A number of extremely useful new housing datasets have been opened up in recent years, including those on mortgage lending and house prices. So, at the risk of saturating the market in blog posts on housing in London, in this short piece I examine London’s mortgage lending hotspots by looking at changes in mortgage lending from quarter 2 2013 (the first release) to quarter 4 2014 (the most recent data). Although we can make limited inferences from this data, the results give us a good idea of which areas are heating up.

In the map below I’ve shown the percentage change in the value of outstanding mortgages across London’s postcode sectors, with Borough names overlaid to help with orientation. The biggest percentage increase is in W1U 1, at 81%, though by London standards the total increase of just over £4 million is rather low (the total amount for mortgages here is only £9.5m). This postcode sector is just to the north of Bond Street Station, between Oxford Street and Wigmore Street. According to HM Land Registry’s price paid dataset, this new lending coincides with 28 sales in the area, at an average transaction value of £1.4 million.

More interesting, perhaps, is SE10 9 in Greenwich. This area centres on the National Maritime Museum and experienced a 72.3% increase in the value of outstanding mortgages. This represents £144 million of new lending, out of a total of £430 million in the postcode sector as a whole. According to HM Land Registry, there were 903 transactions during the timeframe covered by the mortgage data, at an average of £476,000.

In order to provide a little more detail on the areas with the largest increases, in the tables below I have provided a summary of the top 10 postcode sectors by percentage and absolute increases in mortgage lending between the second quarter of 2013 and the final quarter of 2014. Most of the postcode sectors in Table 1 show big percentage increase but quite small total increases in the London housing market context. Table 2, by contrast shows that over seven quarters these areas all saw more than £50 million of new lending.

Table 1 – Top ten postcode sectors by % increase in mortgage lending

Postcode Area	Sector	New Lending	% Increase	Total Value of Sales	Total Sales	Average Price
West London	W1U 1	4,264,884	81.3	40,010,492	28	1,428,946
West London	W1F 7	3,529,976	76.0	7,456,000	7	1,065,143
South East London	SE10 9	144,076,431	72.3	429,594,416	903	475,741
North London	N1C 4	2,995,068	65.9	71,371,175	79	903,433
East Central London	EC1V 8	15,224,606	65.5	68,211,975	117	583,008
West London	W1F 0	6,495,233	61.1	17,193,799	13	1,322,600
North London	N7 7	45,777,831	55.9	130,107,989	303	429,399
Western Central London	WC2H 0	2,749,637	50.1	15,557,000	7	2,222,429
East Central London	EC1V 1	5,484,756	45.7	4,638,000	7	662,571
Western Central London	WC2E 7	3,581,853	41.8	13,563,874	6	2,260,646

Table 2 – Top ten postcode sectors by total increase in mortgage lending

Postcode Area	Sector	New Lending	% Increase	Total Value of Sales	Total Sales	Average Price
South East London	SE10 9	144,076,431	72.3	429,594,416	903	475,741
South West London	SW18 3	79,858,124	12.7	406,409,410	528	769,715
North London	N5 1	73,558,729	16.8	367,007,180	528	695,089
South West London	SW12 8	69,750,333	11.4	365,680,743	459	796,690
South West London	SW18 1	69,541,271	11.3	541,478,717	860	629,626
South West London	SW17 8	66,241,205	11.7	315,230,297	524	601,585
South West London	SW11 6	59,508,618	9.2	410,415,418	369	1,112,237
South West London	SW16 6	58,680,073	16.5	212,656,502	570	373,082
Kingston upon Thames	KT2 5	58,411,816	12.7	343,858,833	646	532,289
South West London	SW19 8	58,155,791	10.5	325,823,524	513	635,134

As more and more lending data are released, we’ll be able to build up a better picture of emerging mortgage lending hotspots across London. When we combine this with HM Land Registry data on properties sold, it provides some additional useful context. However, this being the London housing market, with off-plan sales, a high number of cash buyers and commercial investors, a proportion of activity is not picked up by the price paid data. Furthermore, the mortgage lending data at present covers seven banks and three quarters of the market rather than all lending. Nonetheless, by examining patterns of lending and sales we can begin to track local peaks and troughs of activity in new ways. Such an approach could be a valuable addition to the housing data toolkit and, simultaneously, helps underline the value of open data in helping increase our understanding of the market.

Data Sources: HM Land Registry, Price Paid Data (Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0); Council of Mortgage Lenders Postcode Lending Data – https://www.cml.org.uk/industry-data/about-postcode-lending/ also on the Datastore http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/lending-by-postcode-sector; boundaries by GeoLytix, Postal Boundaries Open – http://geolytix.co.uk/geodata/

Sales not included in HM Land Registry Price Paid dataset: http://landregistry.data.gov.uk/ppd-documentation.html

Dr Alasdair Rae is a Senior Lecturer at University of Sheffield. Alasdair’s personal blog is ‘Under the Raedar’.