London’s prime housing market hits the brakes
PRIME London house prices will stay flat until the end of year, estate agent Marsh & Parsons (M&P) said today.
Prices grew by just 0.5 per cent over the past three months.
The buyers-to-property ratio has halved since the start of the year and now sits at 12 for each property for September. Meanwhile, the supply of prime housing soared by 13 per cent over the past three months.
Prices boomed over the last year. For prime houses, prices have risen 11.4 per cent over the past 12 months, according to M&P’s figures. The average prime London property price is now £1,598,410, or £2,246,656 in the centre of town.
The most impressive gains were made outside of central London, with prime housing there growing by 14.5 per cent annually in price. However, the market appears to have slowed.
“Price growth may have paused to catch its breath, but come January we expect the heartbeat of the property market to quicken again as growth awakens for another healthy year,” said M&P chief executive Peter Rollings.
The report also hit out at the Labour’s proposed mansion tax on properties valued over £2m.
Over the past quarter alone, the proportion of prime London properties worth £2m or more rose by three per cent with the total now at 27 per cent.
“It would impact many ordinary working families for whom their home is their single major asset investment, and a heftier annual tax bill is an unrealistic and impossible ask,” the report said.