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Where to buy in London: Walthamstow revealed as the capital’s most popular area
Walthamstow is the most popular London area for home buyers now
(Daniel Lynch)Walthamstow is the most popular neighbourhood for home buyers in London, according to research measuring the earliest indicator of demand in an area.
The north-east London area has the most prospective home buyers signed up to receive instant property alerts from Rightmove in the capital. This means they can find out first about homes coming up for sale in the competitive post-lockdown property market.
Walthamstow has become increasingly popular with buyers willing to move further out from the centre of London in search of houses and outside space, often heading north from more expensive areas such as Hackney and Islington.
Asking prices in the area have increased by 116 per cent in the past decade and the areas popularity has grown even more as lockdown-scarred Londoners prioritise space over centrality. Asking prices in the area rose four per cent in the past year, hitting £499,534.
Rightmove said buyer demand for homes is still far greater than the number of properties being put up for sale, although it found 51 per cent more sellers were putting their homes on the market now than at the start of the year, thanks to Rishi Sunak’s decision to extend the stamp duty holiday.
Many sellers are also looking to upsize themselves or make life-changing moves to more suburban or rural areas.
Rightmove’s Tim Bannister said: “We’re hearing reports of some areas where properties are selling within a few days of being added to Rightmove, and the average time to find a buyer is the quickest we’ve ever recorded nationally. But we also know there are thousands of local markets and some are moving more slowly than others.”
The property website took the data from the 2.7 million home hunters signed up to hear about homes for sale in their targeted areas.
The second most in-demand London area was Chiswick in south-west London, where the average asking price is £969,000, one per cent lower than a year ago and nine percent lower than five years ago, when the average asking price was £1,062,000.
This suggests buyers in the well-heeled neighbourhood may be looking to find relative value in London’s quieter market as sellers leave the capital.
Outside London the most sought-after area for buyers was Didsbury, a fashionable suburb of Manchester where the average asking price is £367,000. This makes it one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester.
Prestwich (average asking price £278,000), Chorlton-cum-Hardy (£359,999), Heaton Moor (£307,000), and Bramhall (£482,000) are four other Greater Manchester neighbourhoods counted among the most sought-after areas in the country.
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