WEALTHY BUYERS STILL HUNTING TOP UK HOMES

"The billionaire from Kazakhstan has made his money and wants the right country pad to enjoy it. At this level, price growth shows little sign of slowing, and the number of our sales in London above £10m in the last three months has doubled on a year ago.

"There has been a lot of chatter about the non-doms, but it doesn't seem to be affecting their demand for homes here."

After London, the five most expensive addresses are Monaco (£2,877 per sq ft); St Jean Cap Ferrat on the Cote D'Azur coast of France (£2,860); Courchevel in the French Alps (£2,302); Manhattan (£2,111) and Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Italian Dolomites (£1,480).

Apart from New York, the priciest cities include Tokyo (£1,141) followed by Moscow (£1,092), Hong Kong (£988); Sydney (£941) and Paris (£915). For all its romance, Venice (£753) lags significantly behind Rome (£859).

But not far below this elevated bracket come an unlikely batch of English Home Counties headed by Surrey (£560); Buckinghamshire (£500); Hampshire (£487) with Berkshire (£434) coming in just below Edinburgh (£450).

However, Liam Bailey acknowledges that the number of property sales in the UK could fall 20-30% in 2008, compared to 2007.

"The house which hit £1m at the peak last summer is already down by about 5%, or £50,000," he says, "and most people forecast a further 5% fall during 2008.

"In 2009, it will either be flat at best or - if the shortage of mortgages persists - further falls. The UK and USA are set to lead the downturn in property prices because their economies are most reliant on financial services where the slowdown is likely to be most acute."

In the internationally property price league, fastest risers in the year to December 2007 were Antigua (up 40%); St Jean Cap Ferrat (39%); St Petersburg (38%); Moscow (35%); Singapore (31%); London (29%); Guangzhou, China (28%); New York (25%), Monaco (25%) and Dubai (24%).

The seven fallers include Dublin (-15%); Ibiza (-13%); Noosa Heads, Australia (-7%); Palm Beach, USA (-3%); San Diego US (-2%); Krakow, Poland (-1%); Chianti, Italy (-1%).

Firmly stuck on 0% during 2007 were Helsinki, Dar Es Salaam, Gascony, Bermuda, Majorca, Gstaad, Switzerland (all 0%).

INFORMATION: Knight Frank and Citi Private Bank Annual Wealth Report 2008 available on 0207 629 8171.

:: WHY BANK MOVE MIGHT NOT UNLOCK PROPERTY MARKET

Although the £50bn bail-out of Britain's High Street banks by the Bank of England may ease problems for the bankers, it might not give much help to buyers and sellers.

That's the warning from Henry Pryor, founder of Primemove.com, a property aggregator bringing together over one million properties from major property portals covering over 90% of all homes for sale.

Pryor says that lenders finally realised that many mortgage offers had been too generous in recent years - and have therefore required borrowers to find larger deposits before they get a mortgage.

"But even if you assume the Bank of England handout gives banks the confidence to start lending again," he says.

"There is no chance of an immediate return to the days of 100% mortgages or that lenders will want to charge less for their few remaining products.

"The best we can expect is that they will at last start to actually provide mortgages again but rates will be high (er) and terms less attractive which mean that both sale prices and volumes will remain at reduced levels."

While the average estate agent has a backlog of 70 properties on the books, Henry Pryor says stock coming newly to the market is priced to compete with this older stock and all vendors are having to adjust to current conditions.

"Only those vendors who have taken a realistic view of what they might expect to get are catching the eye of potential purchasers", he says, "and that leaves nearly four in every five house sellers currently without a buyer."

Chris Coleman-Smith, in charge of auctions at leading London and country agents Savills where the first two sales of 2008 achieved a sales rate of around 80%, shares the view that vendors still haven't yet woken up to the realities of the market.

"Some pockets of the market are still holding up," Coleman-Smith says, "but many estate agents and vendors haven't realised they are well behind the market.

"In some areas, guide prices are 20% below last August, while the fall on new-build city centre flats is more than 20%. Some areas are being slaughtered on valuations."

Coleman-Smith says many banks and building societies have probably made things worse for hapless purchasers trapped in the falling market.

"Last year they were readily shoving out 100% mortgages. Now they are repossessing properties and shoving them into auctions at low prices at a time when it is much harder to fix a mortgage. There is real demand for many of these properties, but there are real problems in fixing finance."

Coleman-Smith says auctions currently offer plenty of attractive opportunities for first time buyers, including a studio flat in Tottenham, North London from £80,000 and two bedroom flats in Tooting, South London from £170,000. Prices have further weakened as demand from buy-to-let investors has fallen off.

Coleman-Smith thinks Eurozone buyers could fill the gap at future auctions, with Germans and Southern Irish both likely to emerge as key investors.

"In a year's time, we will probably look back to today and say 'What a good time to buy,'" he says.

:: WEBSITE AIMS TO EASE MOVING HASSLE

Entrepreneur Brent Hoberman, whose first celebrated foray into the world of dotcom was at the helm of lastminute.com, is among backers stumping up £5m to launch a new website intended to slash the hassle of changing your address.

Moveme.com claims typically moving costs for buyers and tenants alike - excluding stamp duty - average £2,500 a time.

It believes it can revolutionise the moving process for 3.4m Britons each year - that's 1.4 million home purchasers and two million tenants - by providing free and unlimited use of its trade-marked Moveplanner, an online calendar which can be set up in seconds.

To access the system, movers supply the exact date of their move, their current address and their next one. Moveme.com then features the key moving tasks and dates when they need to be activated, including self-generating change of address letters to all authorities, banks and credit card providers.

The service is free to users - and financed entirely by commissions from major suppliers including BT, broadband firms and removal companies which gain business from it.

Clearly, a huge amount of new business is up for grabs when people move - and in many cases, they make a purchase without researching alternatives thoroughly.

Moveme's backers also claim that users can save money by using its services - for example, by accessing discounts from providers like removal firms and surveyors.

It also ensures they have home insurance cover in place on day one, and advises most movers to go to a new home with their existing energy providers for at least the first quarter - before analysing energy use carefully to see if a rival supplier could beat the price.

On moving-in day, Moveme customers can also expect a welcome pack of household goods, including coffee, teabags, cleaning fluids and paper towels.

In year one, operating as a pilot project, Moveme attracted some 75,000 users. Now marketing director Charles Wasdell predicts: "We expect around 150,000 users in 2008, enabling us to break even, because the rental market is likely to remain active even if sales decline sharply.

"In 2009, we envisage about 350,000 users and profits approaching £1.5m, about £7 per user. When we reach the point of being cash neutral, there will be funding set aside for proper advertising."

Says Keith McNeilly, co-founder of Moveme.com: "The new site is simple and easy to use, guiding users through their entire moving process.

"New functions include the 'moving buddies' tool, which allows users to assign tasks to friends and family who are moving with them, and enhanced personalisation of the Moveplanner."

The site will also collate data to compile The Migration Monitor, a quarterly index intended to show the UK's hot spots and 'not' spots, moving trends and motivations behind moving to and from some of the UK's most popular and least popular destinations.

At its launch, Moveme controversially nominated Halifax as Britain's least popular destination with movers. It claims over 57% more people have moved out of the area than have moved in so far in 2008.

It says the No 1 destination for homemovers is Truro, Cornwall - where the average house costs £212,000 - because 40% more people were trying to move in there during the first quarter of 2008 than move out.

Behind Truro, the dozen most popular places with homebuyers (in descending order of popularity) include Hereford, followed by Torquay, Kirkaldy, Peterborough, Brighton, Paisley, Harrogate, Powys in Wales which formerly held the number one spot, Isle of Man, Swansea and Watford.

Least attractive areas, in ascending order above Halifax, include Uxbridge, Middlesex; West Central London, East Central London, Bolton and Ilford.

With prices remaining high in most of these areas, the Moveme.com conclusion is likely to be hotly disputed.