Croydon Beats Chelsea as London Investors Chase Rental Returns
- Greater London suburb Thornton Heath is fastest-growing market
- Value of buy-to-let remortgaging rose 64% in last 12 months
Rows of multi-colored luxury residential properties stand in the Kensington and Chelsea district of London, U.K.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergThe fastest-rising neighborhood in London’s property market isn’t posh Knightsbridge or hip Shoreditch, it’s Thornton Heath, an unglamorous suburb of commuter-town Croydon that’s almost nine miles (14 kilometers) from Buckingham Palace.
While central London growth slows, values are jumping in some of the city’s cheapest neighborhoods as investors bid for homes they plan to lease. Prices in Thornton Heath, whose high street is peppered with halal butchers, corner stores and kebab joints, climbed 14.7 percent in the 12 months through June, the most of any district in the city and suburbs included in Greater London, according to property researcher Hometrack.