PROPERTY / PRICE COMPARISON NIGEL LEWIS
LONDON’S AVERAGE HOUSE PRICE IS EXPECTED TO GO OVER £500,000 SOON
MILLION
PRICE BANDS Where can you buy a house for £1m?
A
not always one to believe everything estate agents tells me, I set out to do my own research. One thing is for sure; London has seen aggressive price rises recently, and even the usually cautious Land Registry puts them at 10.9% this year. Also, the capital’s average house price, it says, is expected to go over the half a million pound mark soon. So, to the research. There are currently 491 homes for sale at between £1m and £1.25 million in London and they’re distribution across the capital makes for interesting reading. While anyone outside London might think up to £1.25m would buy
Greenwich
HAMPTONS 020 3151 7294
SO WHERE CAN YOU BUY A FOUR-BEDROOM HOUSE FOR BETWEEN £1M AND £1.25M?
£1 FOUR BEDROOM HOUSE Dulwich
WINKWORTH 020 8022 7080
189 C&A_AUG15_Prop_Price_Bands.indd 189
you a palace anywhere in the UK, much of London is too expensive to include properties in this band. Central London is a no-go zone that includes Chelsea plus many streets in Fulham and much of Shepherd’s Bush. Also, don’t bother in Paddington, Notting Hill, swathes of North London (the first one is to be found in Golders Green), Chalk Farm, Camden and even Wapping. u
FOUR BEDROOM HOUSE
MILLION
n estate agent recently told me that if you’re after a four-bedroom house not too far from central London on a smart street and with a garden then you’ll need a budget of £1m to £1.25m these days. After a substantial pause to digest this information I asked her which patch of London she covered and, perhaps more surprisingly, the answer was South West London – surely not? Several phone calls to other agents across London confirmed her statement to be correct. But, as I’m
£1.05
£
The answer is, anywhere outside the triangle of central London. This runs south of the river from Greenwich to East Sheen before running north across the river up to Hampstead and then back down through Islington before returning to Greenwich. Anywhere inside this triangle is pretty much bereft of four-bedroom houses at this price – unless you count the occasional ex-council house that pops up. And if you’re looking for the greatest choice then you might want to talk to my agent in SW London – because 176 of the homes in this price band are in this part of London, or 35% of the total – so it won’t be long before south of the river catches up with its northern neighbour. u
AUGUST 2015
27/07/2015 12:12