The Market

The average property price in prime central London breached £1.5m in 2013, hitting £1,543,102 at the end of November after "robust" but "unremarkable" annual growth of 12.

PCL agency W.A.Ellis has reported a beefy 50% leap in the number of tenancies it agreed last year (compared to 2012), although rents only increased by 2.8% overall (0.4% less than than in 2012).

Homeowners are, apparently, even more bullish about house prices than most property "experts", forecasting a 7.

Demand is outstripping supply by a factor of ten, as an average of 9.7 buyers chased each property for sale in November, according to Countrywide. That's up from 8.

International buyers accounted for 56.5% of Chelsea specialist Russell Simpson's sales last year, while nearly three quarters of new tenants were from overseas.

London's £5m+ market broke all the records for volume and value in 2013, says Savills, but price growth at the top of the top-end was slower than the capital's prime market's average, and per square foot…

December kicked right off in Douglas & Gordon's patch, with a 50% increase in the number of properties hitting the market, a 20% jump in new buyer registrations and a 40% hike in the number of offers received.

Savills has launched a new interactive property price map of the UK by pointing out that house prices rose, on average, by 7% in 2013.

A BBC investigation has claimed that £1.5 billion of Section 106 money remains "unspent" by English councils, with a whopping £421m yet to even be allocated to anything.

The National Association of Estate Agents and the Association of Residential Lettings Agents are launching TV advertising campaigns to promote the importance of choosing a licensed sales or lettings agent.

New "Right to Contest" powers have officially come into force today, allowing the public to contest the use of central government land and property and apply for its release.

"The London influence on the rest of the UK remains weak," says Jackson-Stops & Staff, which has led to two very distinct markets emerging from the economic woes of the last five years.