Property prices in London’s Olympic boroughs race ahead

Major investment in London’s six Olympic boroughs has helped drive up residential property prices by an average of 64% in the six ‘Olympic boroughs’ of Hackney, Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest since the Games took place in 2012 – 11.2% higher than the overall average of 52.8% growth across the city’s 32 boroughs over the past four years, research shows.

With just a few days remaining until the 2016 Olympics gets underway in Rio de Janeiro, residential property crowdfunding platform Property Partner looked at property prices in London to see how they have changed since the Games took place in the capital, and found that Waltham Forest received the gold medal, recording home price growth of 76% in the last four years.

The average price of a home in the East London borough now stands at £418,146 - up from £236,796 in 2012.

Other notable performers were Hackney (+66.9%) and Newham (+62.6%), taking third and fourth position in the rankings respectively.

Non-Olympic borough Lewisham squeezed into the medal rankings by securing second place, with average house prices accelerating by 67.9% since 2012 partly due to strong interest from homebuyers in Blackheath, Brockley and New Cross.

Dan Gandesha, Property Planner CEO, said: “London 2012 was the catalyst for a flood of investment into the capital, much of which was injected into regenerating some of the capital’s most disadvantaged boroughs.

“The economic legacy of the Games - supporting new jobs and skills, encouraging trade, inward investment, tourism and improved transport links - has meant a corresponding rise in house prices in the six host boroughs. The economic, social and environmental gap between these boroughs and the rest of London is closing. 

“Over the next few years, the capital will further benefit from significant infrastructure projects – particularly Crossrail where areas that were relatively inaccessible will suddenly be on London’s doorstep. In turn, like the Olympic effect, house prices around Crossrail’s 40 stations are continuing to see an upward trend despite post-Brexit uncertainty.

“The reality is, no one can say for sure what will happen just now. But the fundamentals of the capital’s housing market are self-evident - demand far outstrips supply, which is further exacerbated by population growth and low borrowing costs.

“Moreover, the Bank of England is likely to reduce base rates even further in the very near future.”