Huge 31% leap in prime London rents since pre-pandemi...

LonRes says rents in prime London are still rising but the rate of rental growth has slowed to two-year low.

That took the pace of annual rental growth down to 6.9 per cent in November - however, rents remain 31.9 per cent above their 2017-19 (pre-pandemic) average.

The data consultancy says stock levels continued to rise in November with new instructions increasing by 14.5 per cent on the same time last year.

Meanwhile agreed lets fell by 6.7 per cent on an annual basis.

These results come with the caveat that rental demand in some market sectors remains sufficiently strong that a significant proportion of properties are being let without listing, so are not captured in this data.

Meanwhile LonRes says the prime London sales market recorded a relatively subdued month in November, continuing a trend seen throughout 2023.

Average achieved prices were slightly lower than a month earlier and the annual rate of change was down 4.1 per cent - this is the largest fall since August 2019.

However, the longer-term context shows that values are broadly unchanged from a decade ago and are now 1.6 per cent higher than five years ago and 4.1 per cent higher than 10 years ago.

Transaction levels were also down in November by a huge 32.1 per cent on an annual basis in spite of a high number of properties going under offer in October.

On the supply side, November saw 5.0 per cent more new sales instructions compared to the same month last year (table 1) which is good news for those looking to buy.

LonRes points out that while November’s sales activity may look low compared to last year, looking further back suggests that 2023 will only be slightly below the long-term average.