Waltham Forest tops London house price gains; beats Kensington

Bloomberg

Move over Kensington and Chelsea. The area of London that’s seen the biggest jump in property values over the past five years has been Waltham Forest. According to mortgage lender Halifax, prices in the capital’s northeast borough have jumped 93 percent since 2012 when the city hosted the Olympic Games nearby.
That outstrips the 57 percent gain across Greater London, where over the last two decades, values have more than quintupled.
Since 1997, Hackney, in the east of capital, has seen the biggest boost with prices surging 753 percent. The area, famed for its hipster residents and located near the heart of the city’s budding technology industry, has seen values rise from 814 pounds ($1,065) per square meter to 6,942 pounds.
While property owners outside of London may be feeling a little left behind, all regions of the UK have gained at least 12 percent in the past five years and on average are up 34 percent. There are also growing signs that the capital may have flatlined after values fell 0.5 percent in May from April, according to the LSL Acadata Home Price Index.
Even though it can’t compete with some of its London peers for price growth, the borough of Kensington and Chelsea remain Britain’s most expensive area with an average price of 11,192 pounds per square metre.