The enduring American love affair with London

There has been much press coverage regarding wealthy Americans flocking to London following the election of Donald Trump as President, but the popularity of UK property among American buyers has been consistently high for a while.

A key reason for this is that the exchange rate has been in US buyers’ favour over the past few years, as the dollar has generally strengthened since 2021, sinking to almost parity with sterling following Liz Truss’ ill-fated Budget in September 2022. Many dollar buyers have taken advantage and over the past year in particular, a significant proportion of clients have been dollar-pegged – not just Americans but also buyers from Canada, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. While we have seen a slight scaling back of European buyers at the higher end of the market, dollar-pegged buyers make up a growing proportion of our client base. There have been surges of interest from Americans in the past but in 20 years of doing this job, I can’t recall quite so many buying as now.

As well as the currency play and shared language, the political situation in the US is a factor when deciding to buy UK property. There is a sense of disbelief that despite the US economy growing much faster than ours, so many underlying problems prevail. Many of our clients are from the cities and are disheartened by what is happening there. Those moving from San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago say time and again that they have had enough of the opiate problems, significant crime levels and homelessness. While London is not without its own issues – most notably knife crime – guns are the exception rather than the rule, making London feel relatively safe and genteel in comparison.

For a long time, Americans being seconded to the UK for say, five years, would rent rather than buy because it worked out cheaper once stamp duty was factored into the cost of a purchase. They stayed long enough to put their children through the school system and were then off again. But as rents have soared ever higher that balance has tipped and there is a stronger argument for buying.

Some American buyers are exclusively school-driven, with a particular hotspot focused around St John’s Wood where the main American school in central London is based. They also gravitate towards the period character to be found in Kensington, Holland Park, Hampstead, Wimbledon and Chelsea. I have some Americans currently looking in Chelsea, attracted by the close-knit community and the social heritage, with the presence of an overarching, aristocratic landlord and the standard of quality this brings. They are intrigued by the notion that a single family can control vast swathes of prime real estate.

While London feels busy to those that live here in comparison to the centre of Manhattan, parts of central London can feel like a quaint village by comparison. The low-built, low-rise nature of central London appeals, with its sense of light and space. A feature which is regularly cited by American buyers as one of London’s most appealing benefits is the ample swathes of open public space in Kensington, Holland Park, Wimbledon and Hampstead. American buyers love London’s history, culture and built heritage, particularly the urban villages with their strong individual identities. However, given the American preference for width/lateral space, a big part of our role as buying agents is ensuring clients are sufficiently educated about the breadth of vernacular and the options from a positive and negative perspective, considering so much of prime central London is terraced and vertical.

Many American clients aspire to travel more, work less and enjoy their leisure time, with London felt to be the perfect place to accomplish this. It is a handy base from which to access Europe, offering a law-abiding, democratic society – something potentially even more relevant as Trump’s second term plays out.