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Olympic Games Will Impact London Property
This year's Olympic Games will definitely have an impact on house prices, but the extent of the effect on property in London could vary, one expert has predicted.
Lucian Cook, director of residential research at Savills, said it is "quite easy" to overstate the price, though this may be confined to some "quite tight geographical areas".
"I suspect that you will find the Athletes Village itself in Stratford to be in demand much more so than perhaps the wider Stratford area," he added.
At the moment there is a "fairly significant divergence" and an east-west divide in terms of property prices within London, making the capital's as diverse as any other.
The market which has the strongest to date in terms of relative transactional levels has been Islington, though if people look at the markets which are strongest, they are mainly the prime boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Camden, Wandsworth and Westminster.
"If you look at those which have been weakest, it has been the poorer boroughs often to the east - particularly low value markets like Barking and Dagenham," Mr Cook added.
He said that a "classic example" of fluctuating house prices is Tower Hamlets; which has a "comparatively significant diversity" of housing stock and a series of different submarkets within it, meaning the average price can vary greatly.
