Property prices in prime central London grew by 10.5% in the first half of 2006 bringing the total annual growth since June last year, to a thumping 14%, according to Savills Residential Research.

Savills findings reveal that houses in south west London, in areas such as Notting Hill, Kensington and Holland Park, have shown extraordinarily high growth, totalling an amazing 22.5% in the last 6 months alone.

Yolande Barnes, director of research at Savills comments: "This growth may be phenomenal in comparison to the slowing mainstream markets, but too much has been made of the meteoric rise of prime central London house prices since the end of last year. We must not forget that the rise follows four years of very low growth, during which time prime markets significantly under-performed mainstream markets."

"Growth over the entire four years between September 2001 and September 2005 was just 8.7% - a poor performance that went unreported amongst the exuberance of the rapidly growing mainstream markets at the time. What we are seeing now is a prime market bounce-back, a re-alignment with mainstream markets. Put simply, the growth seen in the last six months is the prime market playing catch-up after a long malaise post 9/11."

Savills reports that it expects the property prices in core prime central areas of London to appreciate at a much faster level than the UK average, estimating that property prices in prime central London will appreciate by an average of around 7% pa between 2006 and 2011.