Demand hugely outstripping supply in central London despite looming recession
Prices have risen by 5% and rents by nearly a third year-on-year, latest data from LonRes shows.
London’s prime central London market is recovering fast from the pandemic despite the darkening global economic clouds, the latest market report from LonRes shows.
The estate agency data platform says both house prices and rents are seeing extraordinary rises year-on-year including a 5% rise in property prices and a 28.3% jump in rent.
The latter is fuelled by a 58.6% drop in stock and a small army of renters returning to capital after the long months of Covid as offices re-awaken.
Prices have increased despite a lull in activity following the Covid stamp duty holiday ending a year ago, which sucked a lot of forward-looking volume out of the capital’s gold-paved streets.
Normal levels?
But Lonres says that, although activity in both markets is below pre-pandemic levels, it expects the two markets to return to ‘normal’ levels.
When compared to 2017-2019 figures, for example, London’s PCL sales market is only 4% off its pre-pandemic volumes for new instructions.
“While the rate of price growth slowed slightly this month, overall it’s good news for London’s prime housing market,” says Anthony Payne, Managing Director of LonRes (pictured).
“Both sale prices and rents continue to strengthen and over the longer-term transactions are also up.
“But the real story is all about houses vs flats. This is a trend that we have been reporting for some time, but the figures continue to make for interesting reading.
“Since April 2020, house prices across the three LonRes prime areas of London have risen by 6.1% while the price for flats has fallen by 0.9%.”
