Within a radius of a few hundred metres, average home prices in London can vary by eye-watering amounts.  

 

The data that drives this graph is sourced from the UK Government's Office for National Statistics ("ONS") which records the price of every property sold in the UK and publishes aggregate statistics thereon on a quarterly and annual basis. This data can be obtained at various levels of detail e.g. at city-wide level, borough level, MSOA level or LSOA level. The latter refers to the smallest census area, viz. the Lower Layer Super Output Area ("LSOA").

 

The great thing about using LSOA data is that it allows us to capture variations in home prices at a very granular level. However, the slight drawback of this choice is that the data from scarcely populated LSOAs is suppressed (i.e. not revealed in the ONS statistics). More specifically, in any one year, if there are less than five residential property sales in a given LSOA, average sale prices are not disclosed. Fortunately, in a densely populated city like London, this only applies to a small percentage of metropolitan LSOAs.

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The other thing worth noting is that the average home price shown in the graph above is partly a function of the type of properties being sold i.e. a preponderance of houses vs. flats or vice-versa. This means that adjoining LSOAs can have quite materially different average home prices even if there is little difference in the price per square metre of the properties sold. This is why, when you roll your cursor over any of the LSOAs in the map, the lightbox that pops up shows you not just the average home price but also the number of properties sold and the percentage split thereof between flats and houses.

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Needless to say, we recognise that our price comparisons would be considerably improved if we could allow you to narrow your search down by price per square metre (and not just average home price). To that end, we're currently in discussions with a number of city-wide property agencies on ways we can collaborate to source and validate this data. We'll keep our registered subscribers posted on these developments; and we're cautiously optimistic that this function should be available before the end of this year (2021).

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Finally, a word on time-series. You'll note that average prices reflect a two year rolling average with the graph currently showing the data for the two year period ending December 2019. The data for the year ending December 2020 will soon be published by the ONS, whereupon we'll update this graph (and all other charts on this site that link to this data).

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