"When taking into account the size of each borough's property portfolio it provides an alternative look at which parts of London are home to the greatest accumulation of property wealth"
Kensington and Chelsea is traditionally crowned the most expensive area in London with the highest average house price of all boroughs (£1,406,839), a cost per a square metre of £9,110, just short of Westminster at £9,330.
But using data on the surface area (m2) of each London borough accounted for by domestic residential property and gardens, and the cost of property per square metre, eMoov has highlighted that Kensington and Chelsea isn’t the most lucrative where the quantity of property per square metre and its price tag is concerned.
Land Use: The London Datastore provides data on the quantity of land across each borough allocated to certain usage in square meters. This data includes the total space within the borough covered by domestic buildings, domestic gardens, non-domestic buildings, roads, rail, pathways, green space, water and other areas of land use or unclassified land. For this research, the figures for domestic buildings and domestic gardens were included.
Price per Square Meter: Price data was sourced from London.Gov: The Economic Evidence Base for London 2016.
London
Across London the average price per m2 is £2,401 with the average size across all boroughs reaching 16,229,094 square metres, putting the average value of the property wealth across the capital’s boroughs at £28.3bn+. At over £41.3bn+, the total value of residential property in Kensington and Chelsea is substantially higher than the average across London, but places only sixth in the rankings.
Residential
It is, in fact, Croydon that is home to the highest property wealth in the capital with over £77.2 billion in property across the borough. Property in Croydon goes for £2,150 a square metre and the combined area of residential property and gardens across the borough is 35,920,000.
When multiplying this price per a square foot by the total residential area, Croydon is the leader by far, nearly £20 billion more than second-place Richmond upon Thames (£58.7bn+). Barnet (£49.5bn+), Bromley (£43.5bn+) and Westminster (£42.2bn+) complete the top five.
Russell Quirk, founder and CEO of eMoov.co.uk, commented: “Kensington and Chelsea certainly rules the roost where the premium price tag and cost to individual home buyers are concerned, but as this research shows, it isn’t the wealthiest in terms of the sheer quantity of the property assets located across the borough.
When taking into account the size of each borough's property portfolio it provides an alternative look at which parts of London are home to the greatest accumulation of property wealth.
Of course, the outer boroughs of London dominate as these are the locations that allow a larger ground area to be allotted to a residential purpose, but it is the recent trend of homeowners forsaking the inner city and looking to these more affordable outer boroughs that have seen prices increase there, and in turn, push them up these rankings.”
Commercial
When looking at the capital’s non-domestic property assets it is Westminster where the highest value is found. The area isn’t home to the largest quantity of commercial property per square metre in London, at £620 a square metre, the total value of Westminster’s non-domestic property assets is over £2.3bn – over double that of the London average.
Southwark (£2.1bn+), Hillingdon (£1.9bn+), Brent (£1.8bn+), and Ealing (£1.7bn+) complete the top five where London’s commercial property wealth by borough is concerned.
