These 2 property charts show that London might as well be its own country
London and South East property price growth continues unabated into double-digits, but property prices in every other part of the UK have stagnated.
This means that, in effect, there is now a two-tier property market in the UK, both acting independently of one another.
The average London house price is now £551,000 ($783,646) according to the ONS, up £15,000 from the last count in December which is a growth of about £484 a day.
Overall the average house price in the UK is now £291,504. While prices in London grew 10.8% from the same time last year, North East England only saw a rise of 0.9%.
This chart shows how unequal the house price growth is across the different regions of England:
Meanwhile, this average house price chart in January paints an even more unequal picture. London house prices are almost double the UK average and almost three times the average of the North and Midland regions:
Mark Posniak, the managing director at Dragonfly Property Finance, told The Guardian the regional discrepancy was shocking:
"This latest annual house price data once again throws into sharp relief the contrast between the housing markets of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. They may be geographical neighbours but they could be thousands of miles apart in terms of house prices."
The government has attempted to curtail the insatiable property market by introducing a higher stamp duty from April onwards in order to discourage buy-to-let purchases, but it may take more than that to cure London of its appetite for homes - and some have said it will harm rather than help social mobility.