London property prices: Canary Wharf defies market trends
Canary Wharf has become a hotspot for prime property in London with the number of homes listed for more than £1m, jumping 40 per cent in 2025 according to our annual Property Price Index.
The index, which analyses listing data from Greater London and the Home Counties, found that 466 properties in the Docklands were listed at £1m-plus last year, with an average sale price of £1.3m. The sharp rise in supply comes despite a reduced corporate footprint in the area.
The jump in the number of prime properties at Canary Wharf contrasts with parts of west and north London. In Chelsea there was an eight per cent drop in the number of £1m-plus listings, while in St. John’s Wood there was a two per cent decline.
Price trends across the 10 London postcodes included in our survey were mixed. Chelsea and Fulham were the only two postcodes which showed a marginal increase in average price per square foot compared to the prior year. Chelsea was also the most expensive London postcode in our survey based on this metric, at £1,980 per square foot. While Wimbledon offers the best value at an average price per square foot of £983.
Crucially, discounts on the listing price have become a defining feature of the market. Average asking prices declined in all 10 prime London postcodes, with reductions of more than 10 per cent recorded in Canary Wharf and several other established prime areas.
Similar levels of discounting were witnessed across the Home Counties, strengthening buyers’ negotiating power in the £1m+ market. Although the number of prime property listing increased, prices declined with an average fall of 1.4 per cent. The biggest sale price drop was recorded in Buckinghamshire where prices dropped five per cent, succeeded closely by West and East Sussex, which were both four per cent lower.
Sale prices were flat in Hertfordshire but the number of prime listings over £1m increased 21 per cent. Every other Home County we examined as part of our research recorded increases in the number of listings.
As well as increased choice from the number of houses listed for sale in the Home Counties, buyers can also more than double the amount of space compared to Central London. The average price per square foot in London was £1,233, compared to £574 in Oxfordshire and just £486 in Essex.
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