Deeply troubled by the sight of a shed being advertised for £1,000pcm on cult Instagram account @friends0ffriendz? Smiled through the tears as your mate asks if you want to sublet their room for a long weekend? Well strap in, because you’re in for a long ride. London has once again won the title of being the most expensive place to buy a home in the UK.
It will come as no surprise that Kensington and Chelsea has topped a list of the country’s least affordable places to buy compiled by property experts Hopkins Homes. The borough’s average house price is apparently an eye-watering £1,197,249.
It’s the same borough that saw London’s most expensive penthouse complete with an in-house dog-walker and sommelier go on sale for £40 million earlier this week. That shed in someone’s back garden suddenly looks rather reasonable.
Coming in at second, a house in Westminster averages £936,715, while the boroughs of Westminster, Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham, Barnet, Islington, Harrow and Merton have also claimed spots in the list of least affordable places across the UK.
And if you were thinking of fleeing the city for cheaper house prices, other places aren’t much better. Elmbridge in Surrey sweeps in at third place, with an average house setting you back £675,946, while other commuter towns Epsom and Tandridge also feature in the list.
On the flip side, it’s not just your average Joe that’s struggling against London’s hefty house prices, even the mega rich are fed up (bring out the tiny violin). New research from house price analyst LonRes has found that despite dominating the list of the most expensive places to buy a home in the UK, the prices of properties in prime central London are plummeting. Down 17.5 per cent in the past decade, homeowners in South Kensington are likely to make big losses when it comes to selling up.
The lesson? It doesn’t really matter if you choose to blow your entire pay check on small plates in east London, because the chances of buying a house in London’s turbulent property market seem slim.
Looking beyond London? The UK cities with the most expensive house prices outside London revealed.
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