The United Kingdom as a whole has been viewed as being short on affordable purchasable homes for quite a while now. Of course, the pressure increases in the country’s most desirable places to live and nearest its most productive areas.
Naturally, especially with the most successful landlords being largely allowed to purchase as many of said houses as they like in the city and beyond, this has created a particularly pressing need for new houses for first-time buyers in and around London.
Figures vary across the board as to how many new homes London truly needs. Some say it’s as high as 600,000, while others credit that figure to being a national need.
In any case, thousands of new homes are needed to meet demand, particularly because the city has been able to build quickly enough for decades.
Now, things are moving in the right direction, but the new homes being built are coming through in dribs and drabs, creating a rush to secure them.
How is London Tackling the Growing Need for Affordable Homes?
Creating a New Homes Rush
While a very modern city, much of the housing in and around London is of the older variety. New builds come with a great many benefits, particularly because they’re built to be much more efficient and eco-friendly.
For example, in the colder months, people don’t have to pay as much for heating because they’re so well insulated, while electric car charging is also more viable, saving even more costs on travel. However, the demand is still incredibly high. The building of new affordable homes in London has dipped by 66 per cent over the last couple of years.
Further, in 2024/25, only 4,708 new homes were beginning to be built in the area, compared to 13,744 just two years prior. In the meantime, the average price for flats in London sits at £546,000, terraced homes go for £759,000, and semi-detached houses average £774,000.
Having newer homes built a bit outside of the more central, urban areas that aren’t as expensive as these average prices will naturally encourage people within London to move around, freeing up more central housing.
Anyone wanting one of these new builds needs to act quickly. With this comes a general nationwide increase in the popularity of a modern kind of online service that allows users to sell house fast, London simply being the biggest hotspot for its use.
These services give customers a free cash offer, a guaranteed sale, and money in seven days. This way, anyone looking to move out of London, cash in on those hefty average house prices, and move to a new build nearby can do so swiftly.
We’re likely to see this practice become even more common, as London looks to build even more houses.
London Moving to Add More Homes
The mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, has been keen to add new homes to the London area over the last few years. Via the Land Fund, he said in August 2025 that more than 8,000 new homes had now been started, putting them five years ahead of schedule.
Importantly, of the 11,600 new homes built for London in 2024, some 6,700 of them were for social rent, were affordable homes, or were something equivalent to this.
However, even being five years ahead of schedule on the Land Fund, delivering 8,000 homes started by March 2025 before the March 2030 deadline.
The count was at 8,283 at the time of writing. To further the progress, Khan is announcing plans to break a taboo and build on some parts of the green belt of London. It’d help to meet the demand for housing, but doing so will naturally raise eyebrows.
The demand for new homes in and around London is well known and gradually being addressed, opening the door for those held within the highest-priced areas of London to move nearby quickly to get into better housing.
