Estate agents made £860m out of London's property boom in 2015

Kensington and Chelsea took the top spot despite having the second lowest number of property transactions

Estate agents typically charge a percentage fee of between 0.75 per cent and 3.0 per cent +VAT (Getty Images)

The housing crisis might be tough on first-time buyers, but there is one profession that’s not doing too badly from skyrocketing house prices: estate agents.

Research from online estate agent eMoov has revealed that London estate agents took £860 million in fees in 2015. That works out at an average of £8,460 per property in the capital.

Kensington and Chelsea took the top spot despite having the second lowest number of property transactions in 2015, netting the borough’s 29 estate agents an average of £27,875 per sale. That’s a higher than the £27,645 annual salary of the average UK employee.

Wandsworth (£10,261 per property), Westminster (£17,433 per property), Lambeth (£8,958 per property) and Camden (£15,040 per property) were next in line.

Emoov came up with the figure by taking the number of property transactions in the capital and applying the average UK estate agent fee to the average price to determine the total amount of fees paid.

Estate agents typically charge a percentage fee of between 0.75 per cent and 3.0 per cent +VAT of the agreed selling price for the home, depending on the type of contract. Emoov used an average fee of 1.46 per cent for their calculations.

The HomeOwners Alliance advises homebuyers to ask agents to email standard contract terms, paying attention to the sole agency lock in period, which can vary.