![\"London](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2165539816.jpg\")
\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\tTuesday 21 April 2026 5:26 am
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\tTuesday 21 April 2026 8:00 am\n\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Affluent Brits are pulling out of the UK property market at pace, the boss of a major London bank has said, as high taxes, burdensome regulation and stagnant house prices prompt investors to look elsewhere for greater returns.<\/p>\n
Ian Rand, chief executive of Monument Bank, which caters for mass affluent account holders with six figures of investable assets, said wealthier customers were turning to other asset classes because even a \u201cvanilla\u201d stock market tracker fund consistently outperforms Britain\u2019s property market.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re realising that the stories you grew up with from your parents about investing in property being a way to make your money\u2026those stories have gone,\u201d Rand told City AM.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea I had that I\u2019m going to take a pot of money out of my retirement and I\u2019m going to put it in a buy-to-let and not only do I get income from that, but that will appreciate over the next five years\u2026that doesn\u2019t work anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a world where you are paying so much more for stamp duty, you\u2019ve got to know that you\u2019re going to live somewhere for a prolonged period of time in order to make that payment of stamp duty worthwhile. If you\u2019re not convinced of that, you\u2019re not going to move; if there\u2019s no movement, there\u2019s no demand; and if there\u2019s no demand, there\u2019s no price rises, so you\u2019re going to have to look elsewhere [for a return on investment].\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tLondon prime property market slump<\/p>\n
The remarks come after a City AM analysis revealed<\/a> the number of sales of prime properties in the capital fell by 37 per cent year-on-year \u2013 the biggest drop since 2015.<\/p>\n Using Land Registry data, City AM has analysed more than 1,000 transactions from the past decade, spanning more than 100 of the capital\u2019s most-sought after residential streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n While London\u2019s prime property market reached a high point in 2021, with 156 sales across the streets surveyed, activity plummeted to only 84 transactions last year, the lowest since 2017.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n \t\t\tMortgage approvals fall to two-year low\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n This marks the biggest decline in activity in the capital\u2019s luxury house market in a decade, nearly triple the size of the next-largest decline (13 per cent) coming in 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n The value of these transactions has stagnated. The best year for sale values came in 2016, when the average price of the sales analysed by City AM stood at \u00a39.4m.<\/p>\n The average price of transactions last year edged up slightly from the year before \u2013 up from \u00a38.6m to \u00a38.7m \u2013 but stayed far below the rate of inflation, which by now should have put the average transaction at over \u00a310m.<\/p>\n Race for affluent account holders<\/p>\n It comes as Monument Bank jostles with the UK\u2019s biggest financial institutions to be the top destination for mass affluent customers, with the likes of HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds racing to acquire well-off customers.<\/a><\/p>\n