Majority of London in ‘Half a million zone’

Property prices reaching beyond half a million pounds have now spread to the majority of London neighbourhoods, according to a new analysis from Ackroyd, in the latest London Hubs Tracker.

• Property prices break beyond the £500,000 mark across 51% of postcode districts within Greater London
• Half-million-pound postcodes now include the East End’s E1 district (£501,900) and Peckham’s SE15 (£503,000)
• But homes for under half a million persist as centrally as SE16 (£474,600), home to the Canada Water tube stop
• ‘SE’ and ‘E’ postcodes in general (£449,500 and £434,000) are cheaper than even suburban HA, TW, and KT homes
• Business activity is growing fastest in these more affordable parts of the capital, led by South East and East London

Average home prices across the whole of Greater London have already reached £540,200 as of Q3 2015, up 1.6% compared with Q2 – or an annualised growth rate of 6.6% across the capital. But most relevant for individuals and communities, the local phenomenon of homes worth over half a million pounds (the ‘half a million zone’) has now spread to the majority of individual postcodes. Out of 279 postcode districts falling within Greater London, 142 are now home to local property prices averaging at least £500,000. As such, the ‘half a million zone’ now represents 51% of the UK capital. Across England & Wales, there are a total of 157 postcode districts with average property values above half a million pounds – of which a staggering 142 lie within Greater London.This means that, while the majority of Greater London (51%) now has property prices averaging above half a million pounds, the same is true for less than 1% of the rest of England & Wales (excluding London) – where 99.4% of postcode districts have average property values under half a million pounds.Andrew Bridges, managing director of Ackroyd, comments, “London is increasingly another country. Within these borders, more and more territory is being claimed by home values only dreamed of by sellers in the past.  Meanwhile, for buyers and for businesses – the wave is building outwards and eastwards.

“Sweeping house price averages have long been skewed by a minority of traditional super-expensive streets – but now the cost of a London home is rising more broadly. Average values for England or the UK may as well measure house prices in Peru – locally irrelevant when describing the fundamentally different and hugely complex London market.“They say the past is another country too – and that is definitely the case in the capital. Gone are the days of the traditional prejudices about certain postcodes. London is more diverse than ever, but the boundaries are shifting and blurring. Lawyers and bankers are just as likely to live in Hackney as they are to choose Fulham, while the offices of law firms and financial services start-ups are found as frequently in Shoreditch or the Southbank as they are in the City.”