PEAK PRICE-TO-PAY MULTIPLE, REACHED IN 2022 — UP FROM 5.11× IN 1975
SCENARIO · PRICES & AFFORDABILITY
WHAT IF THEY
WERE built?
London has 100,477 homes with planning permission and no recorded construction start. This page does two things: it shows fifty years of house prices against average pay, and it lets you run a transparent scenario for what completing those consents could do to the average London price and to the deposit a buyer needs. Every measured input is named; every assumption is a slider you control.
THE HISTORY · 1975 – 2025
Fifty years of
affording a home.
House prices are the Nationwide index, quarterly data averaged to give approximate annual figures. Real prices are RPI-adjusted; earnings are mean gross annual pay for all employees, CPI-adjusted to 2026 prices. 2025 covers part-year data and 2026 pay is an estimate — both are labelled as such in the provenance section below.
- Average house price (real)
- Average annual earnings (2026 prices)
HIGHEST REAL AVERAGE HOUSE PRICE ON THE NATIONWIDE SERIES, IN 2007
PEAK REAL AVERAGE ANNUAL PAY, IN 2007
REAL HOUSE PRICE GROWTH FROM 1975 TO THE 2007 PEAK, AFTER INFLATION
THE SIMULATION · 100,477 HOMES
Build the backlog,
move the price.
Adding homes to a market lowers prices relative to where they would otherwise be. How much depends on how responsive demand is — a contested question, so it is left as your assumption rather than presented as a finding. Drag the sliders to see the range of outcomes.
STOCK UPLIFT
+2.64%100,477 homes against London’s 3.8m dwellingsMODELLED AVERAGE PRICE
£534,855from £564,719 · -5.29% (£29,864 lower)PRICE TO INCOME
13.7×from 14.5× at £39,000 incomeDEPOSIT NEEDED
£359,355from £389,219 at a 4.5× lending cap · 92.1 yrs saving vs 99.8 yrsAFFORDABLE HOMES DELIVERED
19,988at the consented affordable share of the stalled pipeline (19,988 of 100,477)- Modelled London average price
This is a scenario, not a forecast. Only three inputs are measured: the 100,477 consented homes with no recorded start (Planning London Datahub), London’s average price of £564,719 (May 2025, HM Land Registry UK HPI) and London’s dwelling stock of 3.8m (MHCLG via London Assembly Research Unit). The price response is your assumption, set with the slider — it is not a published figure and the result moves with it. The deposit test assumes lending capped at 4.5× income and saving 10% of gross pay, with no interest.
PROVENANCE
Where these
numbers come from.
HOUSE PRICES
Nationwide Building Society house price index, quarterly data averaged to annual; real prices RPI-adjusted to 2025 Q2 (compiled by propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk).
EARNINGS
ONS NES/ASHE via FRED (AWEPPUKQ) 1975-2008 and ONS Average Weekly Earnings 2009-2025, x52; 2026 estimated. CPI multipliers from iamkate.com/uk-inflation, uplifted to 2026 prices (x1.025).
SIMULATION INPUTS
HM Land Registry UK House Price Index, London, all property types, May 2025.
London Assembly Research Unit, London's Housing Stock (November 2024), MHCLG dwelling stock estimates: almost 3.8 million homes in 2023.
Stalled homes: Planning London Datahub, 100,477 consented homes with no recorded commencement from 2015–2021 decisions, retrieved 2026-08-01.