Apartment buildings in London.
With the winter lull coming to an end, residential property prices in London have hit another record in February, reported Bloomberg.
Property portal Rightmove revealed that home prices rose 5.4 percent month-on-month, bringing the average price to £643,843 (S$1.3 million). Prices in inner London climbed almost eight percent to £848,000 (S$1.7 million). Nationally, prices increased 2.9 percent during the period under review.
The report noted that new property listings nationally rose five percent in the past year, with the number of smaller homes targeted at first-time buyers climbing 10 percent.
However, this seemed to have done little to help those looking to climb the property ladder, as prices surged in 23 of 32 boroughs this month.
In fact, asking prices in London’s cheapest district, Barking & Dagenham, have jumped 23 percent to £291,638 (S$589,191) since early 2015.
Last November, the government unveiled measures as part of its help-to-buy scheme, aimed at helping London’s first-time buyers, which include interest-free loans worth as much as 40 percent of the value of a newly built house.
“Home-ownership plans for some are even further out of reach,” said Miles Shipside, Director at Rightmove.
Given the income cap on the government programme, the increase effectively “takes the price of many properties out of reach for average earners in London.”
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
