pc. 'The London housing market has been struggling for a decade, it's the laggard of the housing market,' says Richard Donnell, of online property portal Zoopla. 'It's really a tale of different migration patterns, affordability, uncertainty after Brexit. Then obviously the global pandemic came along and hit global cities pretty hard. Then in the last two years or so we've had higher mortgage rates – that has had the biggest impact where house prices are higher, and who's got twice the national average house price? That's London.' As wages have stagnated, interest rates have climbed and the cost of living has soared, people have increasingly turned their backs on London for the more affordable accommodation on offer up north. It's a long way from 2016, when house prices were growing at a double-digit pace at all points of the compass, from Barking to Hounslow, Croydon to Waltham Forest. Now, the decades-old wealth creation machine that underpinned London has stalled. Owning a home in the capital used to be a way to get rich. Flip it when you retired and you'd have plenty to live off. That may no longer be the case as growth in prices slows to a crawl. The big question is: is this the nadir before a bounce back, or has the miracle of London's property market ended for good? London exodus 'London's greatest export at this minute is people who can't afford housing in London,' says Shaun Bailey, a Conservative member of both the House of Lords and the London Assembly. 'What we Londoners are doing, we're now popping up in other places in the country: Bristol, Bath, I've heard people go as far as Liverpool and Newquay. We are now pricing them out of their area.' The exodus north can be seen in prices. Land Registry records show double-digit increases this past year in towns and regions dotted across the North – Durham, Hartlepool, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Oldham, Sunderland. Yet houses in these areas are still changing hands for an average of £200,000 or less, often not even a third of the average in most London boroughs. Maddie Stewart-Williams, 27, is one of those Londoners who did the maths. After almost a decade in the capital, she and her partner moved to Liverpool from South Woodford, about 10 miles north-east of central London, last September. They had bought their Woodford one-bedder – 'tiny, barely more than a studio' – in 2020 for £272,000, 'which at the time felt like a bargain'. 'I'm sat in my house now, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom terraced house in Liverpool, which is worth considerably less than what we paid for that flat,' she says. Her partner was born and raised in Hackney, and they never planned to leave London. They looked for a bigger place in cheaper corners of the capital like Plumstead and Shooters Hill, but to no avail. 'The more we were looking at these areas and the costs of the houses there, I just kept saying to my partner, we could live in the nicest part of Nottinghamshire for the price of a three-bed in not-the-best area in south London,' Stewart-Williams says. 'We realised that if we were going to stay in London, it was going to be a big expenditure. Our mortgage was always going to be a big part of our salaries and our lives, and dictated what we could and couldn't do.' The stats bear this out. In London, mortgage repayments average 57.9pc of take-home pay, according to Nationwide. In the north-west, it's just 27.5pc, and in the north-east, 22pc. The national average is 34.7pc. Living in London has always been more expensive than in the rest of the country. But in the past young professionals had to stomach it if they wanted to build a career in finance, politics, professional services or other London-centred industries. The ability to work remotely since the pandemic has changed all that, Bailey points out. 'Londoners who can arrange some kind of hybrid working, they can live very far away from London but they can have a London salary,' he says. Stewart-Williams and her partner both work in the tech industry. Some of their work still revolves around London, but she doesn't need to be there. 'On a daily basis, we both say to each other how glad we are that we're out of London and how we would never go back'. In some ways, this is a familiar British story. 'A lot of people move to London when they're young, they get generally better-than-averagely paid jobs. Then at some point they try to get on the housing ladder. There are lots of first-home buyers in London,' says Rob Houghton, chief executive and founder of reallymoving, an online property services marketplace. 'And then for a lot of them the second step will be to move out of London, whether it's to the outer region of London or right out of London together, which is what I did 30 years ago.' Data from Hamptons estate agents shows that the London property market has the highest proportion of first-home buyers of any British region: at 50pc, it's 21 points higher than the national average. But ask any London-dweller under the age of 40 about buying in the capital, and the familiar refrain of despair and desperation will ensue. 'Two years ago, I was looking at property in London up to £280,000. So many places were either 'cash-buyer only', or 'short lease', or 'not suitable for mortgage' or even just mouldy. Anything cheaper than that was in Zone 7,' says web designer Nadia. 'Then I got a pay rise, and could afford £325,000. But the habitable flats were all those same ones, they'd just got more expensive.' 'More homes for sale than buyers' Beneath this decades-old tale of despairing buyers, though, there is now a sense that something has changed. As domestic middle-class buyers look to the North or give up, and as the cosmopolitan elite abandons London for Dubai or some other less taxing jurisdiction, London has become a nightmare for sellers, too. 'There are more properties on at the moment than there are buyers, that's for sure,' says Laura Dam Villena, of real estate adviser Cluttons. Leonie Witte and her partner have had to learn this the hard way. They've been trying to offload a three-bedroom terrace with a garden in south-east London's Bromley neighbourhood for almost six months. They first advertised it on the do-it-yourself website Purplebricks in late November with a price tag above £400,000. Would-be buyers began filing through and soon they had an offer. But then the script changed. 'That buyer pulled out. We then got another offer, from a family, but they pulled out after telling us they'd realised their preferred school wasn't nearby enough – even though they would've known that already,' Witte says. The sellers dropped the price a couple of times. In March, there was a lot of interest from people frantically trying to find a place before the stamp duty threshold rose from £300,000 to £425,000. 'Once the stamp duty rules changed in April, it really dried up,' Witte says. Finally, after dropping the price below £400,000 and advertising more widely, they are hopeful they have found a serious buyer. 'We never thought it would take so long.' London falling Sales volumes in London have been in steady decline. From 8,030 transactions in January 2021, the figure this January was just 4,005, according to Land Registry records. The sharpest declines were in the swankiest locations, such as Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea. On average, it costs £1.2m to buy a place in Kensington and Chelsea, and £900,000 in Westminster. But that's 15pc and 20pc less, respectively, than the same time last year. Coutts says sellers face a 15pc haircut on their initial sale price in Mayfair and St James's, and 12.5pc in Knightsbridge and Belgravia. The prime London market's astonishing growth in the first decade and a half of this century was at least partly fuelled by an influx of wealth from abroad – from Russia, China and the Middle East – attracted to the history, the prestige, the schools and the financial services the city had to offer. 'There was a period of time when purchasing a nice house in a very desirable part of London was a very good place to put your money, if you had quite a bit of it and you could put it pretty much anywhere in the world,' says Rob Anderson, research director at the Centre for London. Since the Brexit referendum of 2016, however, London's appeal to the globe-trotting elite and its footloose capital has been slowly waning. 'There's always a geopolitical element to a lot of what's going on in the super-prime type [of] areas,' says Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. 'There has been this sense, perhaps at the very top end, that perhaps London is not as welcoming a location for people as it once was.' In the past year, the capital's star has fallen faster and further. Agents and analysts point to Rachel Reeves's decision, in her maiden Budget last October, to press on with the abolition of non-dom tax status, and to raise the stamp duty charged on international purchases from 5pc to 7pc, and on second homes from 3pc to 5pc. Add those levies on to the 12pc top rate of stamp duty, and an overseas buyer's tax bill could easily top £100,000 in prime London. At a time of global uncertainty, that might be simply too much. It is not just an unwillingness among buyers that is hurting the market. Many non-doms are trying to sell up after the change to their tax status, meaning the market is being squeezed from both sides. 'Prices [in prime central London] fell in the last quarter of last year by about 1.9pc [year on year], and in the first quarter of this year by 2.6pc,' says Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills. 'That is a direct response to what's gone on in the Budget.' When the top of the market was booming, the locals who were priced out would shift to the next tier down, pushing prices up there as well. Without that ripple effect, it's no surprise to see areas surrounding the prime boroughs are also slipping back: Hammersmith and Fulham house prices are down 13.2pc year on year, according to Land Registry data, while Islington is down 8.2pc, and Wandsworth 2.4pc. 'A hollowed-out city' Across the rest of London, where all those first-home buyers are scrabbling to get a foothold, the biggest issue is not changes in tax status or geopolitics. It is affordability. 'What you might be seeing is just almost a topping-out of the market, almost reaching the limits of unaffordability,' says the Centre for London's Anderson. 'Are we reaching the top of what the market can take, basically, in what people are willing to pay for properties in London?' According to Nationwide, the average cost of a London home is now 9.3 times the average salary. In the country at large, that figure is 5.8, and in the north of England it's as low as four or five. 'London is out of reach for so many people, even for people on really good incomes,' says Sem Moema, a Hackney councillor who is Labour's housing lead in the London Assembly. She recalls meeting one of the borough police commanders for her constituency and being surprised to discover that he actually lived in London. Police officers, like nurses, teachers, and nursery workers, are being priced out of the areas where they work. 'It's a hollowing-out. It's a real, real problem, what it means for the shape and the feel of the city,' she says. 'Lots of boroughs are facing falling school enrolments, some are being forced to close school classes, because families can't afford to live in the capital.' Recent falling interest rates have eased the pressure slightly. London's price-to-earnings ratio, which compares the average house price to the average annual earnings, has dipped from the high of about 11 in both 2016 and 2022, which seems to be the ceiling. But buyers won't necessarily be feeling better for it, says Rubinsohn. 'Interest rates at where we are now don't look absurd, in a historical context. But a lot of people who perhaps bought properties in 2021 or 2022 were doing so at almost zero-cost money, and it's a much harder game now,' he says. 'Deposits to actually fund a house purchase in London or a flat purchase are still substantial. Unless you're fortunate enough to be employed in consultancy, the legal world or financial services or tech, getting that deposit together is a real challenge.' With buyers stretched close to financial breaking point, the stamp duty on a London purchase can make or break a deal. It was little wonder, then, that the looming end to the most recent stamp duty holiday caused a mini-frenzy in the middle market. More than 75,000 buyers raced to seal deals before the tax break expired, driving a 104pc surge in house sales year on year according to HM Revenue and Customs data. After April, the market fell 'into this kind of lethargic quiet', says Wendy Peterman, who runs an eponymous estate agency, founded by her father and uncle, in the well-to-do south London neighbourhood of Herne Hill. 'Now it's picked up a bit. We've seen a lot of stuff come to the market in the last week or so. Whether it's going to sell or not, I don't know.' The pundits have varying views on how to fix the problem. Bailey wants banks to be permitted to lend more generously to young first-time buyers. Rightmove's Colleen Babcock suggests stamp duty should be varied by region, so that Londoners are penalised less. Everybody talks about the need to increase the supply of houses. But the Government's target of building 88,000 new homes in London annually would equate to rolling out an entire new borough each year. The authorities didn't even hit that mark in the 1930s, when the 'Metro-land' suburbs were thrown up at the end of the new Underground lines. Labour has vowed to 'get Britain building' and promised 1.5m new homes across the country by the end of this parliament. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility's assessment of the National Planning Policy Framework, the building blueprint launched by ministers last year, concluded that the plan would only make London homes 0.8pc cheaper – perhaps a drop of £5,000 on average. And anyway, that wouldn't please the sellers, who also have a vote. 'To get London's house-price-to-income ratio down to the national average, you'd need to see prices fall by about a third over the next five years. Which no one wants. Any politician in their sane mind would think twice about that,' says Anderson at the Centre for London. The other group of buyers leaving the London market are buy-to-let investors. Extra red tape and the Chancellor's stamp duty increase on second homes have prompted many to sell up, even as rental yields have increased. New renters' rights laws, which would make it harder to evict tennants and are still moving through Parliament, are making landlords even more nervous. 'As it has gradually become harder and harder to make any money as an amateur landlord, I think the investor demand has fallen dramatically,' says reallymoving's Houghton. 'A lot of my friends had properties they rented out, and an awful lot are selling them off, us included. It became more hassle than it was worth, and we weren't really making any money out of it. I think that has changed the dynamics of the London property market.' The lack of landlords hurts not only sellers, who might previously have sold to one, but renters. This spills over into London's economy, says Anderson. Fewer rental properties mean higher prices, leaving less money to spend elsewhere. 'You've got young professionals in the prime of their spending life, and one third to half their income is going on rent or a highly leveraged mortgage.' New normal? Affordability can hurt more than just the hipster's hip pocket – it sucks up time and capital. A study commissioned by the London Assembly last year estimated that a 1pc improvement in housing affordability generates a 0.14pc increase in the city's productivity. On the other side of the ledger, there is a feedback loop between house prices and consumer confidence. Higher confidence drives higher prices, and vice versa. What the market takes from buyers and productivity, it gives to sellers and demand. So far, the Starmer Government has little to show for its focus on housing. Ramping up supply will take time and money. In the short-term, that leaves Labour's tax changes as one of the dominant drivers – often through the law of unintended consequences. Unsurprisingly, the people who make a living from the London market are hopeful that better times might yet lie ahead in the capital. Cluttons' Villena says buyers are still there in peripheral parts of London, 'in the background'. 'I've been speaking with a number of buying agents recently, saying they have some really great clients lined up. But there's a sense of hesitation and waiting,' she says. 'It wouldn't surprise me if in the next quarter we look back and see a bit of recovery on prices in those areas. But we're not expecting any sudden influx of buyers. I think this will be the new normal for a while.' Rightmove's Babcock says London is a microcosm of the country as a whole: where homes are more affordable, like Barking and Dagenham or Hillingdon, there is stronger growth. She is also seeing a rise in demand for office space, suggesting that London might once again draw workers in. Back in Kensington, Lock-Necrews says some of his prospective clients feel the worst Budget news is all out of the way now. Others are rekindling their affection for London. They may not be in the market for a terrace on Egerton Crescent, but they are sniffing around. 'There are very positive conversations with people from across the globe who still perceive London as the place they want to be. So I feel quite reassured, actually – I think London's been talked down too much,' he says. 'Yes, it's different – prices have been adjusted, there are fewer buyers. Prices probably got out of control in central London, and they've readjusted since. But it is still London, nothing goes up in a straight line forever. And we've had an incredible run.'
