London property prices - bit of a shocker here

[Jennifer S.]

Hi all, I was just on a US thread where the theory of the case was roughly that gateway cities (NY, HK, London) are always a good bet. I posted these numbers there because I'm always interested in relative value between US and UK. These are just in GBP terms so imagine comparing how someone would have done putting money to work in a US city like Denver or LA over this period and getting the pick up of USD strength.

This is what I wrote: Just wanted to note that nothing is guaranteed in high cost cities especially year by year. I think Hong Kong has been haemorrhaging value lately and I live in London so can share some numbers I was just running today because we are deciding whether to do more property here or in the US:

I was a bit shocked by my results -- even though I had heard from posh friends who bought in central London around the time of the Brexit referendum that they negotiated discounts of 10% the day after the vote and since then their property fell another 10%.

But I was kind of shocked to see the flat / negative return over 7 years in those 2 posh areas. These are all averages and I know smart people made fortunes in the top areas the whole time but imagine being a flipper and the next year having a drop of 22%. This is why I like to try to diversify cities/countries even if it's not easy on a day to day basis. (Like almost everyone else on BP it seems) I'm looking at southern and mountain areas of the US right now for future opps

Source = Foxtons

Total return of £100 since start 2014

Our area (outer London)	N1	Kens
+63%	-2.5%	-9%

Year	Our area	N1 (Islington)	Kensington and surrounding
2014	14%	15%	23%
2015	16%	6%	-13%
2016	16%	0%	16%
2017	4%	3%	-14%
2018	3%	1%	10%
2019	-4%	-4%	-1%
2020	3%	-19%	-22%