London’s Greenest Boroughs for Property Under £500,000
With summer in full swing, London’s Sun seekers will be utilising every inch of the capital to catch those rays.
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But in a major city like London, property near outdoor space, not to mention with a private garden, can come at a premium price. Our latest research highlights the London boroughs where buyers have the best chance of buying with a garden on near a public outdoor area, but with an average price tag under £500,000.
Using data on the land use of each borough we looked at where across the capital offered affordable options for home buyers with an emphasis on gardens and outdoor space.
Land Use: The London Datastore provides data on the land use across every borough. This data includes the percentage of the borough covered by domestic buildings, domestic gardens, non-domestic buildings, roads, rail, pathways, green space, water and other areas of land use or unclassified land. For this research, the figures for domestic gardens and greenspace were included.
Average House Price:The latest Land Registry house price index was used for the average house price in each borough.
Gardens
A private garden in London can be a very sought after feature, especially during the summer months.
Topping the list with the highest percentage of land use allocated to domestic gardens is Harrow with 34.7%. The North-West London borough is not only the largest under £500,000 but the highest across the whole of the capital. Although this abundance of garden space comes at the upper end of the £500,000 bracket at £473,019, it still offers an average house price below that of London.
It is closely followed by Sutton, where garden space is at +34.5%, again the second highest across the whole capital but with a more appealing average property price tag of £371,383. Staying in South West London, the borough of Croydon has +32.8% of land use allotted to domestic gardens, the third highest across London, with the average home costing just £367,160.
Greenspace
Unfortunately, not every London property comes with a garden and so an outdoor public space is the next best option for London homeowners to get out of the house and escape the city.
When it comes to the largest percentage of land use where green space is concerned, Havering takes the lead with 59.3% and also has an affordable average price tag of £362,983.
Heading south of the river, Bromley offers 57.8% area of green space, but the average property value does jump to £433,008. Both Havering and Bromley are also the boroughs with the largest areas of public outdoor land use across the whole of the capital.
Although Richmond upon Thames has the third largest amount of green space across London at 50.8%, the average house price of £675,435 means it doesn’t quite make the cut.
Instead, it is West London’s Hillingdon with the fourth largest percentage of green space across London as a whole at +49.2% and with a more affordable average property price of £415,716.
Overall
The list remains similar when it comes to combining both the amount of garden area and green space in a borough, with Bromley and Havering swapping places at 81.1% and 78.8% respectively. Again, Richmond is home to the third largest percentage of both garden and outdoor space, but Croydon takes third place with 69.9% of combined land use and an average house price of just £367,160.
Alternatively, if price is the deciding factor of your property sale, the capital’s two most affordable boroughs are still an attractive proposition for outdoor living.
Both Bexley and Barking and Dagenham have an average price below £335,000, and both sit mid-table for overall green space at 56.8% and 56.3% respectively. The average property in Barking and Dagenham goes for £277,508 with +22.8% garden area and +33.6% public greenspace, while Bexley’s average house price is £334,053 with +25.1% of the borough covered by domestic gardens and +31.7% of it being greenspace.
