Londonland rents - a year later

One of the most popular posts on this site, as you can see from the sidebar, is my post from May 2012 about the average rents in each London borough. Admittedly a lot of traffic comes from google sending people here looking for a map of London boroughs, but anyhoo, its still an interesting topic.

Yesterday, on twitter Sarah retweeted comment from Emma Jackson about how rents in London were crazy and average rents in Newham had shot up 39% the last year. Alas this information came from a press release a year ago, but it got me wondering about what rents were like now that the Olympics is firmly in the past, and how rents have changed from last year.

So I dug out my old spreadsheet, went through the rightmove.com property website, and counted up how many two bedroom flats there were in each London borough at each price point, weaved some Excel magic and well here's a list of average rents last year and this year, and their percentage change.

London Borough	10 May 2012	08 May 2013	Change
Redbridge	£      1,080.05	£      1,193.77	110.53%
Hillington	£      1,112.92	£      1,201.08	107.92%
Merton	£      1,581.29	£      1,702.12	107.64%
Bexley	£         858.70	£         914.26	106.47%
Enfield	£      1,135.41	£      1,201.74	105.84%
Croydon	£      1,014.19	£      1,063.27	104.84%
Greenwich	£      1,332.97	£      1,387.40	104.08%
Waltham Forest	£      1,092.00	£      1,134.49	103.89%
Barnet	£      1,419.80	£      1,465.49	103.22%
Barking and Dagenham	£         967.14	£         994.93	102.87%
Ealing	£      1,578.19	£      1,606.16	101.77%
Sutton	£      1,029.41	£      1,046.86	101.70%
Southwark	£      1,840.94	£      1,869.72	101.56%
Hounslow	£      1,785.18	£      1,808.97	101.33%
Lewisham	£      1,224.56	£      1,236.24	100.95%
Kingston Upon Thames	£      1,402.73	£      1,412.13	100.67%
Brent	£      1,483.54	£      1,491.47	100.53%
Hackney	£      1,876.80	£      1,885.32	100.45%
Harrow	£      1,248.56	£      1,253.38	100.39%
Bromley	£      1,127.81	£      1,131.87	100.36%
Havering	£         967.49	£         963.83	99.62%
Kensington and Chelsea	£      2,856.73	£      2,820.08	98.72%
Lambeth	£      1,745.46	£      1,708.09	97.86%
Haringey	£      1,432.51	£      1,401.14	97.81%
Camden	£      2,359.67	£      2,307.76	97.80%
Newham	£      1,410.63	£      1,373.49	97.37%
Islington	£      2,217.82	£      2,139.80	96.48%
Westminster	£      2,796.06	£      2,696.96	96.46%
Wandsworth	£      1,844.08	£      1,756.62	95.26%
Richmond	£      1,927.33	£      1,834.90	95.20%
Hammersmith and Fulham	£      2,102.78	£      1,978.86	94.11%
Tower Hamlets	£      2,066.11	£      1,942.07	94.00%
City of London	£      2,817.34	£      2,474.32	87.82%

So, nothing too exciting there. From the raw data, it seems the increases and decreases Redbridge, Hillington, Tower Hamlets and City of London are caused mainly by either loads more properties coming onto the market since last year, or fewer properties being available.

On the whole, property in desirable boroughs is still more expensive than property in less desirable boroughs. Desirability here is mostly proximity to the centre of the capital city of the UK, which isn't really surprising. Kensington, Westminster, and City of London are still most expensive. Havering, Barking and Bexley are still the cheapest boroughs to rent in.

The average change in average rents for two bedroom flats since this time last year for the whole of London, by my calculations is about half a percent, so within the margin of error for the data.

Thick Creamy Podcast 30-04-2013

Here's the eighteenth Thick Creamy Podcast, three bands recorded live from the Fortuna Pop night at The Bull and Gate in Kentish Town.

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The podcast features tracks from The Fireworks, Cosines and The Understudies.

Sadly I missed most of the first band of the night, The Listening Party, they played loud and with great gusto, they certainly sounded like they were having fun.

The Fireworks in a introspective moment

The second band up were The Fireworks, who were wonderful. Its been about a year since I last saw them, a richer tapestry of sounds, fuzz and feedback with more introspective moments.

Then there were Cosines who were lovely. At this point I find myself asking is an individual member of the band called a Cosine? Who's your favourite Cosine? etc.

As I become more familiar with their songs favourites bubble to the top, I loved the crazy wigout end to the first song in the set, and third song along 'Commuter Love' is a classic.

I've just finished reading this book about post-punk music and the music DIY culture of the early 1980's and I wonder, why aren't bands like The Fireworks and Cosines a lot bigger and more successful, I mean, how long should it take?

And finally were The Understudies who were great, this was the first time I'd seen them since the lineup change, and you know, I think its a bit of an improvement. Although I've seen them play live countless times (well, six times according to Songkick) this was the first time I've really listened to them and they're better than I previously thought. Now the tunes stick in your mind, and the snapshots of contemporary life, are filled with humour, sadness, pathos, and dreams.

I think my favourite Understudies track is 'A Girl I Used To Muck About With'. It sounds like snowfall in Worsley Woods in 1996.

Sometimes I want to chomp a cigar and march up to band and demand the let me out their record out. Then I remember what happened last time, and think perhaps not.

Its possible to subscribe to these Thick Creamy Podcasts on iTunes so they download automagically every time I put up a new one. Simply go into the 'Advanced' menu in iTunes, click 'Subscribe to Podcast' and then paste in this rss feed

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThickCreamyPodcast

and that should give you all the podcasts, forever.