The latest research by online estate agent eMoov.co.uk has revealed that Croydon is London’s wealthiest borough for property.
Kensington and Chelsea is traditionally crowned the most expensive area to buy a home in London, with the highest average house price of all boroughs (£1,406,839) – a cost per square metre of £9,110, which is just short of Westminster, at £9,330.
Croydon Named London’s Wealthiest Borough for Property
However, using data on the surface area (m2) of each London borough accounted for by domestic residential property and gardens, and the cost of property per square metre, eMoov has highlighted that Kensington and Chelsea isn’t the most lucrative where the quantity of property per square metre and its price tag is concerned.
Land use: The London Datastore was used to provide figures for the quantity of domestic buildings and domestic gardens across each borough.
Price per square metre: This data was sourced from London.Gov.
Across London, the average price per square metre is £2,401, with the average quantity of property/garden space standing at 16,229,094m2. This puts the average value of the property wealth across all London boroughs at £28.3 billion.
At more than £41.3 billion, the total value of residential property in Kensington and Chelsea is substantially higher, but only places it sixth in the rankings.
In fact, it’s Croydon that has the highest property wealth in the capital, with over £77.2 billion worth of property across the borough. Property in Croydon is an average of £2,150 per square metre, while the combined area of residential property in the borough is 35,920,000m2.
When multiplying this price per square metre by the total residential area, Croydon is the leader by far – almost £20 billion more than second place Richmond upon Thames (£58.7 billion). Barnet (£49.5 billion), Bromley (£43.5 billion) and Westminster (£42.2 billion) complete the top five.
Russell Quirk, the Founder and CEO of eMoov, says: “Kensington and Chelsea certainly rules the roost where the premium price tag and cost to individual homebuyers are concerned, but, as this research shows, it isn’t the wealthiest in terms of the sheer quantity of the property assets located across the borough.
“When taking into account the size of each borough’s property portfolio, it provides an alternative look at which parts of London are home to the greatest accumulation of property wealth.
“Of course, the outer boroughs of London dominate, as these are the locations that allow a larger ground area to be allotted to a residential purpose, but it is the recent trend of homeowners forsaking the inner city and looking to these more affordable outer boroughs that have seen prices increase there and, in turn, push them up these rankings.”
eMoov also recently looked at which London borough is the greenest for properties costing under £500,000: /londons-greenest-boroughs-properties/