Savvy investors will soon be taking to water
FORGET yachts, successful City boys and girls will be cruising to work on boats in the years to come. Marinas are springing up alongside London’s Thameside developments. Chelsea’s flashy 1,000-apartment Imperial Wharf has just opened a marina, while Vauxhall’s St. George Wharf is building a river taxi pontoon on its doorstep that will open in September.
Developers have always loved the waterfront in London for building large-scale luxury residences. “They are low risk investments,” Carl Davenport of Chesterton Humberts says, “views of the river don’t lose their value. Especially with waterfront homes because there’s no danger that someone can build in front of them.” Prices barely moved over the recession and now they on the ascent.
Their asset status has encouraged developers to push further west. The recently opened 199-apartment NEO Bankside, next to the Tate Modern, and the newly launched Doulton House development at Chelsea Creek, are testaments to that fact.
Reassuringly, for those keen on the idea of a boat trip to work, the developments have historically encouraged the Mayor to improve the transport facilities. In 2009, the Imperial Wharf overground station opened to give residents better access to the city. Davenport says these sort of transport innovations have an enormous impact: “Those who bought off-plan at St. Georges Wharf all made £100,000 when they re-sold a few years later. A lot of that is to do with the area’s great transport links into the city.” Now the same approach has been taken for NEO Bankside. Blackfriars tube at the foot of the development is being refurbished and the pier and boat service improved. Indeed, the public “clipper” and river taxi services already have people commuting to work by boat from the NEO Bankside development. The clipper from Bankside, for instance, can get you to Canary Wharf in just under 20 minutes, using your Oyster card for admission.
The increased provision for private mooring around the developments, however, could make commuting to work on your own small speedboat fashionable. Riverside resident Rupert Lee-Browne already does this. He has a mooring at Cadogan Pier and regularly uses this to commute to the City: “It is quite expensive and occasionally unreliable, but by far and away the most beautiful way to travel in London. Every time I go up and down the river I discover something completely new. I’ve done it now for a few years I am still in love with it.”
If you are interested in buying your own slice of the riverside life, you should try to buy a home looking out on to the water if you want to get a strong return on your investment. Davenport says there is a 20-30 per cent premium on a river view when you sell. “Up until now, lots of people have seen the river as a barrier to work rather than benefit – all this investment could change that.”