London owes a quarter of all housing mortgages
There's more proof, if anyone still needs it, of London’s runaway dominance of the housing market out today.
Data put together by the Council of Mortgage Lenders has shown the top 20 most-mortgaged postcodes are all in London, as well as the vast majority of the top 100.
With a total of £649,426,811 in outstanding residential property loans, the area south of Clapham under the SW11 6 postcode is the most-mortgaged area in the UK.
The figures are not broken down by household, meaning densely populated areas are likely over-represented, and the banks included represent around 73 per cent of the mortgage market, so the stats are somewhat incomplete.
However, the broad picture shows that London is home to about a quarter, or £227bn out of £891bn, of the country’s mortgages included in the stats.
The British Bankers’ Association has released similar figures on personal loans, and these show that borrowing is more balanced throughout Great Britain.
Reading’s RG22 4 postcode has the most outstanding loans in absolute terms, with residents owing £12,580,930.
The average person in the Bath postcode BA1 9 owes £2,311 to the major banks included in the research, making them the most indebted in the country.
The least encumbered postcode in London appears to be SW1Y 6, which covers in and around Pall Mall, where residents owe a total of £43,480 to the big banks.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that very few people actually live in this postcode, before you try and use this as an excuse to borrow money from your Mayfair mates.