London house prices 2019: £18,000 knocked off average home as property slump deepens amid Brexit wrangling

Prices are falling in all but nine of London’s 33 boroughs
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The deepening property market slump in London has slashed more than £18,000 off the value of the average home over the past year, new figures reveal today.

Prices in the capital dropped 3.8 per cent from an average of £477,860 to £459,800 in the year to February, the biggest fall since the aftermath of the financial crisis almost a decade ago, according to data from the Land Registry.

The market dipped two per cent in February alone, making it the 12th month in succession when prices have fallen or flatlined.

Property experts said uncertainty caused by the chaos of Brexit, fewer overseas buyers, tax changes and the stratospheric levels of prices before the downturn had all contributed to the drop.

Prices are falling in all but nine of London’s 33 local authority areas, with some of the boroughs that were experiencing the most rapid growth last year now suffering the biggest reverses.

Prices fell 8.7 per cent in Hackney, 6.9 per cent in Southwark and 6 per cent in Harrow.

The biggest single plunge recorded by the Land Registry was the 19.6 per cent dive in Westminster, from an average of £1,117,408 to £898,127, although this is likely to have been exaggerated by fewer mansion sales.

Jonathan Hopper, managing director of buying agents Garrington Property Finders, said: “The sheer scale of the decline in London prices is breathtaking. In the space of a month, the annual rate of price falls in the capital has almost doubled.

“South-east England has also caught the capital’s cold, with prices in the commuter counties now falling on an annual basis for the first time in more than seven years.”

Joshua Elash, director of property lender MT Finance, said: “A price fall of 3.8 per cent over the year to February is massive. This represents billions of pounds of lost value.”

The falls came in a month dominated by bitter parliamentary wrangles over Brexit when it looked increasingly likely that the country would crash out of the European Union with no deal agreed with Brussels.

Although that threat has receded, economists said the extension of the Brexit deadline to October means that the market is unlikely to recover strongly this year.

Separately, the Office for National Statistics said the inflation rate was unchanged at 1.9 per cent in March, slightly less than the two per cent expected by the City.

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