LONDON: Asking prices for London homes surged to a record this month, with gains led by the city’s most expensive districts after the Conservative Party’s election victory.
Prices rose 5.7 percent to more than 600,000 pounds ($930,000), with Kensington and Chelsea up 25 percent, property website operator Rightmove said on Monday. Nationally, asking prices increased 3 percent to 294,351 pounds, also a record.
Concerns about new property taxes before the general election were alleviated when Prime Minister David Cameron won a surprise victory on May 7. Rightmove said the number of properties in London with a price tag of 2 million pounds and over almost doubled in the month.
“The strong rebound in prices has been exaggerated by some owners of upper-price bracket property returning to the market,” Rightmove Director Miles Shipside said. “Having downed their selling tools in the run up to the election, many have now picked them up again.”
Property prices in Kensington and Chelsea fell 23.1 percent in May, meaning this month’s increase brought homes in the borough back to their usual mid 2 million-pound mark, Rightmove said. Otherwise, the biggest monthly price changes in Greater London were in Merton, Brent, Newham, and Richmond Upon Thames, Rightmove said. The worst monthly performers were Tower Hamlets, Hackney, and Southwark.
