Asking prices for London homes near record level

Asking prices for London homes rose to close to a record this month, helping push national values up the most in almost a decade, the operator of Britain’s biggest property website said in a report yesterday.

Average asking prices in London rose 2.5% from January to £449,252 (€537,705), less than £1,000 below the record reached in October, Rightmove said. Prices in England and Wales rose 4.1% on the month, the most since Apr 2002.

“Confidence in bricks and mortar in the capital seems set to continue, with ‘seller-power’ twice as strong in London compared to the rest of the UK,” Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said. “Upwards price-pressure is likely to be maintained in 2012.”

A lack of supply is helping to prop up prices, while an increase in retail sales in January and recent survey results suggest Britain won’t plunge back into a recession.

Nationally, home prices rose 1.4% in January from a year earlier to an average £233,252.

— Bloomberg