Marsh Court, a 10-bedroom house in Stockbridge, Hampshire, which came onto the market in April 2007 for £13m, was relaunched this June for £10m and sold for £11m in September. Grade I-listed Chicheley Hall, in Buckingham-shire, which went on sale in July last year for £9m, had its asking price slashed to £7m in January and went for close to that in June.
Many more sellers are retiring from the fight altogether, including the owners of Furzehill Place, in Surrey, once home to the Victorian explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley. They have taken the property – guide price £7m – off the market after eight months.
It is clear that the City-boy-fuelled boom years are over – but what does the next year hold? “There’s still a lot of money out there, and a lot of people still have an ambition to buy a chunk of England,” says Mark Lawson, a director of The Buying Solution, an upmarket agency. He warns, however, that until buyers regain the confidence to spend and sellers are willing to brave the market, 2009 will be very tough indeed.
