It has been reported that, of those property purchases made within the prime London market, three out of five were in fact by buy-to-let investors and owners of second homes for 2016’s first quarter. Also playing a role in boosting the volume of sales undertaken with cash, as highlighted in Marsh & Parsons’ latest London Property Monitor report.

Highlighted as the most prominent buyer archetype for the first quarter, it can be observed that buy-to-let investors made up some 36% of all those purchases in the first quarter. This comes during the build-up to the stamp duty reforms, of course, with predictions being that many buy-to-let investors rushed to push their purchases through before the new regulation would come into force.

The spike can be best highlighted when compared with the figures of the final quarter of 2015, where a far lower proportion of 26% was reported. Of course, this has then also showcased a renewed influence of investors within the wider property market, but not yet hitting the highs of 2014, where the share of the market estimated to be of investors reached a notable proportion of 47%.

Following on from buy-to-let investors, buyers of secondary homes then made up the second largest portion of the market for the prime London sector, serving a value only marginally shy of a doubled proportion of market investment – 14% for the final quarter of 2015, then jumping up to 23% for the first quarter of this year.

These combined figures then make up some 59% of the total amount of purchases within the prime London market, yet this value is reportedly even higher when looking more specifically at the prime central London market, where figures showed a 76% proportion of the market being attributed to the combination of these two investor archetypes.