(Bloomberg Gadfly) -- The air is coming out of London’s housing market -- but try telling that to home owners.
Asking prices in the capital have barely budged compared with 2016, according to Rightmove.
April saw a decline of 1.5 percent on the year-earlier period, the largest slump since 2011, when Rightmove began compiling the data. This is a far cry from the double-digit gains in 2014, when price growth hit a peak of 21 percent in June.
In some of London's poshest districts -- places like Kensington and Islington -- prices are in decline. Out in the suburbs, they're climbing as buyers seek more affordable homes.
Faced with this, Londoners are weirdly confident about the future of their homes, as this index from Knight Frank and IHS Markit shows: more expect the price of their house to rise than fall.
Nationally, Britons' faith in bricks and mortar looks solid. Ask a householder how they expect the of their property to change in the next year, and nine out of ten expect it to rise or stay the same.
Expect the slow decline in asking prices to put this optimism to the test in coming months.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Elaine He oversees Bloomberg Gadfly's data visualization work in Europe and also pursues her own columns combining business and markets coverage. Before joining Bloomberg, she was a graphics editor at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
To contact the author of this story: Elaine He in London at ehe36@bloomberg.net.
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