London property stays healthy

Prime Central London property prices are still continuing to grow, despite an August beset by financial uncertainty, says Knight Frank's latest report. The monthly rate of growth fell from 3.9% in July to 2.1% in August, but the annual growth rate rose to 37.9 from 36.4% the previous month, indicating that the state of the financial markets only had limited impact on Prime Central London, the research found. 'We remain positive in our outlook and expect to see growth next year in central London hitting double digit levels,' the report says. 'We anticipate that the price of prime property in central London will rise by 10% through 2008. Growth will be led by the super prime market (over £5m) and by the sub £1m market, where there is a degree of 'catch up' beginning to take place,' it concludes. Areas where growth has been most notable have been in Kensington and Chelsea, the very centre and to the west: The highest growth Knight Frank recorded took place in postcode SW10, with high growth levels also taking place in W1 and W14.