The London postcodes where you can buy a property from under £350,000

Could you afford a home here? (Picture: Getty Images)

If 2024 is the year you’re hoping to join the property ladder in London, this map reveals the postcodes and boroughs where properties are listed for under £350,000.

While the capital definitely isn’t one of the cheapest places to buy a home, some boroughs are now well below the £534,977 average property price in the capital.

A study by real estate company Savills on first time buyers (FTB) shows that they make up only 27% of the new build market in London, down from 45% in 2021, with key issues behind this linked to location, price point and the type of homes being marketed.

The average FTB in London, according to data from UK finance, is 34 years old with a household income of £101,663 and can afford a deposit of £148,888.

So, if you want to nab a two-bedroom new build that’s below the average price, you’ll probably need to head to the outskirts of the city.

The boroughs with homes under £350,000 include Havering, Barking & Dagenham, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Sutton, Kingston Upon Thames, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Ealing, Harrow and Brent.

This means FTBs may be able to afford a new build two-bedroom property in 34% of London postcode sectors, according to Savills.

Residential flats on the Barking Riverside development within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. (Picture: John Keeble/Getty Images)

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The areas within these boroughs primed to become key affordable postcodes for FTBs include Barking, Dagenham, Romford and Hornchurch and East Croydon.

Areas around Bromley, Eltham, Sutton and Carshalton have ‘very little future supply’, the estate agents said.

The areas with the most affordable housing (Picture: Savills/Metro.co.uk)

As London’s supply and demand on the rental market continues to be unbalanced, with rents in the capital growing by 31% in the last two years, people who haven’t been able to afford getting a mortgage in London have flocked beyond the M25.

Between 2020 and 2023 over 350,000 people swapped the city for the suburbs, with Chelmsford, Essex, becoming the most popular spot for Londoners to flock to. A property in the suburban spot will set you back £396,908, a whopping £322,371 less than the London average.

Where are the UK’s cheapest London commuter towns?

If your job is in London – but your budget means you have to move elsewhere – a ranking by MoveiQ, Phil Spencer’s property advice website, has revealed the cheapest commuter towns to live in. Taking first place is the Cambridgeshire town of Peterborough, where the average price of a home is just £250,492.

The other London commuter town on the list includes:

1. Purfleet-On-Thames, Essex = £253,952
2. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire = £248,050
3. Northampton, Northamptonshire = £280,848
4. Pitsea, Essex = £297,494
5. Rugby, Warwickshire = £290,335
6. Chatham, Kent = £302,301
7. Bletchley, Buckinghamshire = £332,696
8. Colchester, Essex = £321,023
9. Luton, Bedfordshire = £318,612

If you’re determined to stay in the city, locations like Ealing and Tower Hamlets became cheaper in 2023, however some boroughs did continue to become more expensive like Hammersmith and Fulham and Barnet.

But the borough where house prices fell the most last year was Merton, according to Rightmove.

As of December 2023 the borough, which is home to Wimbledon, had an average house price of £694,521, meaning prices had fallen by 5.8%. But it’s still a very pricey option.

The southwest borough of Hounslow also saw property prices fall last year by 4.7%. This leaves the average cost of buying there at about £581,638, just above the London average.

And Enfield in north London now has a typical property price of £491,436 meaning it’s below the capital average. This makes it one of the cheapest boroughs around after the cost of property dropped by 4.4% last year.

London boroughs where prices fell

• Havering £482,443 (-0.3%)
• Harrow £622,840 (-0.9%)
• Hillingdon £549,102 (-1.7%)
• Bexley £478,184 (-1.8%)
• Newham £452,670 (-1.9%)
• Tower Hamlets £578,848 (-1.9%)
• Hackney £687,116 (-1.9%)
• Southwark £648,631 (-2.0%)
• Waltham Forest £551,028 (-2.0%)
• Ealing £600,213 (-2.5%)
• Barking and Dagenham £365,364 (-2.8%)
• Redbridge £499,863 (-2.9%)
• Bromley £609,024 (-2.9%)
• Kingston upon Thames £687,810 (-3.0%)
• Croydon £475,950 (-3.1%)
• Brent £632,577 (-3.3%)
• Enfield £491,436 (-4.4%)
• Camden £1,041,967 (-4.6%)
• Hounslow £581,638 (-4.7%)
• Merton £694,521 (-5.8%)

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