SIGNS OF sanity are appearing in the London property market. The asking prices of sellers are showing a fall, albeit a tiny fall, throughout the capital.

Yet the market still looks forbidding for Londoners seeking a room, flat or house to rent. Letting levels in the cool North East of No 1 City are often as high as in Wandsworth and Richmond upon Thames.

In Tower Hamlets rents average £2,208 a month, a rise of nearly 8% on this time last year and in Hackney £2,125 a month, up almost 10% on last year and about the same as in refined suburbs of Wandsworth and Richmond.

The figures come from an analysis by Move with Us, a rental index, of advertised letting prices.

Robin King, of Move with Us, said: “There has been a reversal of fortunes in London.”  In the “fashionable boroughs” of Hackney and Tower Hamlet “new developments, property conversions, shops and a dynamic art scene, together with their proximity to commuter destinations of the City and Canary Wharf, have put these neighbourhoods on the map as some of the most appealing places to live in in London”.

Rents in the East of London were, he said, likely to continue catching up with levels in boroughs in the West.

Hamish Scott 280614 

* Picture shows diners at Café Route in Dalston E8 3BQ, an area that may become a diner destination and which is helping to keep rental levels high

* Backstory: East End homes a hit in Asia, Dalston Curve: buy now  and Hackney’s first 50-storey building  

* Emboldened underscored words in most cases indicate a hyperlink, a reader service rare among websites. If a link does not work, it is probably because the site to which the URL refers has not been maintained.