Post-Budget HavenSphere® Pulse — Prime Real Estate

The Autumn Statement was never likely to blow the doors off UK safe-haven behaviour, and it hasn’t. What it has done is settle the debate about direction. The UK is moving further into a high-tax environment for wealth and property, and that reality now sits firmly inside the HavenSphere® scores.

There was no shock. Markets got the kind of Budget they were being guided towards: orthodox, OBR-anchored, and built around raising revenue rather than playing for headlines. Gilt yields eased, sterling held up, and there was nothing that spooked institutional money. That matters — more than any single property measure — because the sovereign backdrop is still one of the strongest determinants of real-estate safe-haven status.

Where the Budget did bite is at the very top end of the property market. The High Value Council Tax Surcharge (the long-trailed mansion-tax equivalent) is now on the table, alongside higher tax on property income and the broader tightening on savings and dividend income. None of this was a surprise, but confirmation removes any doubt about the direction of travel. For UHNW investors, the UK is now a more expensive place to hold residential assets, and that feeds into behaviour.

MHI: post-Budget readings.

The safe-haven hierarchy across global prime real estate is unchanged at the top level:

• Zurich / Geneva: unchanged

• Singapore: unchanged

• Abu Dhabi: unchanged

• Dubai: unchanged

• New York: unchanged

None of these markets moved within their existing bands.

London, however, has shifted within its range. It remains in the 79–83 bracket, but now sits closer to the bottom than the middle. It isn’t a collapse and doesn’t constitute a regime break — but it is a meaningful signal. The combination of higher recurring charges on expensive homes, increased tax on property income, and a long pre-Budget softening in prime activity has created a small but measurable adjustment.

What that means in practice

London is still a safe haven. That hasn’t changed. But safe havens aren’t all priced the same, and Wednesday’s measures mean investors now pay a little more, financially and behaviourally, for the UK’s stability.

Meanwhile, the gap between London and the UAE/Singapore/Swiss markets has nudged wider. These markets benefit not because anything changed locally, but because the UK has edged downward. Capital that was already split between London and Abu Dhabi, or London and Singapore, will notice the difference.

Where we go from here

The next signals won’t come from Wednesday’s announcements — those are now baked in. The real test will be how UHNW buyers and family offices behave through Q1 and Q2, once the dust settles and advisers start recalibrating where value, safety and tax sit relative to one another.

HavenSphere® will pick that up as the behavioural data moves.

For now, the message is simple:

The UK hasn’t lost its safe-haven status — but it is no longer the most cost-efficient version of itself.