The London property market is continuing to struggle with prices dropping 0.5% in July and contributing to the UK’s slowest annual growth in five years.
The drop marks the fifth month that house prices have fallen in the capital this year, while rent prices also fell in June with experts suggesting the ceiling has well and truly been hit.
The market has slowed dramatically, with fewer buyers and renters, combined with record numbers moving out of the capital and further north.
It’s thought that now one in five Londoners selling their home now move up north, with the Midlands and the likes of Manchester and Leeds.
However, this is contributing to a rise in property prices elsewhere. Hastings has been particularly harmed by this, with locals being priced out of the area as gentrification takes hold.
The statistics are worrying. The average house price of a property bought by a Londoner is significantly higher than buyers from anywhere else, with many looking to buy in the likes of Hastings almost expecting to be outbid.
Many Londoners continue to look to get out and are taking a sell house fast attitude. With less demand in their own city, many are looking to companies like Property Rescue or taking cut price deals to sell in order to get ahead of the wave and find a good deal up north or in towns and cities within a commute of London.
It’s all leading to an unhealthy market in the capital, particularly as prices rise elsewhere and begin to catch up.
But while the number leaving London has risen two thirds in the last decade, many first time buyers are still dipping in according to reports.
So it’s perhaps not all doom and gloom but the continual reposts coming from various property experts, some even being contradictory it all makes for a very uncertain market.
The rest of 2018 is expected to continue in the same vein and will undoubtedly see more and more moving out of the capital to find cheaper property.
This will impact the market in two ways. Not only will we find property prices growing in the Midlands, South East and South West, the London market could continue to drop and see the gap between the two begin to close in on each other.
Experts are unsure what the market this time last year, but one thing’s for sure, those in the market are going to have to buckle up.
