Planning restraints keep London house prices higher

This won't come as much of a surprise to seasoned watchers of the South East property market but fresh research reinforces the widely-held belief that restrictive planning systems have been a key factor behind the continued surge in real estate valued.

House prices in the South East of England would have been roughly 25% lower in 2008 and perhaps 30% lower in 2015 if the region had planning regulations of similar restrictiveness as the North East of England. That is one of the findings of new research by Christian Hilber and Wouter Vermeulen, published in the March 2016 issue of the Economic Journal.