Trevor Abrahmsohn has had a busy few weeks. Last month he got calls from three new clients looking for luxury homes worth around £50m. One was from Russia, the second Kazakhstan, and the other, Azerbaijan.

"There are some seriously big fish biting and these days they are almost invariably Eastern European," says Abrahmsohn, who runs Hampstead-based estate agent Glentree, in London. "Austerity is not in their language. On the other hand, I would be surprised to get anyone from the UK or US with that amount of cash at the moment."