London house prices are said to have soared to a new high this month, beating their previous record by nearly £30,000 and fuelling fears that the capital is overheating.
Property website Rightmove said asking prices in the capital saw an "unsustainable" 10% month-on-month increase in October, pushing typical asking prices to £544,232, leapfrogging a previous high set in July by more than £28,000.
It put much of the increase down to a "frenzy" of activity in parts of prime inner London as overseas investors look for a safe haven to place their cash amid the troubles of the eurozone, which is "leaving the shelves bare".
Westminster was named as London's strongest-performing house price area in October. Prices there have soared by 11.9% month-on-month to reach £1.6m typically.
Kensington, Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham also recorded increases of 11.8% in sellers' asking prices over the month.
In comparison, Rightmove said across England and Wales, asking prices rose by 2.8% month-on-month, following two months of falls, to reach £252,418 on average.
Prices across the country are 3.8% higher than they were a year ago, although in London they have shot up by 13.8% over this period, Rightmove said.
Despite the overall upward march in prices, Rightmove said a bubble "seems a long way off in the majority of regions".
The patchy state of the housing market was still shown, as four areas recorded year-on-year falls in house values - Wales, the North, the North West and the West Midlands.
The North recorded the biggest year-on-year drop, with asking prices falling by 2.2% to reach £145,094 on average.
Sellers in Wales have dropped their asking prices by the second biggest amount over the last year, with prices falling by 1.4% annually to typically reach £165,708.
The findings come after the Council of Mortgage Lenders reported last week that lending activity is at its strongest in five years and the Office for National Statistics said UK house prices reached an all-time high of £247,000 in August, surpassing a previous 2008 peak.
Housing market activity among people with low deposits who have previously struggled to get on the property ladder is expected to increase further in the coming months, as a new phase of the Government's flagship Help-to-Buy scheme is fully fired into action.
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