London's Top Luxury Developer On How Capital Got Complacent

He has built some of London’s biggest luxury residential developments, and he is the person you call to revive your flagging scheme.

But Alex Michelin despairs of the market he has worked in for more than 20 years. 

“In the old days, there were hundreds of people piling into London wanting [high-end] flats,” the co-founder and CEO of developer Valouran said in an interview at the firm’s Mayfair headquarters.

“Unfortunately, today, London has slightly misplayed its hand and is no longer quite the attractive place that it once was. And I think we should all be very annoyed about that.”

Valouran is Michelin’s newish venture after exiting Finchatton, the developer he started with Andrew Dunn in 2001 that developed projects including the £430M 20 Grosvenor Square. 

Since Michelin and Matthew Robertson set up Valouran in 2024, it has led the residential element of the £1.5B Whiteley development in Queensway and has been brought in to reposition luxury residential schemes like The Broadway in Victoria and 60 Curzon Street in Mayfair. 

Michelin and Robertson told Bisnow that 2026 has started off with a pleasantly surprising uplift in home sales at the company’s developments as U.S. political upheaval opened up a new pool of potential buyers.  

But on the whole, London’s luxury residential sector, which once led the world, is a much bleaker place than a decade ago.

Prime central London house prices declined 5% last year and are down 22% since their 2015 peak, according to Knight Frank. That compares to a 45% rise in the price of an average London home over the same period.

The volume of prime central London home sales fell 19% in 2025, according to LonRes. 

High-end buyers who once wanted London property are instead flocking to places like Dubai or Abu Dhabi, the duo said, and global capital doesn’t want to fund new projects here. Michelin said he is considering moving Valouran to the Middle East as well.

A decade ago, developers and brokers in the luxury London residential development world reiterated the same mantra. London would always be a world-class city that appealed to global buyers and global institutional investors looking to build. The English language, rule of law, world-famous schools and incredible restaurants added up to a wonderful lifestyle. 

You don’t hear that anymore.

“Britain just became complacent,” Michelin said, arguing London has suffered from death by a thousand cuts. 

“People thought you can't re-create what makes Britain so special, but you kind of can. OK, it might take 20 years, but they're doing it,” he said.

Places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai are luring corporate investment with their business-friendly tax regimes and are rapidly building high-end hotels and restaurants to create an attractive quality of life. 

Dubai has a 9% corporate tax on profits over £80K and has zero personal income tax, while the UK charges corporate taxes that range from 19% to 26.5%, depending on the profit amount, and has 45% personal income tax. 

“Candidly, we are looking at [developing in the Middle East] quite carefully,” Michelin said. “I think it would be very unwise and foolish to just stay in London and only think about London, with the political sort of landscape that's unfolding.”

Michelin traces London’s decline back to George Osborne, who raised stamp duty on more expensive homes in 2012 and again in 2014. 

He puts less onus on events like Brexit or the sharp rise in interest rates that began in 2022 than on increases in the cost of development created by policies like London’s affordable housing mandate. 

Robertson, who serves as Valouran’s chief financial officer, said the slow pace of planning, especially following the implementation of new Building Safety Act regulations, has created uncertainty for developers and disincentivised them from building new schemes. 

On a broader level, Robertson said changes to tax regimes like the ending of “nondomiciled” status for wealthy individuals create a general sense that Britain isn’t somewhere they can build a business and make money, at least not as easily as in major Middle East markets.

And with tough policy and a limited buyer pool colliding, international investors aren’t keen on placing money into large-scale London luxury development, Michelin said.

A scheme like The Whiteley — which required £400M of equity, including from Hong Kong investor CC Land, and £850M of debt — would be hard to get off the ground now, he said.

“I speak to all of the capital providers, and they're saying, ‘We’re probably not seeing London as a place we want to overallocate to or go overweight right now,’” he said. 

Large-scale luxury schemes comprising dozens of flats seem to be a thing of the past. Development of housing that sells for £3K per SF or higher has fallen 70%. Ten years ago, there were 3,300 units either under construction or with planning permission at that rate, Knight Frank data showed. Today, that number is less than 1,000.

Valouran has built or is managing the last of the previous generation of schemes over that price point. 

At The Whiteley, 106 of the 139 apartments have been sold, as has the hotel element, and the retail is 85% leased. The apartments have been selling for around £3,500 per SF.

Owners of two other schemes have also brought Valouran on board with an eye to boosting sales. 

In Mayfair, 60 Curzon Street is an eight-storey scheme comprising 32 apartments that will have a high-end ground-floor Korean barbecue restaurant that will be run by the team behind New York's double Michelin-starred Atomix.

The scheme was developed by Brockton, is majority-owned by Chinese firms Citic and Cindat, and received a £315M loan from private equity firm Apollo. It went into administration in early 2024.

When Valouran was appointed later that year, only a handful of sales had been achieved, Michelin said, but now 24 apartments have been sold for a total value of £270M. 

Valouran refreshed the interior of the lobby and other common areas and worked with designers De Rosee Sa, Christian Bense, Elicyon, CS Design and Gunter & Co to create turnkey residences. 

It is a similar story on a larger scale at The Broadway, a mixed-use development just south-west of Parliament Square in Victoria. 

The building has 258 apartments across 355K SF, 115K SF of offices and 20K SF of ground-floor retail and food and beverage space. 

The project is owned by Dubai-based Shuaa Capital and was financed by a £700M loan from First Abu Dhabi Bank. 

Michelin said about 100 of the apartments have been sold, including one that very day, with prices averaging about £3,500 per SF. 

There is one floor of the office scheme left to lease, which he said should happen soon, and the company has been improving the ground-floor landscaping and providing a better mix of tenants in the retail units to benefit residents and office workers alike. A Miami Mojito bar and upscale bakery Gail’s are soon to join the lineup.

Common area upgrades have included attending to the fine details like the lighting, scent and staff uniforms.

“That’s how we sprinkle the magic dust and reposition a scheme,” Michelin said. “Now we just have to roll through the remaining apartments.”

It is not all doom and gloom. The year has started well in terms of sales, Robertson said. That is partly a result of pent-up deals delayed by fears that November’s budget would feature more tax rises, which ultimately proved unfounded. 

And while London has seen some international buyers redirect to other countries, Valouran has seen an influx of U.S. buyers looking at London over the past 12 to 18 months, pushed to the country because of instability at home. 

“I think there's a disenfranchisement with what's going on over there and concern with what's happening in the U.S. economy,” Robertson said. 

And while the company is no longer undertaking as many huge developments backed by global funds, it still has several smaller developments in the pipeline, including Connaught House, a 19K SF, £40M project to convert a Grade II-listed former chapel into five luxury homes. The building is owned by London investor Marcus Cooper Group, and Robertson said the kind of projects that target the domestic UK market remain liquid. 

But overall, there is a lament for a market that has withered on the vine in the past decade and will take some time to come back, Michelin said. 

“No one is developing in this town.”