Average House Prices in London Hide Wide Regional Variations
House prices in London have been much higher than in the rest of the UK, and have to an extent buoyed the property market across the whole of the country in the last nine months or so. This can make reading property prices across the UK quite tricky, as there are so many regional variations.
Many people will enlist the services of a London mortgage broker to help them get the all-important funding for their purchase. London mortgage brokers should be able to provide completely independent mortgage advice, searching the UK mortgage market to find the most competitive deal, one that matches the client’s needs and circumstances.
The average price of a Greater London property was £354,529 in August 2007. However, even that figure hides a multitude of detail behind it. For example, the average for detached houses was £718,096; for semi-detached the average was £387,176; for terraced properties it was £374,655; and for flats the average price was £301,884.
The last quarter has seen an overall 3.9% rise in Greater London, and the last year has seen an 11.6% rise. Sales in the last quarter were 35,171.
There are wide regional variations even within London itself. At the top of the pile is Kensington and Chelsea, where the average price of a property has topped the million, at £1,004,480. There was no rise in the last quarter, but the last year has seen an amazing 24.2% rise in prices. This really is super-prime London. Here, London mortgage brokers will be dealing with super-rich clients – many from overseas – with mortgages starting at £750,000 being the norm.
Next on the list is the City of Westminster, but it’s way down compared to the leader, with prices averaging £683,742. Although it’s got a lot of catching up to do, it is making ground, with a 7.9% rise in the quarter, though only a 12.9% increase in the last year.
Beyond these top two are Camden (£538,321), Hammersmith and Fulham (£536,402) and Richmond upon Thames (£498,862).
Not all of London and surrounds is for the mega-rich, though. In Barking and Dagenham, the average property price is £189,415, the annual rise in this region being 8.9%. Detached properties here average £236,750, but the average for a flat is only £136,048. That’s the lowest anywhere in the London area, and with the 0% stamp duty threshold ending at £125,000 it shows that – with averages at least – there is nowhere in London that you could buy a property and avoid stamp duty. The second cheapest area is Bexley, where properties are selling for an average of £226,135, but the annual rate of inflation was lower at 7.1%. It’s not all super-prime in London, but it depends where you would like to live.
When you’re looking for your next mortgage in London, it is probably best to use a London mortgage broker as they can usually find a better deal than is available on the High Street. In these days of high interest rates, high mortgage fees, and a large number of applications being turned down due to the credit crunch, it is vital to get the best advice you possibly can.
