The London housing market is more polarised than American politics, according to new data on where people are most desperate to live. Homes in eastern pockets are selling at more than six times the rate of properties in the capital’s central areas.
South Woodford is the hottest local housing market in London with 63 per cent of homes listed on the search portals under offer. According to analysts at Propcast, which measures buyer demand to calculate whether a market is hot or cold, this puts South Woodford in the “very hot” category, meaning homes will sell quickly and often at over the asking price.
In fact, of the top 10 postcodes in the ranking, nine are in the east and one in the north-east — they include Walthamstow, Chingford, Stratford and Enfield and are all above 56 per cent and classified as “extremely hot”.
Meanwhile, in “hot” areas where buyer demand isn’t quite as frenzied, there are still cases of super-fast sales — such as one 24-hour deal in Wandsworth, pictured below — where sellers are marketing homes at realistic prices/just below valuation.
In comparison, the coldest 10 postcodes are in central London, starting with Covent Garden (10 per cent), then Mayfair-Marylebone (10 per cent), and Earl’s Court (SW5). Paddington-Bayswater and South Kensington feature too — areas that have been hit by tax fears before the election and following the Labour win.
South Woodford’s 63 per cent versus Covent Garden’s 10 per cent is the biggest gap seen between hottest and coldest since 2021.
The migration to Hackney and surrounds for lower house prices is not a new phenomenon and was accelerated by the regeneration that was delivered along with the London 2012 Olympic Games.
But the migration into the outer boroughs, such as Waltham Forest, has continued unabated. In the last five years property prices in Waltham Forest have dwarfed growth in Hackney (13 per cent versus eight per cent).
Savills’ latest house price forecast this week predicts that London as a whole will see the slowest growth of any UK region over the next five years with a 17.1 per cent rise compared to a national average of 23 per cent due to high deposits and high monthly mortgage payments.
Hamptons’ analyst David Fell thinks outer east London bucks this trend. “Higher mortgage rates have seen Londoners bear the brunt of price falls this year, with buyers typically taking the largest loans in cash terms. But as rates dropped during the second half of the year, outer London, in particular, saw house price growth tick back into positive territory,” he says.
The radius of where buyers are coming from has spread, says Kenny Goad of Stow Brothers estate agents. “Five to 10 years ago the main buyer was a young family from Hackney looking for more space. It’s more universal now — buyers are coming from all over London. They are even migrating in from Essex and Redbridge.” Here is H&P’s whistlestop tour of some of the hottest postcodes in east London.
Proportion of properties on the market that are under offer: 63 per cent
Average asking price: £625,935
Goad describes South Woodford as a long-established London village. “It’s practical rather than exciting,” he says.
There is a Gail’s Bakery, a Waitrose and several outstanding schools (as rated by Ofsted): Churchfields Infants & Juniors and Woodbridge High School. Despite describing this patch of east London as comparatively “affordable”, a family-sized Victorian terraced house can hit £1.5 million to £2 million easily.
There’s a detached trophy home with seven bedrooms on sale with Durden & Hunt for as much as £2,750,000, a five-bedroom semi-detached Victorian house (with Stow Brothers) for £1,200,000 or a semi-detached four-bedroom house for £875,000 (Douglas Allen).
Hepworth Place at the former Town Hall in Walthamstow
Fiona Garden
Proportion of properties on the market that are under offer: 61 per cent
Average asking price: £550,982
This is the epicentre of the borough of Waltham Forest, with residents from the surrounding residential pockets heading in for the day and the nightlife. There is a new development which is part of the evolution of Walthamstow. Hepworth Place is the conversion of the old Town Hall, built around the copper clock with six acres of parkland. One-bedroom flats start here from £375,000.
Proportion of properties on the market that are under offer: 59 per cent
Average asking price: £558,891
Highams Park in Chingford increasingly feels like an extension of Walthamstow. It attracts a younger demographic of first-time buyers starting families. “Price growth really kicked off in the last two years and although interest rates impacted… briefly, we are dealing with a demographic where the practicalities of life outweigh political and economic factors,” says Goad. “That couple who are pregnant have to move out of the flat and into a house, so we’re shielded to a certain extent from these macro issues.” The premium roads include Castle Avenue, the Avenue and Falmouth Road, while on Newbury Road or Cavendish there are more Victorian conversions into apartments.
Proportion of properties on the market that are under offer: 57 per cent
Average asking price: £475,464
Most properties sold in Stratford over the last year were flats, according to Rightmove, at an average asking price of £426,398. In stark contrast, there is a penthouse for sale on the 40th floor of the Manhattan Loft Gardens, above the Stratford Hotel. The apartment covers 4,700 sq ft and is on the market with Sotheby’s Realty for £17,500,000 — a record amount here. The transformation of Stratford is inextricably bound up with the 2012 Olympics, and now some well-known institutions have outposts there too, including the V&A East and UCL.
Proportion of properties on the market that are under offer: 57 per cent
Average asking price: £522,392
Enfield town is 10 miles north of central London and on the edge of the green belt. Families move here from Crouch End, Muswell Hill and Finchley Park, typically, although there is much upsizing and downsizing across the town and wider borough too — according to Strutt & Parker’s Gina Simpson.
“They want space and a quieter place to live but to be within touching distance of the city,” she says. “Wren Academy opened in 2020. We have seen families move into rental accommodation around Lavender Hill simply to be within the school’s catchment area.”
Enfield has its own department store, grammar schools, plenty of golf clubs, a cinema, leisure centre and the Dugdale Arts Centre. There are new homes at Trent Park — the redevelopment of a stately home into apartments set within the 413-acre Trent County Park. Prices start from £725,000 for a two-bedroom home and Harry O’Neill of Chestertons, who is selling the apartments, says locals here head to nearby Cockfosters High Street to dine out.
‘We sold our home in 24 hours’
Geoff Wilford and Suzannah Agrippa put their house on the market at just under its ideal value
Juliet Murphy
Sometimes the right house sells fast regardless of the local market.
Thirty-eight per cent of homes on the market in the Wandsworth Common area are under offer, making it a sellers’ market. Suzannah Agrippa, model and teacher at The School of Natural Therapies, and her husband Geoff Wilford, bought a Victorian terraced house seven years ago and gutted it.
“We stripped it back to brick so it is a totally contemporary home inside a period shell,” Agrippa says. They did the side return, rear extension and a loft conversion. The slick kitchen has a long central island and sliding doors onto the garden. The now four-bedroom house, with a neat landscaped garden, was completely ready for a growing family with no time to renovate — the most likely buyer in that neighbourhood.
Pricing was key in a price-sensitive London market, says Wilford, who is the founder of estate agents Wilfords. “We put it on at just below our ideal price to encourage viewings actually and therefore got our target,” he says. The guide price was £2,000,000 to £2,250,000.