Property Index 2024

Highlights

• Key statistics for prime property in south east counties

  £1.58m

  Average sales price of properties listed for more than £1m

  £147,732

  Average reduction from the original asking price on properties listed for more than £1m

  26,369 properties

  Number of properties over £1m listed

  651 (2.47%)

  Number of properties listed with swimming pools

  99 days

  Average time listed for homes over £1m

• Average prime property prices

  As the engine of the UK’s housing market, it is no surprise that London dominates when it comes to properties on sale for £1m and above. Between June and December 2023, the Greater London area saw more than 17,000 homes listed in this price bracket, with an average sale price of £1.85m – higher than any other part of the South-East.

  Buckinghamshire is the closest competitor in terms of sale prices for £1m+ homes, with an average of £1.65m, followed by Oxfordshire at £1.62m. Meanwhile, Kent lags behind at £1.41m.

• Asking price reductions

  Sellers in Kent have seen the greatest percentage reductions in asking prices: The average vendor of a £1m+ home in the county has had to reduce their price by nearly £150,000 or 9.6% over the last six months. Prices in Berkshire have been most resilient, with an average reduction of just 7.8%. In London, sellers have typically had to reduce prices by 7.9%.

• Time taken to sell

  While sellers in Berkshire have benefited from lower levels of price cuts, this may have come at a cost: The average £1m+ home in the county has taken 111 days to sell. In Surrey, the typical property spends just 81 days on the market.

• Prevalence of luxury features (swimming pool)

  And although there have been almost 400 £1m+ homes listed in London that boast their own swimming pool, this is just 2.3% of the overall figure – the joint-lowest rate, alongside Hertfordshire, of the counties we surveyed. Berkshire has the highest incidence of domestic pools (38 out of 1,021 homes, or 3.7%), followed by Kent (3.4%) and Buckinghamshire (3.0%).

Highlights

• Key statistics for prime property in London

  £1.85m

  Average sales price of properties listed for more than £1m

  £159,541

  Average reduction from the original asking price on properties listed for more than £1m

  17,609 properties

  Number of properties over £1m listed

  398 (2.3%)

  Number of properties listed with swimming pools

  99 days

  Average time listed for homes over £1m

• Average prime property prices

  Within London, the area seeing the highest average sale prices among £1m+ properties is the W8 (Kensington) postcode at £3.51m. This is followed by SW3 (Chelsea) at £2.79m and NW3 (Hampstead) at £2.75m. SW11 (Battersea) has the lowest average sale price at £1.72m.

• Asking price reductions

  Sellers in W2 (Bayswater) have had to lower their asking prices more than any other postcode area in our research: average sale prices are 10.7% below the initial valuation, a markdown of £311,250 on the typical £1m+ home. Prices have been most resilient in NW3, where average reductions are just 4.6%.

• Time taken to sell

  NW3 also boasts the shortest average time on the market, at just 83 days compared to 195 days in NW8 (St John’s Wood) and 152 days in W8 (Kensington).

• Prevalance of luxury features (swimming pool)

  Finally, house-hunters looking for a swimming pool should consider SW11, where 3.4% of £1m+ properties (17 out of 502) have their own pool, in contrast to none of the 230 homes listed in W11 (Notting Hill).