Welcome to Llanover International’s The Corridor Autumn 2026.

Llanover International advises clients across London and prime Surrey, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

United Kingdom

London

Prices turn before transactions do

In our Summer review we described London as bottoming rather than recovering. The third quarter has moved it a step further.

Knight Frank’s prime central London index rose 0.3% in the three months to September, the first quarter of price growth in four years. The annual decline narrowed to 2%, the smallest in 18 months, although values remain 22% below their August 2015 peak. Prime outer London, where demand is more needs driven, fell 0.6% over the year and has not moved by more than 1% in either direction since May 2025.

Transaction data is less settled. LonRes recorded the fewest August sales since 2008, 19% down on a year earlier, with achieved prices 7% lower year on year. The two measures are telling different parts of the same story: Knight Frank values a consistent basket of homes, while LonRes records the prices actually achieved on what sold. Half of all stock on the market has been reduced, and the average discount to asking price remains 10.4%.

Demand has not disappeared. Homes going under offer in August were 15.3% fewer than a year earlier but 9.4% above the 2017 to 2019 average, which suggests buyers are agreeing deals that are slow to complete.

The top end has stabilised

Above £10 million, 121 sales completed in the year to September, level with the previous year, while total spend rose 14% to £2.4 billion. That follows a low point last November, when the rolling total fell to 106 from 155 a year earlier. Knight Frank reports sellers becoming more realistic after years on the market, and buyers who have been renting beginning to sense value.

Savills has seen a significant improvement in £5 million plus sales, with Hampstead joining Kensington and Chelsea as the most active locations, and now suggests that reports of a non-dom exodus were overstated. Its new Next Generation Wealth Hubs Index places London third in the world, ahead of Abu Dhabi in eighth and Dubai in tenth.

Lettings tighten ahead of the Budget

The rental market is where pressure is building. Landlords are absorbing the Renters’ Rights Act, in force since May, and higher borrowing costs, with a five-year fixed buy-to-let mortgage at 75% loan to value reaching 4.7% in August against 3.88% in January. Supply is falling as a result.

Rents rose 3% over the year in prime outer London and 1.3% in prime central London, both at their fastest six-month pace since January 2024.

There were 8.9 new prospective tenants for every new property in prime outer London over the three months to September, higher than during the pandemic, and 5.6 in prime central London, the highest in four years.

An outlook set by two dates

The government has ruled out a land value tax before the next election, which removes one source of uncertainty. Two dates will shape the rest of the year.

The Budget on 28 October brings speculation over the high-value council tax threshold, capital gains tax and National Insurance on rental income. The US midterm elections on 3 November may shift the pressures behind the Middle East conflict, and with them the outlook for mortgage rates, which rose again in mid-September.

Forecasters remain cautious

The latest Reuters poll expects London prices to fall 1.4% this year and rise 0.9% in 2027, both downgraded since June.

In our view prime central London has turned before the wider market, and the gap between the two is where the opportunity lies for buyers with time and without dependence on mortgage finance.

Prime Surrey: steadier averages, selective buyers

Surrey figures have turned since the spring; the average Elmbridge price stood at £748,000 in July 2026, 1.9% higher than a year earlier, reversing the 1.9% annual fall recorded in April. Elmbridge remains the highest-priced local authority in the South East, and detached homes there averaged £1.59 million, up 3.7% over the year.

As we noted in the Summer review, the captured Surrey price averages are a blunt guide to private estates such as St George’s Hill and Wentworth Estate, where plot, position, specification and scarcity separate one home from the next.

Outside of prime locations where scarcity plays a key role in pricing, the wider country market remains cautious. In July, Knight Frank reported prime country prices 5% lower over the year, with exchanges down 10% and new buyer registrations down 14%, as a third summer of tax speculation kept buyers waiting.

The mainstream market is now well supplied; Zoopla reports the stock of homes for sale 8% higher than a year ago across London and southern England, with larger family homes in the region among the hardest to price.

For sellers on the private estates, accurate initial pricing matters more than ever. For buyers, the combination of choice and motivated vendors creates room to negotiate on the best homes, which are unlikely to follow the borough average in either direction.

Singapore

Prices rise in a quiet quarter

Singapore’s private home prices rose 1.4% in the third quarter, according to URA flash estimates, up from 0.5% in the second. The rise came in a quarter with far fewer sales: transactions fell to 4,702 from 6,148, and new home sales halved to 1,046 units.

The calendar explains much of that. Only three projects launched, and August fell in the Hungry Ghost month, traditionally a quiet period for viewings and purchases. Developer sales in August dropped 79% on the month to just 153 homes. When the right product reached the market at the right price, buyers committed.

This quarter the suburbs led

The pattern of the second quarter reversed. Prices in the suburbs rose 2.2%, helped by the launch of Lentor Gardens Residences, and landed homes rose 2.8%. The prime Core Central Region was the only segment to slip, down 0.1% after a 1.8% rise in the previous quarter, which ERA attributes to that high base rather than weaker demand.

Industry sentiment points the other way. The NUS quarterly survey of property players shows sentiment on prime homes holding positive at a net balance of 9%, while suburban sentiment swung to minus 14%, its first negative reading in over a year, as affordability bites in the mass market. The survey’s director describes prime as supported by a flight to safety among well-capitalised buyers.

Prime supply remains thin. Dunearn House, the first launch in the new Bukit Timah Turf City estate, sold 56% of its units on launch weekend and led all new sales in August at a median of S$3,008 psf, just below the prime new-sale median.

Amberwood at Holland opened the Holland Plain estate in September. Around 1,424 prime units have launched this year and no further launches are expected, so buyers waiting for new stock in Newton or Turf City are likely to wait until 2027.

Who is buying in Singapore?

The Singapore buyer profile we described in the summer has only strengthened. Singapore citizens made 85% of new private home purchases in August and permanent residents 14%. With the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty for foreigners at 60%, there was just one foreign purchase in the month. Of nine apartment sales above S$5 million, eight went to citizens or permanent residents.

Housing wealth is also moving between generations as older owners are right-sizing and releasing equity, and since the 15-month wait before private owners can buy public housing was removed, a record 597 HDB flats sold for S$1 million or more in the third quarter. This recycled wealth supports demand further up the market.

Outlook for the Singapore market

The economy provides a strong backdrop for the Singapore market with the Ministry of Trade and Industry raising its 2026 growth forecast to between 4.5% and 5.5%, helped by investment linked to AI, and the impact of the Middle East conflict has been milder than feared. ERA holds its full year price forecast at 3% to 5% while Savills’ new Next Generation Wealth Hubs Index ranks Singapore first in Asia-Pacific and sixth in the world, and notes that the next generation of wealth treats property as one part of a wider portfolio rather than a standalone holding.

The United Arab Emirates

Dubai

Dubai adjusts

The adjustment we described in our Summer review has now reached the annual figures. ValuStrat’s Dubai index was 3.1% lower year on year in August and 10.2% below its February peak, with apartments down 5.3% and villas posting their first annual fall since 2021. Cavendish Maxwell put the average price at AED1,636 per square foot, its first annual decline since early 2021.

Activity volumes also eased. Engel & Völkers records 79,281 residential sales worth AED221.4 billion in the first half, 13.8% fewer transactions than the exceptional first half of 2025. Average gross rental yields stood at 6.3% in August, with apartments at 6.7% and villas at 4.5%.

This said, as autumn begins activity has been returning. Dubai Land Department figures showed AED10.67 billion of transactions in the second week of September alone, against weekly totals of AED7 billion to AED9 billion through July and August.

The top of the market keeps moving

As with many prime markets across the globe, the very top of Dubai has behaved differently from the market beneath it.

Dubai recorded 335 sales of homes worth $10 million or more in the first eight months of 2026, with a combined value of AED20.4 billion, according to fäm Properties’ analysis of Land Department data. Villas accounted for 206 of those sales.

New supply remains concentrated in apartments, which keeps well-located family villas scarce.

Indian buyers remain the largest nationality in Dubai’s market, at around a fifth of purchases in early 2026.

Abu Dhabi

Stronger, but cooling

Abu Dhabi has held up better over the year so far; ADREC’s first half report shows residential sales of AED70.4 billion, almost three times the AED25.3 billion of a year earlier, with repeat sale prices up 20% for apartments and 12% for villas.

By mid-August, residential sales in Abu Dhabi had already passed 2025’s full-year total. Aldar’s latest launches on Saadiyat and Yas islands sold more than AED5 billion, with expatriate and overseas buyers taking 69% and Indian buyers among the leading nationalities.

Part of the explanation is who is buying in Abu Dhabi; UBS research has Dubai’s buyers split roughly evenly between residents and overseas investors, while two-thirds of Abu Dhabi’s buyers live in the UAE, and resident demand has proved steadier through the war.

Abu Dhabi is not immune, however; Colliers recorded quarterly dips in prices and rents in the second quarter, and ADREC has introduced a rent freeze on renewals and new leases.

Outlook for the UAE

There is no denying that the conflict has slowed new sales, and more figures will come to light over the coming months. Emaar’s UAE off-plan pre-sales fell 89% in the second quarter compared with the first, and it has launched just three new projects since the war began.

Developers are nonetheless expected to report solid third quarter results, as revenue from earlier off-plan sales is booked through construction. This isn’t a total stop, more of a pause that is now back in motion.

Supply remains the watch point in Dubai’s apartment districts, while Abu Dhabi expects around 71,000 additional homes by 2030, with deliveries peaking in 2028. The long-term pull is intact: Savills’ new index places Abu Dhabi eighth and Dubai tenth among the world’s next generation wealth hubs.

In focus

Indian family offices go global

Mid October marks the onset of the festive season in India. The Navratri and Dussehra celebrations lead up to Diwali on 8 November, traditionally an auspicious time to start new ventures, make investments and buy property.

Business sentiment going into the season is cautiously upbeat: demand is expected to rise, but buyers are being selective.

Many leading Indian business families now plan for growth and succession across more than one country, and their festive-season decisions increasingly involve choosing where to base the next generation of their wealth.

New family offices

India now has nearly 300 family offices, up from around 45 in 2018, and a growing number of the country’s leading business families have also set up offices in Singapore and the UAE. Singapore hosts more than 2,000 single family offices, while Dubai’s DIFC alone is home to 1,289 family-related entities.

For Indian families setting up offices overseas, the UAE is the clear winner. As early as 2023, advisers were reporting Indian families moving wealth to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in “unprecedented numbers”, drawn by the closeness to India, no personal income tax and the specialist family-office frameworks in DIFC and ADGM.

Singapore remains the choice for governance and permanence and many of India’s best-known business houses have a presence there.

London is being reassessed. With the abolition of the non-dom regime and UK inheritance tax spreading to worldwide assets, several high-profile families have moved out of the UK with a view to changing their tax residency.

EY estimates that Indian family offices now direct 40% to 45% of their portfolios to alternatives such as private equity, private credit and real estate funds, yet property remains central: DBS found that around a third of wealthy Indian families’ assets sit in residential real estate, at home and abroad. That shapes how each hub is used.

Singapore, where foreign buyers pay an additional 60% stamp duty over the base rate, is typically where the family office is structured rather than where the family buys its homes. However, there is growing interest in commercial real estate, the acquisition of which attracts a lower stamp duty. Dubai and London are where the bricks and mortar are held, and some families are now also weighing India’s own GIFT City as an onshore alternative.

London’s appeal to Indian wealth is far from over. In 2023, Ravi Ruia’s family office paid £113 million for Hanover Lodge on Regent’s Park, and later that year Adar Poonawalla agreed to buy Aberconway House in Mayfair for £138 million. Even families moving their tax residence elsewhere are keeping a London home, for children’s education, healthcare, culture and convenience. Indian hoteliers have long been prominent in London, and that interest now extends to student housing, retail establishments and offices. The question is no longer whether to go global but which hub to use, and for many families London remains part of the answer.

As Diwali approaches, we wish all our clients and partners a prosperous and joyful festive season.

Three markets, three roles

In the summer we found the best assets in all three markets pulling away from the market beneath them. The third quarter has kept that pattern, with each market showing it in its own way.

London’s prime index turned positive and its £10 million plus market stabilised while achieved prices across prime London fell. Singapore’s prime sentiment held positive while suburban sentiment turned negative. Dubai’s $10 million plus sales kept moving while its apartment districts absorbed lower prices.

The same logic now shapes where internationally mobile families place their wealth. Savills’ new index ranks London third in the world, Singapore sixth, Abu Dhabi eighth and Dubai tenth: four of the world’s top ten wealth hubs, each doing a different job.

For the Indian family offices, the question is rarely which single hub to choose. It is which role each one plays: the UAE for proximity and tax, Singapore for governance and permanence, and London for education, legacy and the long-term store of value that its best homes continue to provide.

Should you wish to explore how these shifts bear on a particular market, price bracket or home – or if you, or someone you advise, are considering an acquisition, a disposal or a move across the corridor – the Llanover International team would be delighted to continue the conversation in confidence. Get in touch.