Square Deal: London’s property costs per square foot

Everyone knows that property prices in London are higher than The Shard and growing faster than the bamboo in Kew Gardens. So, where are the best places to buy when considering your commute?

TotallyMoney.com has calculated the average cost per square foot of property within a 0.5km radius of each London Underground station.

London contains some of the most expensive residential property in the UK.

The map serves to put London’s outrageous property prices into perspective.

For example, to get a space the size of a double bed near Covent Garden tube station would cost £54,928, however you wouldn’t be able to have a bedside table or even a door that opens inwards.

Of course, the average one-bedroom flat in London is about 500 square feet, which means if you want more than just a bed in Covent Garden you are looking at paying £976,500, according to the research.

If you’re looking to buy a place on a budget, but don’t want to spend hours on the tube each morning, you should be looking around Bromley-by-Bow or North Acton.

Both stations sit on the border of Zones 2 and 3, and therefore boast the shortest commute to central London for any properties priced at less than £500 per square foot on the tube map.

The average price per square foot for properties near Bromley-by-Bow is £447 and for North Acton £487.

The tube line with the most expensive average property price, at £1,125 per square foot, is the Hammersmith and City line. On the other hand the Metropolitan Line has the cheapest average property price - just £504 per square foot. However this is because the Metropolitan line stretches right out into Buckinghamshire.

If you needed more evidence that property prices are getting out of control, then consider the following. At 12.8 inches wide and 8.94 inches deep, the £1,599 Macbook Air from Apple has a surface area of 114.4 square inches. This means that a square foot of Macbook Air is worth £1,265. Therefore if you own property anywhere more expensive than the area around Embankment station (£1,250 per square foot) your floor is worth more than a carpet made of Macbook Airs.

It should be noted that this map only covers areas of London close to a tube station, and there are still areas of London that do not have a local tube station. Property prices are known to dramatically increase when a station is opened nearby, however there are other very expensive areas of London which are not connected to the London Underground.