London house prices: Olympic borough Waltham Forest strikes gold - and property markets in all host districts continue to race ahead following 2012 games

Latest figures reveal London's six host boroughs have seen some of the highest property price rises in the capital since the 2012 summer games, as the Olympic legacy lives on...
1/10
Lizzie Rivera8 August 2016

Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and their fellow GB medalists weren't the only ones to take home gold at the 2012 London Olympics.

Four years later, Land Registry figures reveal that property price rises in the six host boroughs continue to outpace the rest of the capital. Since 2012, prices have risen on average by 64 per cent, outstripping the rate of growth across the rest of Greater London by more than 10 per cent.

Top spot: ​Waltham Forest
Waltham Forest, in east London, which hosted events in its Olympic-size swimming pools, has seen the strongest price growth.

Home to Walthamstow and Leystonstone, two popular areas with first-time buyers and young families, house prices have risen by 76 per cent over the past four years and now average almost £420,000.

Runner-up: Hackney
With 67 per growth, Hackney takes home silver in terms of price rises among the Olympic boroughs, with the average home now costing £540,000.

It borders Waltham Forest and stretches from hipster Shoreditch in Zone 1 - where two-bedroom flats start at the £400,000 mark and rise to over £1 million - to up-and-coming Upper Clapton in Zones 2/3, where two-bedroom flats are priced between £300,000 - £650,000.

Almost one third of the Olympic Park is in Hackney and almost £15 million was spent improving the sporting capacity of Hackney marshes.

As with all Olympic boroughs, millions more was spent to improve transport and infrastructure for a 'lasting legacy'.

Olympic legacy: aerial view of Olympic stadium and Stratford

“London 2012 was the catalyst for a flood of investment into the capital, much of which was injected into regenerating some of the capital’s most disadvantaged boroughs,” says Dan Gandesha, CEO of property crowdfunding platform Property Partner.

“The economic legacy of the Games - supporting new jobs and skills, encouraging trade, inward investment, tourism and improved transport links - has meant a corresponding rise in house prices in the six host boroughs. The economic, social and environmental gap between these boroughs and the rest of London is closing."

Newham
Newham contains most of the Olympic Park, including the Olympic Stadium.

Stratford in particular has seen huge regeneration since the games and was also boosted by being upgraded from travel Zone from 3 to 2/3 earlier this year.

It is set to further benefit from the high-speed Crossrail link, the Elizabeth Line, opening in 2018, so average house price rises of 63 per cent, to an average of £352,000, are not surprising.

Olympic legacy
Tower Hamlets and Barking & Dagenham, in east London, and Greenwich, in south-east London, are the remaining host boroughs that make it into the top 10 list of the fastest growing boroughs since the Olympics were held in the UK.

Non-Olympic borough Lewisham squeezed into second place, with average house prices rising by 68 per cent to £409,000, due to more affordable areas such as Blackheath, Brockley and New Cross rising in popularity with homebuyers.