According to online estate agent HouseSimple.com, 16 of the Capital’s 32 boroughs have more estate agents then they did at the start of the year.
Barking & Dagenham and Southwark have both seen a 10.7% rise in agent numbers and almost a third of boroughs have more than 100 high street estate agents each.
Across all boroughs, the number of high street estate agents has increased by 0.5%, at close to 2,900. Westminster alone has 8.3% of all agent offices in London, with 241.
However, it is a mixed picture, with 13 boroughs seeing a drop in the number of high street agents. Barnet has seen a 7.2% fall in 2016 and Richmond has seen the number of offices fall by 5.9%.
Alex Gosling, HouseSimple.com chief executive, said: “Last year saw an explosion of estate agent offices opening across London hoping to take advantage of a booming property market. But after a strong start to 2016, the market has cooled, with stamp duty changes hitting super prime sales and the EU Referendum and US Election result putting some doubt in buyers’ minds.”
He added: “Established high street agents might be able to absorb a slowdown in sales, but the opportunist agents who open to take advantage of a booming market quite often disappear from the high street as quickly as they arrive.”
Walthamstow has the highest concentration of estate agents within a quarter of a mile of a main tube station, with a total of 21. Canary Wharf has 19.
| London Borough | Number of agents in borough – start of 2015 | Number of agents in borough – start of 2016 | Number of agents in borough – end of 2016 | % rise/(fall) in agents since start of the year |
| Barking & Dagenham | 25 | 28 | 31 | 10.7 |
| Barnet | 122 | 125 | 116 | -7.2 |
| Bexley | 52 | 55 | 52 | -5.5 |
| Brent | 60 | 64 | 64 | 0.0 |
| Bromley | 110 | 116 | 116 | 0.0 |
| Camden | 109 | 120 | 127 | 5.8 |
| Croydon | 98 | 103 | 108 | 4.9 |
| Ealing | 87 | 91 | 88 | -3.3 |
| Enfield | 92 | 86 | 88 | 2.3 |
| Greenwich | 64 | 70 | 67 | -4.3 |
| Hackney | 65 | 74 | 75 | 1.4 |
| Hammersmith & Fulham | 82 | 95 | 90 | -5.3 |
| Haringey | 58 | 61 | 60 | -1.6 |
| Harrow | 67 | 67 | 68 | 1.5 |
| Havering | 53 | 56 | 57 | 1.8 |
| Hillingdon | 69 | 73 | 69 | -5.5 |
| Hounslow | 59 | 65 | 62 | -4.6 |
| Islington | 88 | 111 | 112 | 0.9 |
| Kensington & Chelsea | 127 | 137 | 135 | -1.5 |
| Kingston upon Thames | 58 | 64 | 62 | -3.1 |
| Lambeth | 79 | 85 | 91 | 7.1 |
| Lewisham | 71 | 79 | 82 | 3.8 |
| Merton | 62 | 64 | 65 | 1.6 |
| Newham | 74 | 76 | 76 | 0.0 |
| Redbridge | 77 | 77 | 80 | 3.9 |
| Richmond upon Thames | 91 | 101 | 95 | -5.9 |
| Southwark | 92 | 103 | 114 | 10.7 |
| Sutton | 46 | 50 | 49 | -2.0 |
| Tower Hamlets | 131 | 135 | 136 | 0.7 |
| Waltham Forest | 61 | 62 | 67 | 8.1 |
| Wandsworth | 153 | 160 | 151 | -5.6 |
| Westminster | 179 | 228 | 241 | 5.7 |
| TOTAL | 2,661 | 2,881
|
2,894 | 0.5 |
| London Tube stations | Number of estate agents within a quarter of a mile of tube station |
| Walthamstow | 21 |
| Canary Wharf | 19 |
| Ealing Broadway | 17 |
| Borough | 16 |
| Wimbledon | 16 |
| Turnham Green | 16 |
| Balham | 14 |
| Notting Hill Gate | 14 |
| St John’s Wood | 13 |
| Camden Town | 11 |
