Average home sale prices in the E15 postcode around most of the Olympic site fell 10.9 per cent to £197,000 pounds from July 2008, according to Hometrack Data Systems Ltd. figures provided to financial news service Bloomberg News show.

 

 

The Borough of Newham, which includes Stratford, saw prices drop 10.4 percent.

 

For all of Greater London, the decline was 8.5 per cent, to £274,500, the survey found.

 

Attracting investment to East London, the city’s poorest area, is a focus of the £9.3 billion Olympic plans, which include a new 100-hectare park and rail hub in Stratford.

 

Westfield Group, the Australian developer, is building a massive retail complex in the area, with John Lewis Plc and Marks & Spencer Group Plc as tenants.

 

Stratford is still “an emerging market,” and relatively dependent on “leveraged first-time buyers,” Richard Donnell, head of research at Hometrack in London, said.

 

“There’s going to be an Olympic effect, but maybe not as enormous as some people think.

 

"It starts to build up about three years before.”

 

A spokesman for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) said that the area would eventually benefit from the regeneration.

 

He said: “What we’re doing will definitely regenerate the area and will definitely have a positive impact."

 

About two-thirds of households in Newham had annual incomes below £30,000 pounds in 2006-2007, the second-highest proportion in London, according to figures compiled by London Councils, a federation of local Governments.

 

Lars Gooch, a real-estate agent at Keatons in Stratford, said: “The Olympics has had an impact, but what the Olympics doesn’t do is buck the trend of the market.

 

"Ultimately supply and demand determines house prices, not where the Olympics are going or not.”