By comparing the price of the average detached home in inner London – currently worth £1,537,232 -national estate agent Strutt & Parker has come up with a currency exchange rate showing the true value of the 'London pound' across the country.
By this measure, the London pound is worth anything from £3 in the Cotswolds to £5 in the West Country, to a staggering £9 in the Highlands and Islands – making it a very hard currency indeed.
When it comes to maximising the value of London property, the exchange rate grows in concentric rings around the capital.
Stephanie McMahon, Head of Research at Strutt & Parker explains:
“In the commuter-belt locations, such as St Albans or Guildford, the London pound is worth £2. To reach the £3 mark – tripling your purchasing power – you have to head further out to the classic spots such as Hampshire, South Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds.”
It's a longer commute, but the trade-off is a very attractive one. Sell a £2 million four bedroom terrace in Battersea with a patio garden, for example, and you can buy a historic home in the Cotswolds with several acres.
James Mackenzie, Head of the Country House Department at Strutt & Parker, said: “We sold more properties over £2 million in the Cotswolds than anywhere else in the country last year – and those were mostly to Londoners moving out.”
One oddity in the £5 bracket is Canterbury, which is less than an hour from St Pancras on the High Speed 1 line. “I was very surprised to see Canterbury looking such good value,” says McMahon. “It's the same price level as the West Country, but much closer to London.”
What makes Canterbury doubly notable is that similar historic cities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, the London pound is worth just £2.
Less surprising is evidence of a marked north-south divide. The London pound is worth £6-£7, on average, in most regions of the UK from the Midlands northwards. The exception is north east Scotland, where it's worth just £5, buoyed by oil-rich Aberdeen.
The 'prime London pound' – the currency for those that own a property in the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea - is the most valuable property currency of all. It is worth £8 in Greater London, £17 in the south west, £24 in Yorkshire and an astonishing £27 in Wales.
