The total potential spend of all residential property buyers registered with Knight Frank in London was £52bn as of 5 May 2020, new data has revealed.

The real estate consultant indicated its figure compared to £43.5bn on the same day in 2019, reflecting a rise of 20%.

Knight Frank’s research suggested the sharp decline in web views, new buyer registrations and even transaction numbers appeared to be slowly reversing, while the difference between asking prices and exchange prices is widening, also at a slow rate.

The research revealed the average sale price in London was 94% of the original asking price during April, down from the 97% average recorded in January, a time when the effects of the “Boris bounce” had started to take hold. Knight Frank suggested this has reflected the ad hoc renegotiations taking place between buyers and sellers.

The real estate consultant’s prime central and outer London indices for April are broadly flat over the last 12 months, which it said reflected how thin trading conditions remain. Its latest research also showed the index in prime central London had fallen by 0.3% between March and April, leaving the annual decline at 1.3% – the first time the annual decline had widened in more than a year.

Furthermore, Knight Frank’s research suggested that renters are “turning their attention to life after lockdown” even more keenly than buyers. The number of new prospective tenants registering across the Knight Frank London network has doubled over the course of lockdown, albeit from a higher base than the sales market.

The real estate consultant added that the number of new tenant registrations was 59% below the five-year average in the week ending 28 March, but that this decline had narrowed to 38% by the week ending 2 May.

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