£250,000 for average London home

An average house in London now costs almost £250,000, putting paid to fears that the market is on the verge of collapse.

But the healthy six per cent rise in prices over the past year, revealed by the Land Registry today, disguises huge variations between boroughs.

In some areas, prices leapt by 30 per cent while in others prices appear to have peaked and are on their way down.

In the year to June, average prices rose to £246,710. In three months alone - between April and June - they rose by three per cent.

And as buyers scramble for a foothold on the property ladder,
prices in some of the traditionally cheaper boroughs have shot up.

The biggest annual rises were in Barking and Dagenham and in Newham, both up 30 per cent. Newham also saw prices rise by nine per cent between April and June.

Bexley and Waltham Forest have both also seen substantial annual price rises of 20 and 19 per cent respectively. Other winners include Harrow (24 per cent), Enfield, Bromley, Havering and Lewisham (18 per cent), Hackney (17 per cent), Croydon and Hillingdon (16 per cent) and Redbridge and Sutton (15 per cent).

The biggest price rises since April have been in Harrow (13 per cent), Hackney (11 per cent) and Camden (nine per cent).

The only areas where prices are now lower than they were a year ago are Hammersmith & Fulham (minus three per cent), Westminster and Islington (minus two per cent) and Lambeth and Wandsworth (minus one per cent).

Despite this, the average price in London's richest borough, Kensington & Chelsea, is now £642,483 - four and a half times more than the average in Barking & Dagenham, which is £142,892.

In other boroughs, the market has been almost static and there is sobering news for homeowners. As well as measuring prices, the Land Registry counts actual sales and its results paint a picture of a deeply stagnant London market.

A year ago, almost 13,000 homes were sold each month. The figure now is 9,640, a drop of more than 25 per cent.

Sales are particularly sluggish at the top end. Only 338 homes costing more than £1 million were sold between April and June compared with 705 in the same period of last year.