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An unwelcome by-product of a hot property market — aside from the serious issue of diminished affordability — is the dinner party bore. Such a character will regale unsuspecting guests with their clever money-making house moves… and they’ve been particularly vocal in London in the last 20 years.

It was easy to become a self-proclaimed expert in a market where values grew 441 per cent from 1995 to 2015, despite the global financial crisis. In fact, it was possible to go from first-time buyer to property multimillionaire in only five moves.

Homes & Property has traced the optimum borough-to-borough pathway over a 20-year period. It’s based on a homeowner selling up every five years and moving to an area of London where house prices were about to take off. Each time, the buyer maximised the money made on the last sale to bag a bigger house.

Climb the ladder

That journey, devised in conjunction with property consultancy JLL, begins with a 30-year-old first-timer buying a two-bedroom waterfront flat in Tower Hamlets in 1995 for £59,865 with a modest loan-to-value mortgage.

They then upsize in Barking & Dagenham in 2000; buy in Kensington & Chelsea in 2005; move to Camden in 2010, before finally snapping up a £1.8 million mansion in Waltham Forest, Essex in 2015.

“Our first-time buyer has turned £59,865 into £1.8 million — that’s a thirtyfold rise in value,” says JLL’s Nick Whitten. “In such a market, a Londoner who got lucky with their choices could have become a multimillionaire simply from moving home.”

So why start in Tower Hamlets?

During the late Nineties this downtrodden East End borough was full of low-value housing stock, tall commercial towers and foreign capital. In 1995 a consortium of overseas investors rescued Canary Wharf from bankruptcy and construction of the banking hub started for real — followed by the arrival of the Jubilee line in 1999.

“Tower Hamlets became a place to buy for young financiers who wanted to live near work. Although Canary Wharf mainly comprised office blocks at this time, the trend of converting old dockyard buildings into warehouse apartments had also begun,” says Whitten. “This was the beginning of the Canary Wharf ripple effect on the wider borough.”

Moving out for more space

In 2000 our hypothetical buyer moved further out in a straight line in search of space. They sold their Tower Hamlets home for £126,650 and bought a three-bedroom detached house worth £181,830 in Barking & Dagenham. “Property in the borough was £50,000 cheaper than the London average, hence its appeal,” says eMoov’s Russell Quirk. “Large volumes of new-build properties also pushed up values.”

Central buys

House price rises of 130 per cent between 2000 and 2005 meant that the JLL property player could afford to buy a £621,872 townhouse in Kensington & Chelsea; a fortuitous move given that the exclusive area was shielded from the full force of the financial crisis.

“As a reaction to economic and political volatility across the world, in combination with low interest rates, global wealth poured into Kensington & Chelsea, which was seen as a safe haven,” says Becky Fatemi, founder of central London specialist estate agents Rokstone.

House prices in the borough jumped nearly 60 per cent in the five years to 2010, allowing the vendor to sell up for £982,372, break through the £1 million threshold in Camden and buy overlooking a garden square. The regeneration of King’s Cross went on to drive up values in Camden by 67 per cent between 2010 and 2015.

Middle-age mansion

Eventually our buyer, now aged 50, heads back to outer London, spending £1.8 million on an edge-of-Essex mansion in Waltham Forest which JLL predicts will be worth £2.4 million by 2020. “This journey shows that quality does well in a weak market — explaining the price performance in Kensington & Chelsea during turbulent times,” says Nigel Hugill of property experts Urban & Civic.

Where to now?

Now that inner London prices are on a plateau, picking future hotspots is a bit trickier. However, transport improvements are a good indicator. JLL’s Nick Whitten looks to those boroughs about to undergo the biggest change to form the next four stages of the optimum property journey, starting in Ealing before moving to Redbridge, Haringey and then Lewisham by 2032.

​Ealing and Redbridge will have five and four Crossrail stations respectively. With six stations proposed, Haringey could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Crossrail 2, and, if approved, the Bakerloo line extension will certainly power price rises in Lewisham.

“Forecasting is an art in itself but it’s important to note that significant infrastructure improvements are often behind the outperformance of a local area,” Whitten says.

Whether your next move is smart play on future transport links or not, at least you can go armed to the next dinner party.