Homes in London are becoming more affordable, although buyers may not have noticed, according to Zoopla.
The average price of a home in the capital is equivalent to 13.1 times the average income, the lowest level in more than four years. Prices remained stable in the year until July and are likely to continue that way unless there is a sharp drop in demand.
Richard Donnell, director of research at Zoopla, notes that "although this news is welcome, the gap between revenues and the sale price must be narrowed" to benefit potential buyers.
London's real estate market is slowing after a long boom, as the imminent divorce of the United Kingdom from the European Union weighs on sentiment and prices are still beyond the reach of many potential buyers. On average, a home in London costs 483,100 pounds (533,495 euros), more than any other city in the United Kingdom and the price/earnings ratio is still much higher than the average 9.9 times income in the city.
There are indications that other areas are also seeing levels of affordability improve. Cambridge and Oxford, where accessing an average household represent 12.2 times the income and 11.9 times the average salary for those cities, respectively, saw a similar improvement since mid-2015, according to Zoopla data.