London landlords suffering....with the rest of us!

I read with interest Tim Jackson's post about London property selling at the biggest discount to the asking price in the UK. It's tempting to say that this is perhaps a belated brush with reality after a year when London landlords thought that property prices could literally defy the laws of gravity. Whilst the rest of the country were getting used to a stagnant if not falling house prices, Londoners were smuggly basking in house prices that appeared that they could rise for ever on the back of big city bonuses and London's international status.

Where do professional landlords go for their landlord insurance?

This article in the Times just shows how Londoners are having to get used to everybody elses reality that the housing market goes down as well as up. It's grim up north but now it ain't so great down south either!

Everyone knows that house prices are falling but the scale with which they tumbled in London last month is frightening (for homeowners). According to the latest figures from Rightmove.co.uk, the average asking price in the capital fell 5.3 per cent between July and August. That means a whopping £21,000 has been wiped from the value of the average London home in the space of just four weeks – that is the equivalent of £750 a day or £31 an hour.

Until recently, asking prices in London have remained largely stagnant but the mortgage drought and lack of buyer interest appear to have finally caught up with the capital.

Miles Shipside, the commercial director of Rightmove, says another explanation is that sellers who choose to come to the market during the peak holiday season generally have a greater need to sell, and therefore are pricing competitively to attract buyers.

Of course, the London-wide figures mask wide variations although every borough registered falls last month and only six boroughs still have higher prices than a year ago. See below to find out how prices have changed in your borough.

Borough	Average price August 2008	Monthly change	Annual change
Kensington and Chelsea	£1,416,578	-5.9%	-2.3%
City of Westminster	£1,005,043	-6.1%	+9.3%
Hammersmith and Fulham	£661,380	-2.6%	+6.0%
Camden	£649,150	-6.5%	-2.0%
Islington	£542,935	-3.2%	-5.2%
Richmond-upon-Thames	£512,035	-6.8%	-6.6%
Brent	£503,690	-7.5%	-2.4%
Wandsworth	£480,555	-7.9%	-5.6%
Kingston-upon-Thames	£477,563	-7.2%	-10.0%
Hackney	£473,956	-0.6%	-10.3%
Barnet	£436,701	-3.5%	-0.6%
Hounslow	£412,023	-3.1%	-4.4%
Tower Hamlets	£411,635	-4.2%	-1.8%
Haringey	£396,575	-5.6%	+3.2%
Lambeth	£378,025	-6.5%	-1.6%
Ealing	£377,025	-6.5%	-2.9%
Merton	£368,268	-6.3%	-6.7%
Southwark	£362,664	-2.2%	0%
Hillingdon	£321,796	-3.7%	-7.3%
Lewisham	£316,062	-5.2%	-2.8%
Bromley	£314,764	-3.7%	-1.5%
Sutton	£306,405	-4.7%	-11.5%
Harrow	£306,374	-3.5%	-5.9%
Enfield	£300,239	-3.8%	-5.4%
Waltham Forest	£274,026	-4.8%	-8.6%
Redbridge	£270,156	-6.2%	-8.0%
Croydon	£264,205	-5.9%	-6.9%
Havering	£243,799	-4.4%	-7.0%
Greenwich	£242,736	-6.6%	-2.2%
Barking and Dagenham	£214,112	-4.9%	-6.5%
Bexley	£214,112	-3.5%	-5.5%