London's housing market is finally bouncing back — here's how to make it work for you

Buyers have finally returned in force with home sales soaring unexpectedly this year, sending London’s housing market into a post pandemic rebound to rival the ‘Boris Bounce’ of 2020.

The number of transactions in January and February was 35 per cent higher than this time last year and 19 per cent higher, on average, than the same period across the three winters of 2017, 2018 and 2019, new data from Savills reveals.

This leap in activity is the first meaningful upturn in what has been, in the main, a nine-year slump in the capital’s home sales sector.

London is leading the national recovery, too. The number of sales across the country is up 30 per cent on last year (compared with 35 per cent in London) and nine per cent (versus 19 per cent) respectively.

Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, points to the combination of (slightly) lower repayment rates following the mortgage market mayhem of the past 18 months, and