High prices keep homebuyers off London properties

A couple walk past a window display of an estate agent in London on Feb 7, 2017. REUTERS

London house prices posted their largest annual drop in almost six years in February as high values deterred buyers.

The average asking price in the capital fell 0.4 percent to 641,116 pounds ($797,000) this month from a year earlier, the first annual decline since April 2011, property website Rightmove Plc said on Feb 20. While asking prices gained 2.6 percent from January, that's the weakest monthly gain for a February since 2009 during the depths of the recession.

London's housing market underperformed the rest of the country during 2016 after stretched affordability, Britain's vote to leave the European Union and tax increases on investors in the early part of the year weighed on demand.

Nationally, annual price growth slowed to the weakest in almost four years this month, signaling that potential buyers are becoming more price-sensitive as inflation erodes real incomes and concerns hang over the outlook, according to Rightmove.

"Perhaps we're approaching the territory where many buyers are unable or unwilling to pay what sellers are asking, given the negative combination of rises in the cost of living, tighter lending criteria, and a dose of Brexit uncertainty," said Miles Shipside, director, Rightmove.

Values have boomed since 2013, "so it's not surprising that upward price pressure is running on tired legs", he said.

Central London led the slowdown in February, with asking values falling 2.1 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 1.4 percent gain for outer suburbs. On the month, inner boroughs outperformed as owners of more expensive homes boosted the average by listing their properties for sale after a Christmas hiatus, according to Rightmove.

For the United Kingdom as a whole, asking prices rose 2 percent to an average 306,231 pounds ($380,951), the biggest monthly increase in a year. That's still the weakest February performance since 2009 and well below the 5 percent average gain for the month over the past seven years. That meant the national annual gain of 2.3 percent was the slowest since April 2013.

Bloomberg