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A surge of house price growth is spreading across the South East as Londoners leave the capital in search of more affordable property.
Asking prices in that corner of the country are 10pc up for the year to October, higher than London's current annual growth rate of 9.6pc, according to new research from the property portal, Rightmove.
Londoners are exploiting over-inflated prices in the capital, driven up by cash buyers and foreign investors, to find better value for money in the South East.
This migration, in combination with the region's housing shortage, is pushing up the cost of homes in the commuter belt and home counties, the website's monthly asking prices index showed.
In fact, of all UK regions the South East saw the lowest pick up in properties being listed with estate agents as more residents stay put, hoping to benefit from house price growth over the next decade.
“The ripple effect of buyers priced out of London combined with those cashing in and moving out of the capital means that the South East has taken London’s boom-town crown," said Miles Shipside, analyst at Rightmove.
"Upwards price pressure is being further fuelled by a reluctance of home owners in the hotspots of the South East to come to market."
Rightmove, together with the think tank, Oxford Economics has identified Southampton, Luton and Brighton as the cities which will see the most value growth by 2019.
However, the price of property coming to the market in the UK only edged up by 2.6pc or £6,784 in October, the lowest autumnal rise in six years - despite the fact that this month is traditionally busy in the housing market.
“The ripple effect of buyers priced out of London combined with those cashing in and moving out of the capital means that the South East has taken London’s boom-town crown," said Miles Shipside, analyst at Rightmove.
"Upwards price pressure is being further fuelled by a reluctance of home owners in the hotspots of the South East to come to market."
Rightmove, together with the think tank, Oxford Economics has identified Southampton, Luton and Brighton as the cities which will see the most value growth by 2019.
However, the price of property coming to the market in the UK only edged up by 2.6pc or £6,784 in October, the lowest autumnal rise in six years - despite the fact that this month is traditionally busy in the housing market.
This reaffirms the slow down in the annual growth rate of property prices across the country.
Pictured above a four-bedroomed, £500,000 house in Hove, East Sussex, for the cost of an average property in London.
Frenetic house price growth, particularly in London, came to a stand still in August as buyers began to walk away from high prices, stricter mortgage criteria started to bite, with prospective homeowners exercising more caution ahead of interest rates.
Rightmove’s national time to sell index is up from 65.8 days to 67.8 days this month, indicating that sales are taking longer and buyers are in less of a rush to buy.
Worrying global economic data last week has prompted theories that interest rate rises in the UK, set for the spring, could be further delayed.
Along with record low mortgage rates of 0.99pc with banks such as HSBC, transactions could pick up again.
But the news from the International Monetary Fund that growth in Japan and China has disappointed, while the eurozone shows every sign of slipping back into recession, the third such contraction since the crisis of 2008-9, could further dampen investment into the London property market.
The website's new data comes as property group Knight Frank said that increasing property prices were forcing more people to stay in the private rented sector.
Nearly a quarter of all tenants in the private rented sector say they will never own their own home, the survey of 3,500 tenants showed.
