One third of new homes in London failed to sell to private buyers last year, laying bare the scale of the housebuilding crisis about to be inherited by Andy Burnham.
New figures show developers gave up on selling 34pc of new homes in London last year after they failed to find a purchaser, according to CBRE analysis of Molior data. This is up from 25pc in 2025.
Rather than being sold to private buyers as planned, the homes were instead offloaded to investment funds or housing associations.
The figures highlight the growing strain on London’s housing market, as a dearth of sales makes building new homes increasingly unviable for developers.
The lack of activity casts fresh doubt on Labour’s pledge to build 1.5 million homes by 2029.
Mr Burnham announced last month that he wanted to deliver “the biggest programme of council house-building since the Second World War”, indicating where he would look to spend if, as expected, he replaces Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister.
He has already suggested that he could fund such a policy by redirecting cash in the £39bn affordable housing programme to social-rent homes.
However, he has given little indication of how he might stimulate private housebuilding, which is grappling with an affordability crisis that is most acute in the capital.
Tim Craine, the founder of Molior, said: “What is going on is there are no buyers of new homes in London.
“People are not buying new homes in London in sufficient quantities. A block of flats is 100 or 150 new homes. There is no point having one or two buyers, you need to clear the shelves.
“You don’t want to get to completion and have 120 flats unsold and be haemorrhaging interest to your debt holders.”
Soaring building costs and squeezed affordability meant that the number of new homes built in England last year fell to a decade-low. This has led to some analysts warning that Labour will not reach even half of its 1.5 million homes target.
