Property bonanza in central London
A mini-boom is sweeping the most exclusive streets of central London, where prices have risen by 14.7 per cent in a year.
In the last four months, prices in Chelsea – where Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan are understood to have just bought a £12m house – are up by 11.8 per cent.
A typical two-bed flat in the area, now £500,000, has spiralled in value by £15,000 a month since Christmas, according to research by agents Knight Frank.
The balance of supply and demand for London’s most upmarket homes is now at its most lopsided for a decade, the agency says. Supply has fallen by 21 per cent in the last year while demand has soared 43 per cent.
The boom in central London helped lift the average price of a UK home by 2 per cent last month – 8 per cent ahead of a year ago – according to the Halifax, Britain’s biggest lender.
“A fair amount of that growth has come from London and the south-east; people are investing substantial sums in that market,” said Martin Ellis, chief economist at the group.
- Elsewhere in the UK, though, the market has been far weaker, with prices up by just 1 per cent in Scotland since the New Year and 2 per cent in the north-west, Yorkshire and the south-west.
Many experts believe central London is booming because it saw more subdued growth in the last four years than elsewhere.
Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, said the central London boom was “unsustainable” in the medium term, but prices showed little sign of waning because of international demand and a strong City bonus season.