London house prices swell by a fifth in a year
House prices jumped by more than a 10th across the UK in the year to May, and more than one fifth in the capital’s frothy housing market, with little suggestion that new regulations had slowed price growth.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed yesterday that house prices in London had risen by 20.1 per cent from May 2013, the fastest rate in at least 12 years, as far as the government record went. Across the country, the increase is the most rapid since 2010.
Prices in the capital are surging at more than three times the pace of the rest of the country once London and the south east of England are excluded, at 6.4 per cent.
The data set is the first to offer insights for May, the only full month since the new mortgage market review (MMR) was brought in.
London Mayor Boris Johnson yesterday asked the government for more powers to release disused public land for building private housing.
Baroness Jo Valentine of business body London First said: “London is suffering from a desperate lack of supply – we need to be building around 50,000 new homes a year in the capital and we are building less than half of that.”