Luxury London home prices stagnate as top-end areas decline

In the UK capital's most expensive boroughs home value growth has ground to a halt and have even declined in the city's most up-market areas.

Luxury home prices in Kensington and Chelsea have fallen. Dan Kitwood / Getty

London home values grew at their slowest annual rate in almost five years in February as values in the capital’s most expensive boroughs including Camden, Kensington and Chelsea fell, according to Acadata and LSL Property Services.

Prices across the city rose just 0.1 per cent on the month to an average £606,780 (Dh2.8 million), the groups said in a report. That left the annual gain at 1.5 per cent, the weakest reading since April 2012.

The data add to evidence that London’s housing market is increasingly split along value lines, with the capital’s most expensive areas posting declines and the lowest-priced gaining. In February, the city’s top 11 boroughs by value saw prices fall by an average of 0.5 per cent on the month, while the least expensive 11 recorded a 0.4 per cent increase, Acadata and LSL said.

Kensington and Chelsea, the capital’s costliest borough with an average property price of about £2m, led the declines with a 2.6 per cent drop as the tentative recovery at the top-end of the London market “appears to have fizzled out”, the report said.

According to national data for March, prices in England and Wales rose 0.5 per cent from February to an average of £301,280, 3.3 per cent higher than a year earlier, the report showed.

* Bloomberg

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