One of London‘s most exclusive neighbourhoods is seeing billionaires flee and house sales plummet amid Rachel Reeves‘ tax rises and rampant street crime.
Knightsbridge, home to a string of high end stores such as Harrods and littered with multi-million pound properties, is seeing homes priced at their cheapest in 15 years.
As well as Reeves’ mansion tax putting off super rich buyers, crime rates have remained high as gangs on mopeds divide up areas and target tourists and the wealthy, sources say.
On Tuesday, machete-wielding robbers threatened customers as they raided a Rolex store and took a number of high value items during a terrifying three-minute raid shortly before 11am.
Wearing helmets, the thugs smashed cabinets and looted the store before taking off on mopeds parked outside.
The store is on the ground floor of the luxurious One Hyde Park building, which billionaire Reform treasurer Nick Candy constructed with his brother in 2009.
Candy, who is married to Australian singer Holly Valance, still reportedly owns a penthouse on the block.
The daylight raid came just weeks after Loro Piana, a luxury Italian fashion brand a short walk from Harrods, saw its own store looted.
Knightsbridge is experiencing a sharp rise in crime (Footage of a ram-raid that occurred at the Bucherer Rolex Boutique at One Hyde Park this week)
During this week’s heist thugs smashed cabinets and looted the store before taking off on mopeds parked outside
The area is littered with multi-million pound properties which are now priced at their cheapest in 15 years
Shortly before 3am on December 16, cops were called after a car had smashed into the front of the shop.
Items including clothing and handbags were stolen and the suspects fled before officers arrived.
Police are still investigating and no arrests have yet been made, the Met said.
Hoardings are still up around the store while the Rolex boutique remained closed this week with staff cleaning debris inside following the attack on Tuesday.
A security guard at one high-end restaurant, who lives in the area but did not want to be named, said different gangs rule the streets.
‘They divide it up, some on foot, many on mopeds. I see a lot around here and, honestly, tourists would be far safer going to some of the roughest areas of the East End than they would spending time in Knightsbridge.
‘Then there are the gangs with the pimps who operate the prostitutes not too far from here.
‘In a rich area like this it is always going to attract criminals.
‘I’m not surprised people are leaving.’
The latest monthly figures released by the Met Police, from November, show crime rates in Knightsbridge and Belgravia have stayed largely the same for years.
Some 295 offences were committed in Knightsbridge and Belgravia in November, with almost a third of them carried out close to the iconic Harrods store.
Since the day of the robbery this week, neighbourhood policing has increased in the area, the Met says, while it also reports that criminals are now migrating from mopeds to e-bikes to carry out thefts.
Discussing the Rolex robbery, one man who lives a five minute walk away said: ‘Honestly, that’s pretty normal around here.
‘Lots of shops around here now have queuing systems which they say is to regulate the flow, but it’s also so they can keep an eye on exactly who is coming in and follow them around the stores.’
As well as robberies and regular reports of mobile phone thefts, 24-year-old Blue Stevens was stabbed to death in July last year near luxury hotel The Park Tower Knightsbridge, just a stone’s throw from the Rolex store.
Mr Stevens’ killer remains at large.
Last week, his mother accused Sadiq Khan of ‘celebrating’ London’s falling homicide rates while her ‘beautiful boy lies in his grave’.
Blue Stevens with his son. He was stabbed outside the £1,650-a-night 5-star Park Tower Hotel and Casino, which is directly across the road from the Harvey Nichols department store in central London, on July 9
Charlie Sheridan, Blue’s mother, said it was an ‘insult’ that Sadiq Khan was ‘celebrating’ London’s falling homicide rates. Pictured: Blue with his mother Charlie
The murder scene outside the Park Tower Casino in London’s Knightsbridge in July last year
The grieving mother added: ‘Is Sadiq Khan really bragging about the murder rate in London?
‘Are they really celebrating the fabulous news about the number of murderers this last year. One murder is too many. How f***ing dare they?
‘When the news broke about what happened to my son, Sadiq Khan refused to comment on any of it. He did not acknowledge what had happened to my son at all, not one word from him.’
As mystery surrounds the brazen murder, the Metropolitan Police last week crowed over figures which showed homicide in London has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade.
But despite this, the impact on the luxury prime property market which Knightsbridge depends on, is still being felt.
Last year, property prices in Knightsbridge were 27 per cent down on the previous year and 37 per cent down on the 2016 peak of £3,955,991 with the average cost of a home in the area now £2,490,108.
And there’s a myriad of reasons why they’re not selling, not least of all the policies of the government.
According to a recent report on global wealth by Henley & Partners, in 2024 the UK lost more millionaire residents than any city in the world except for Moscow – with 9,500 high-net-worth individuals departing in just 12 months.
To many, the trigger for this behaviour is Labour’s controversial inheritance tax law, which means that, for the first time, all global assets (instead of just UK ones) owned by non-doms are subject to 40 per cent tax after ten years in the UK.
‘The stupidity of this is beyond comprehension,’ says Trevor Abrahamson of Glentree Estates. ‘If you want them to pay tax, they will pay tax. But not on everything.’
Two of his clients – Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian steel magnate, and Norwegian shipping magnate, John Fredriksen have already left for Dubai.
‘They’re wealth creators,’ says Mr Abrahamson. ‘Which idiotic country would create an environment so they leave?’
The Park Tower Hotel and Casino – where Mr Stevens was stabbed to death – is next door to Nusr-Et (pictured), the steakhouse run by celebrity chef Salt Bae
Multiple houses close to Harrods are currently for sale, signifying a trend in the area
Indeed, high end estate agent Savills revealed this week that transactions involving homes worth £5million or more fell by 11 per cent throughout 2025.
There were just 412 such properties sold, as the wealthy held back on concerns about potential property tax rises in November’s Budget, which were rumoured for several months beforehand. This compared to 463 the previous year.
Wealthy buyers spent a total of £4.09billion on homes priced at £5million or more across 2025, Savills’ figures suggest, a decrease of 18 per cent or nearly £900million on 2024.
In the Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves targeted owners of expensive homes with the biggest change to council tax in three decades.
From 2028, properties in England worth more than £2million will face a surcharge on top of their council tax, dubbed a ‘mansion tax’.
Savills said homes worth between £10million and £15million saw the steepest decline last year, with sales dropping by almost a third (31 per cent).
Phone muggings by bike gangs like this one in Knightsbridge are common
Most of these homes are in prestigious central London neighbourhoods such as Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Chelsea.
Amy Smith, 56, who rents in Knightsbridge, said plummeting house prices are welcome news for her and her husband.
‘Prices have definitely fallen here and in Kensington and Chelsea in the past six months or so,’ she told the Daily Mail.
‘I see lots of people – the extremely wealthy – moving back abroad, whether that be to Europe or further afield.
‘For us, the house prices coming down around here are of course a good thing, as we want to buy.’
Monica Orion, 35, said findings that crimes had fallen across London, as boasted by mayor Sadiq Khan last week, were hard to believe.
The Italian, who has lived in the Knightsbridge area for 12 years, said: ‘At least once per week I’m seeing things stolen around here from shops, they are so brazen.
‘And now we have this with the Rolex store. It feels to me like crime rates are going up around here, not going down.’
