London's housing market is sliding once more, with fresh data confirming that average property values across the capital have fallen for a second consecutive period, extending a slowdown that has now persisted for the better part of three years. While the rest of the UK has shown tentative signs of stabilisation, London continues to underperform, weighed down by stretched affordability, elevated mortgage costs and a stamp duty regime that punishes exactly the higher-value transactions on which the capital's market depends. For an asset class long regarded as the bedrock of UK property wealth, this is no minor correction - it is a structural repricing that investors ignore at their peril.