The media is full of good news, bad news and indifferent stories about one of Britain’s favourite subjects, the property market.  In London and indeed within each London Postcode a patchwork of property markets operate.  In some boroughs property values have risen by over 23% in the past 12 months, in contrast upmarket Kensington and Chelsea has only experienced an 11% growth as the top end of the market continues to slow.

The recent Stamp Duty reforms have polarised the London property markets above £1,000,000, and it would appear the punitive Stamp Duty charges will continue to dampen demand.   Our own data shows that in the last three months SE5 properties over one million pounds have struggled to sell with only 2 of the 34 available properties going under offer.

But what about Camberwell? Asking prices for all property types have increased in February with the exception of detached homes.  Property priced below £500k are also selling much more quickly in SE5 than in neighbouring SE15 and SE22 so if you are home owner you are more likely to achieve a good price but if you are investor you may find it more difficult to grab a bargain.

General price increases alone do not paint the complete picture, you also need to look at which  price bands are actually selling? Keeping an eye on the property market in SE5 enables me to give the best advice and opinion on what (or not) to buy in the area.  As a bonus I have included my data on SE15 and SE22.

It’s clear from the data above that property below £500k continues to move quickly but that the higher valued properties in Camberwell are struggling to sell especially over the £1 million plus mark.

Activity in the next three months will be crucial to understanding which way the market will go in 2015.   I believe any house price growth or drops this side of the election would be minimal if at all. Regardless of the challenges facing the property market, people will always need a home and that is why the property market has ridden the storms of Oil crisis in the 1970’s, the 1980’s recession, Black Monday in the 1990’s, and latterly the Credit Crunch.

And why? Because we don’t build enough houses to meet demand so in the long term prices are only going in one direction.