London home prices ‘out of reach’ amid Brexit concerns

Bloomberg

Discounts on London homes are creeping out further from the center as prices remain out of reach for many people and uncertainty surrounding Brexit starts to damp demand for homes in the capital’s cheaper neighbourhoods.
“Vendors in outer boroughs are catching up and becoming more realistic about pricing,” said Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. “There’s been a shift of power from seller to buyer and it looks as if it will stay that way for some time.”
The percentage of sellers cutting asking prices in October rose from a year earlier
in all but three of the capital’s 33 boroughs, according to data compiled by real estate listings website Zoopla. Merton, an outer borough in the southwest, topped the list with 46.4 percent of sellers reducing prices, followed closely by Harrow and Hillingdon in the northwest.
London home prices have galloped ahead of wages, rising 66 percent in a decade, Land Registry data showed. That means it now costs buyers 14.5 times their annual gross salary to purchase a property, the highest level on record and more than double the rate for the UK as a whole, according to Hometrack. As a result, home sales in the capital have fallen to record lows.