London had the lowest proportion of property sales than any other part of England and Wales last year as liquidity across most of the market slid compared with 2016.

Knight Frank has looked at the liquidity of regional property markets by assessing Government housing figures and Land Registry sales to find the proportion of stock that sold last year.

In total, 3.2% of all private London residential properties were sold in 2017, which was below the average of 4.1% for England and Wales.

This means that on a street of 100 properties, an average of just over three were sold in London last year.

The figure for the capital is down from 3.6% in 2016, while the national average has fallen from 4.3%.

This was the first time since 2009 that London failed to equal or exceed the average.

The agent also compared market liquidity in 2017 to the average since 2001, finding no London boroughs have managed to outperform the national average.

Property market liquidity was highest in Wales, where 4.8% of all properties transacted in 2017, followed by 4.4% in south-west England and 4.2% in the south and north-east.

All regions except for Wales have fallen below the yearly long-run average since the data was collected in 2001, Knight Frank says.

Tom Bill, head of London residential research at Knight Frank, said: “The clear message is that relatively high house prices in the capital are a contributory factor to the slower rate of sales.

“Higher rates of Stamp Duty have clearly also played their part in curbing transactions in the capital.

“Add a dose of political uncertainty into the mix and the result is a residential property market that is being kept in check to some extent, despite low interest rates and high levels of employment.”

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-property-poll/brexit-puts-a-ceiling-on-london-housing-demand-prices-reuters-poll-idUKKCN1J20DJ