London areas for investors in 2026.

One city, 33 markets

London has 33 local authority areas: 32 boroughs and the City of London. Each has its own prices, its own renters and its own transport. A London-wide average hides most of that.

The headline figures:

• HM Land Registry's UK House Price Index puts London's average price at £550,037 in July 2026, down 3.3% on a year earlier. Prices fell in 21 of the 33 areas.
• The ONS release of 16 September 2026 puts London's average private rent at £2,332 a month in August 2026, up 3.5% on a year earlier, the highest average rent of any region.

So across London as a whole, rents rose while prices fell. The boroughs didn't all move together.

Prices and rents by borough

Here are eight boroughs, from the most expensive borough in London to the least expensive, with London itself for comparison. Prices are from the UK House Price Index, published by HM Land Registry and the ONS. Rents are from the ONS Price Index of Private Rents.

Area	Average price, Jul 2026	Average rent a month, Aug 2026
Kensington and Chelsea	£1,233,000	£3,690
Westminster	£877,000	£3,196
Wandsworth	£686,000	£2,632
Ealing	£585,000	£2,109
London	£550,000	£2,332
Tower Hamlets	£448,000	£2,453
Newham	£390,000	£1,928
Croydon	£390,000	£1,582
Barking and Dagenham	£376,000	£1,698

The year to July 2026 was very different from one borough to the next. Westminster's average price fell 20.7% and Tower Hamlets' fell 14.4%. Barking and Dagenham's rose 5.3%, while Ealing's was broadly unchanged, up 0.8%.

Rents rose over the year to August 2026 in seven of the eight boroughs, from 2.1% in Kensington and Chelsea to 4.2% in Wandsworth. In Westminster the average was broadly flat, at £3,196 against £3,215 a year earlier.

How to read the averages

Borough averages are a starting point, not a valuation. Keep three things in mind.

• The latest month is provisional. HM Land Registry says recent estimates are likely to change as more sales are added.
• Some boroughs have few sales, which HM Land Registry says can make their figures volatile. Check a large annual move against several years of data before you rely on it.
• The rent index covers new and existing tenancies, not only new lets.

Dividing a year's average rent by the average price gives a rough gross yield. It's a way to compare areas, not the yield any particular home will earn.

Rough gross yield estimate from borough averages (prices July 2026, rents August 2026), our calculation	Gross yield
Kensington and Chelsea	3.6%
Ealing	4.3%
London	5.1%
Tower Hamlets	6.6%

For Tower Hamlets, £2,453 a month is £29,436 a year. Divided by £448,000, that's 6.6%. A year earlier, the same sum gave 5.4%: £2,370 a month against £523,000. Most of that change came from the price falling, not from rents rising.

Gross yield comes before service charges, letting and management fees, repairs, insurance, empty periods and mortgage costs. Our guide to calculating rental yield goes through each one.

Transport changes the map

The Elizabeth line opened in May 2022. It runs from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through central London, to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. In June 2026, Transport for London (TfL) said it had carried more than 850 million journeys since opening and was the UK's single busiest railway service.

When direct services into central London from Reading, Heathrow and Shenfield started in November 2022, TfL gave Ealing Broadway to Canary Wharf as just over 30 minutes, and Stratford to Paddington as 19 minutes. In January 2025, TfL reported that 378,000 jobs were created within one kilometre of Elizabeth line stations between 2015 and 2022.

The Northern line extension opened Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station stations on 20 September 2021. TfL said it brought key parts of south London within 15 minutes of the West End and the City.

A new line doesn't move every nearby price the same way. Ealing, Tower Hamlets and Newham all have Elizabeth line stations. In the year to July 2026, Ealing's average price was broadly unchanged, up 0.8%, while Tower Hamlets' fell 14.4% and Newham's fell 5.0%.

Who rents, and where

In the 2021 Census, 30.0% of London households rented privately, against 20.5% across England. The share varied widely. It was 43.3% in Westminster and 24.2% in Barking and Dagenham.

London's population fell in the latest official estimate, published on 29 July 2026. The ONS estimates it dropped 0.29% in the year to mid-2025, the first fall since the year to mid-2021. More births than deaths, and more people arriving from abroad than leaving, were outweighed by a net move of people from London to other parts of the UK.

Who rents in an area shapes what lets well there. Sharers, students, young professionals and families each look for something different.

Questions to ask about any area

• What do comparable homes nearby let for today, rather than the borough average?
• How have prices and rents moved over five years, not just one?
• How long is the walk to the station, and where do the trains go?
• For a flat, what are the service charge and ground rent?
• Who rents here, and what are they looking for?

Put your own figures into the investor calculator to see stamp duty, cash needed and yield before and after costs. When we source property for you, we run the numbers on every property before you see it.

These figures change

These are the latest official figures on 5 October 2026. The ONS's next private rent and house price release is due on 21 October 2026.