Price pinch

Prime rents in the 10 cities covered by Knight Frank’s Prime Global Rental Index rose by 7.9% in the year to September. That's roughly three and a half times their long-term pre-pandemic trend.

That can't be sustained for long, and we're already seeing some markets touch the limits of affordability. In New York City, annual growth has dropped from its peak of nearly 40% in Q1 2022 to 2.4% this quarter. Rents actually declined 1.3% during the most recent three months.

To find out what's going on, we spoke to New York property guru Jonathan Miller for a new edition of Intelligence Talks, out this morning. The deceleration can partly be attributed to an improvement in new supply delivery following an extended period of limited stock availability, but there are also limitations on what tenants are able to pay. Jonathan has much more to say - listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Something resembling normality has also returned to the prime central London lettings market, according to the latest index from Tom Bill. Quarterly growth in prime central and outer London has fallen to 1% from more than 2.5% throughout most of 2023. There were 3.7 new prospective tenants for every rental property listed in prime London postcodes last month, down from 5.1 in Novembe