London house price slump, borough by borough

Everyone knows that house prices are falling but the scale with which they tumbled in London last month is frightening (for homeowners). According to the latest figures from Rightmove.co.uk, the average asking price in the capital fell 5.3 per cent between July and August. That means a whopping £21,000 has been wiped from the value of the average London home in the space of just four weeks – that is the equivalent of £750 a day or £31 an hour.

Until recently, asking prices in London have remained largely stagnant but the mortgage drought and lack of buyer interest appear to have finally caught up with the capital.

Miles Shipside, the commercial director of Rightmove, says another explanation is that sellers who choose to come to the market during the peak holiday season generally have a greater need to sell, and therefore are pricing competitively to attract buyers.

Of course, the London-wide figures mask wide variations although every borough registered falls last month and only six boroughs still have higher prices than a year ago. See below to find out how prices have changed in your borough.

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Borough	Average price August 2008	Monthly change	Annual change
Kensington and Chelsea	£1,416,578	-5.9%	-2.3%
City of Westminster	£1,005,043	-6.1%	+9.3%
Hammersmith and Fulham	£661,380	-2.6%	+6.0%
Camden	£649,150	-6.5%	-2.0%
Islington	£542,935	-3.2%	-5.2%
Richmond-upon-Thames	£512,035	-6.8%	-6.6%
Brent	£503,690	-7.5%	-2.4%
Wandsworth	£480,555	-7.9%	-5.6%
Kingston-upon-Thames	£477,563	-7.2%	-10.0%
Hackney	£473,956	-0.6%	-10.3%
Barnet	£436,701	-3.5%	-0.6%
Hounslow	£412,023	-3.1%	-4.4%
Tower Hamlets	£411,635	-4.2%	-1.8%
Haringey	£396,575	-5.6%	+3.2%
Lambeth	£378,025	-6.5%	-1.6%
Ealing	£377,025	-6.5%	-2.9%
Merton	£368,268	-6.3%	-6.7%
Southwark	£362,664	-2.2%	0%
Hillingdon	£321,796	-3.7%	-7.3%
Lewisham	£316,062	-5.2%	-2.8%
Bromley	£314,764	-3.7%	-1.5%
Sutton	£306,405	-4.7%	-11.5%
Harrow	£306,374	-3.5%	-5.9%
Enfield	£300,239	-3.8%	-5.4%
Waltham Forest	£274,026	-4.8%	-8.6%
Redbridge	£270,156	-6.2%	-8.0%
Croydon	£264,205	-5.9%	-6.9%
Havering	£243,799	-4.4%	-7.0%
Greenwich	£242,736	-6.6%	-2.2%
Barking and Dagenham	£214,112	-4.9%	-6.5%
Bexley	£214,112	-3.5%	-5.5%

By Andrew Ellson

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Comments

[jmkeynes]

Falling prices aren't too frightening for all homeowners. For those considering a move into a larger home, the contraction just means the price-to-change is coming down. It's landlords who are watching their portfolios' value contract, who are fretting.

[jay]

What about Newham last time I looked it was a London Borough. With the Olympic situation it might be interesting to show it up in this data ? How is my house doing ? Please can you update your data.

[m wilson.]

I bought 2.650 sq/metres of land on a hill in France - cost about 8.000 pounds including tax and legal fees. I then built a 2 bedroom house which cost about the same.
Everone who buys a house in UK is beeing ripped off. If mortgages are only offered for 50% of the purchase price, prices will fall in a hurry.

[Hamish]

Why is this list for London only and not for scotland?

[Steve]

Review this at the end of the year,
by sell price not asking price and
numbers will be well over 20%

[Frederick]

London's bankers lost even more. All this fuss about the over-priced housing market. Did people really think that it was always going up?

[m wilson.]

Well most intelligent people who watched Dr Ian Stuart on Planet earth probably think he has got it right and the sea level is going to rise by 7 metres, which puts London under water. They may think it will take a long time but the graphic film inclines a view that it may be in less than 10 years. Don't panic, just sell up and get out.

[Joe]

Excellent!

And after 2/3 years of this, London prices might return to pre inflationary-madness levels.

[Simon]

While I agree with EN that these figures could be misleading as they refer to asking price rather than the actual sale price, they’re still valuable as they provide an insight into the mind of sellers.

These figures clearly show sellers reducing their sale price expectations. With the new market reality sinking in and losses accepted.

[en]

Rightmove figures are misleading because they use list prices not sale prices. The true selling price for any given property can be obtained from www.upmystreet.com and nethouseprices.com. The time lag to gather the figures from the land registry is typically 2 months.