Residential Market Comment
Super-prime off-market deals hit 8 year high with over half now selling off-market
Off-market transactions have jumped to 54% in 2025 - the highest level in eight years. This figure had been falling between 2022 and 2024). This is also the first time since 2020 that off market transactions outweigh on market deals. This marks a clear shift in seller behaviour. Rather than launching publicly and risking price reductions, many wealthy sellers are choosing to quietly test demand first, using off-market routes to retain control and protect pricing.
It suggests we’re seeing the return of a more discreet, strategic approach to selling in the super-prime market, one that is less about maximum exposure and more about targeting buyers and measured pricing.
What’s particularly interesting is how this contrasts with the buyer side of the market, where the biggest discounts are now being achieved on openly marketed properties. Together, this points to a two-track market emerging:
· Sellers retreating off market to protect value
· Buyers focusing on on-market stock to secure discounts
Two thirds of £10m+ estates still selling under guide despite demand returning
Despite demand returning for £10m+ estates (100+ acres), buyers are still negotiating hard, with two-thirds of properties selling under guide in 2025. SA’s data shows that 65% of super-prime estates sold below guide last year, marking the third consecutive year where the majority of deals have been agreed at a discount. While this has eased slightly from the peak of 77% in 2023, it remains a clear sign that pricing power still sits firmly with buyers:
2022: 29% under guide
2023: 77% under guide
2024: 72% under guide
2025: 65% under guide
What’s particularly interesting is that this is happening despite agents setting guide prices more carefully than in previous years. Even in a market where demand has strengthened, buyers at this level are remaining highly disciplined, negotiating hard and refusing to overpay. This points to a more structural shift at the top end ie a move away from competitive bidding and towards measured, data-led acquisitions, even among the wealthiest buyers.
Super Prime property price reductions may have finally peaked after four years of deepening discounts
After four years of increasingly aggressive price reductions, 2025 is the first sign the market is turning as the rate of decline stalls according to our data. Average reductions deepened steadily from -1.02% in 2021 to -8.51% in 2024, but have now marginally improved to -8.45% in 2025 – marking the first break in a clear downward trend. While this isn’t a recovery story just yet, it is the first sign that the rate of decline is stabilising. Discounts remain near historic highs of 2017-2019, but the data suggests the window for securing the very deepest reductions may be starting to close. It points to a subtle but important shift in market dynamics in that buyers still have leverage, but the balance may gradually begin to move back towards sellers as pricing expectations reset.
Don’t look for the best deals off-market - on market price reductions hit a record discount.
Our data shows that on-market price reductions are at their deepest level in years, with buyers achieving significantly greater discounts on openly marketed properties than through private, off-market deals.
There’s been a long-standing belief that value lies behind closed doors and historically (particularly between 2017–2022), that was true. But since 2023, the gap has widened sharply in favour of the open market:
2023: On-market -6.92% vs off-market -2.42%
2024: On-market -11.10% vs off-market +0.99%
2025: On-market -13.43% vs off-market -4.21%
The shift is being driven by seller behaviour. Properties launched publicly are often priced optimistically and then reduced multiple times as demand weakens, creating real opportunities for buyers. Meanwhile, off-market sellers tend to be more measured, prioritising discretion and control over urgency, which limits discounting.
The Super-Prime market has stabilised after an artificial Covid spike
After peaking during the pandemic years, transaction levels have now fallen back and are beginning to stabilise, pointing to a more measured, sustainable market at the top end. Your data shows activity peaked in 2022 (21 transactions), before dropping sharply in 2023 (13) and 2024 (11). In 2025, levels have ticked back up to 13, suggesting the market is no longer in decline, but settling into a more consistent pattern.
What’s changed is the behaviour behind those deals. Transactions are no longer being driven by urgency or competition, but by caution and strategy. Buyers are taking longer, carrying out more due diligence and approaching acquisitions far more selectively - even at the £10m+ level. It reinforces the idea that the pandemic created an artificial spike in activity and what we’re seeing now is a return to more sustainable transaction levels, supported by more realistic pricing from sellers. The result is fewer, but more considered deals, which is increasingly defining today’s super-prime market.
International buyers retreat from the UK super-prime market
There has been a clear move back towards UK buyers dominating transactions at the £10m+ (100+ acres) level, as international demand continues to soften. In 2025, just 15% of transactions were to overseas buyers - the second lowest level since 2017 and the third consecutive year this figure has fallen, marking a sharp decline from the pandemic-era surge in international demand. International buyers haven’t disappeared entirely, but many are stepping back or negotiating far more cautiously. As a result, the market is becoming increasingly led by domestic buyers, which is naturally introducing greater price sensitivity and stronger negotiation dynamics.
The change appears to be driven by a combination of higher taxes, particularly non-dom changes and increased stamp duty surcharges, alongside political uncertainty and less favourable currency conditions. Together, these factors have weakened the incentives that previously drew international buyers into the UK market.
It’s a subtle but important shift, from a market supported by global capital and competition to one driven more by domestic demand and value-led decision making.