The eight Nash mansions at London's Cornwall Terrace are worth a total of 400 million pounds. Chinese buyers have shown increasing interest in London's prime property market. Photos Provided to China Daily

London property market rides on rich Chinese interest

A visit to any of the eight Nash mansions at Cornwall Terrace, one of London's top luxury estates at the southwest corner of Regent Park, allows you to enjoy possibly the most magnificent view of the British capital.

The No 11 Silk House offers contemporary and classical features that combine elegant interiors and unique heritage, while the No 9 Siddons House is filled with Chinese traits. Twelve Chinese zodiac porcelain pieces are placed on a marble table in front of the door.

A horse sculpture is exhibited on a study shelf and the wall along the staircase is decorated with exquisite oriental silk. The eight luxury mansions are worth a total of 400 million pounds (448 million euros) and Chinese owners could be eyeing any of them.

Chinese buyers have emerged as vital clients for London's prime property agents over the last two years.

The No 9 Siddons House at Cornwall Terrace is filled with Chinese motifs.

The Chinese super rich snap up luxury homes in London either for their children's education or for investments, which has prompted a number of luxury property agents to devise market strategies by setting up Chinese desks or employing Chinese speakers to cater to the demand.

"Over the last 18 months, there has really been a boom of Chinese buyers of London prime property," says Shirley Humphery, sales and marketing director for the luxury property agents Harrods Estates, part of the Harrods Department store.

Buyers from the Middle East and Russia have dominated London's prime property market over the past decade, but Chinese buyers' increasing interest in the past two years has created a new impetus to its growth.

Just a few years ago, Chinese buyers made up a negligible portion of the London high-end property market. Last year, the number of Harrods Estates' Asian buyers, excluding those from the Middle East, jumped to 43 percent of its all business compared with only 7 percent in 2008. Chinese buyers featured prominently in the increase.

The average price of Harrods Estates' properties in prime locations such as Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Kensington and Canary Wharf has reached 3.6 million pounds. The most expensive property the agency sold to the Chinese buyers was up to 8 million pounds.

Knight Frank, another property consultancy, found that 34 percent of newly built property sold in the six months until April 2011 in central London went to Chinese owners, with buyers from the Chinese mainland reaching 10 percent.

Savills, a real estate services provider, also witnessed a threefold increase of Chinese buyers in prime central London over the past four years. While only 1 percent of the buyers were Chinese in 2007, 4.4 percent of them were Chinese in the first half of this year.

The number of Chinese buyers in London's central prime market has increased by about 10 percent over the past 12 months, says Xiao Ken, president of London-based Chinese Property Professionals Society.

Local agents have also been refining their strategies to facilitate Chinese buyers' property purchases.

Humphery of Harrods Estates says she will go to Shanghai later this year for a property exhibition where "we work with solicitors and banks to get new clients". A China desk will soon be set up in her agency to help Chinese clients exclusively, she says.