After a period of rapid increase, house price growth in the UK has moderated. In 2025, house prices are forecast to increase by ****percent. Between 2025 and 2029, the average house price growth is projected at *** percent. According to the source, home building is expected to increase slightly in this period, fueling home buying. On the other hand, higher borrowing costs despite recent easing of mortgage rates and affordability challenges may continue to suppress transaction activity. Historical house price growth in the UK House prices rose steadily between 2015 and 2020, despite minor fluctuations. In the following two years, prices soared, leading to the house price index jumping by about 20 percent. As the market stood in April 2025, the average price for a home stood at approximately ******* British pounds. Rents are expected to continue to grow According to another forecast, the prime residential market is also expected to see rental prices grow in the next five years. Growth is forecast to be stronger in 2025 and slow slightly until 2029. The rental market in London is expected to follow a similar trend, with Outer London slightly outperforming Central London.

House prices in the UK rose dramatically during the coronavirus pandemic, with growth slowing down in 2022 and turning negative in 2023. The year-on-year annual house price change peaked at 14 percent in July 2022. In April 2025, house prices increased by 3.5 percent. As of late 2024, the average house price was close to 290,000 British pounds. Correction in housing prices: a European phenomenon The trend of a growing residential real estate market was not exclusive to the UK during the pandemic. Likewise, many European countries experienced falling prices in 2023. When comparing residential property RHPI (price index in real terms, e.g. corrected for inflation), countries such as Germany, France, Italy, and Spain also saw prices decline. Sweden, one of the countries with the fastest growing residential markets, saw one of the largest declines in prices. How has demand for UK housing changed since the outbreak of the coronavirus? The easing of the lockdown was followed by a dramatic increase in home sales. In November 2020, the number of mortgage approvals reached an all-time high of over 107,000. One of the reasons for the housing boom were the low mortgage rates, allowing home buyers to take out a loan with an interest rate as low as 2.5 percent. That changed as the Bank of England started to raise the base lending rate, resulting in higher borrowing costs and a decline in homebuyer sentiment.

These National Statistics provide monthly estimates of the number of residential and non-residential property transactions in the UK and its constituent countries. National Statistics are accredited official statistics.

England and Northern Ireland statistics are based on information submitted to the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) database by taxpayers on SDLT returns.

Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) replaced SDLT in Scotland from 1 April 2015 and this data is provided to HMRC by https://www.revenue.scot/">Revenue Scotland to continue the time series.

Land Transaction Tax (LTT) replaced SDLT in Wales from 1 April 2018. To continue the time series, the https://gov.wales/welsh-revenue-authority">Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA) have provided HMRC with a monthly data feed of LTT transactions since July 2021.

LTT figures for the latest month are estimated using a grossing factor based on data for the most recent and complete financial year. Until June 2021, LTT transactions for the latest month were estimated by HMRC based upon year on year growth in line with other UK nations.

LTT transactions up to the penultimate month are aligned with LTT statistics.

Go to Stamp Duty Land Tax guidance for the latest rates and information.

Go to Stamp Duty Land Tax rates from 1 December 2003 to 22 September 2022 and Stamp Duty: rates on land transfers before December 2003 for historic rates.

The latest release was published 09:30 28 November 2025 and was updated with provisional data from completed transactions during October 2025.

The next release will be published 09:30 09 January 2026 and will be updated with provisional data from completed transactions during November 2025.

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20240320184933/https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/monthly-property-transactions-completed-in-the-uk-with-value-40000-or-above">Archive versions of the Monthly property transactions completed in the UK with value of £40,000 or above are available via the UK Government Web Archive, from the National Archives.

According to the forecast, house prices in London are expected to continue to increase until 2029. During the five-year period from 2025 to 2029, the house prices for mainstream properties are forecast to rise by **** percent. In 2023, the average house price in London ranged between ******* British pounds and *** million British pounds, depending on the borough. Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Newham, and Croydon were some of the most affordable boroughs to buy a house.

In December 2024, the average house price in England was pricier than in any other country. This considerable disparity in average house prices is in no small part down to the country's capital city, where the average asking price was more than double that of the UK’s average. Even in London, for those who can afford a mortgage, the savings made through buying over renting can be beneficial. What drives house prices? Average house prices are affected by several factors, including economic growth, unemployment, and interest rates. Housing supply also plays a considerable role, with a shortage of supply leading to increased competition and an upward push in prices. Conversely, an excess of housing means prices fall to stimulate buyers. House prices still set to grow The housing market in the UK is expected to continue to grow in the next years. By 2029,.the annual number of housing transactions is set to reach *** million. With transactions on the rise, the average house price is also set to rise.

In 2022, house price growth in the UK slowed, after a period of decade-long increase. Nevertheless, in June 2025, prices reached a new peak, with the average home costing ******* British pounds. This figure refers to all property types, including detached, semi-detached, terraced houses, and flats and maisonettes. Compared to other European countries, the UK had some of the highest house prices. How have UK house prices increased over the last 10 years? Property prices have risen dramatically over the past decade. According to the UK house price index, the average house price has grown by over ** percent since 2015. This price development has led to the gap between the cost of buying and renting a property to close. In 2023, buying a three-bedroom house in the UK was no longer more affordable than renting one. Consequently, Brits have become more likely to rent longer and push off making a house purchase until they have saved up enough for a down payment and achieved the financial stability required to make the step. What caused the recent fluctuations in house prices? House prices are affected by multiple factors, such as mortgage rates, supply, and demand on the market. For nearly a decade, the UK experienced uninterrupted house price growth as a result of strong demand and a chronic undersupply. Homebuyers who purchased a property at the peak of the housing boom in July 2022 paid ** percent more compared to what they would have paid a year before. Additionally, 2022 saw the most dramatic increase in mortgage rates in recent history. Between December 2021 and December 2022, the **-year fixed mortgage rate doubled, adding further strain to prospective homebuyers. As a result, the market cooled, leading to a correction in pricing.

Housing Research Notes are a series of analytical reports from the Greater London Authority focusing on individual issues of relevance to housing policy in London. The most recent Housing Research Note (published in November 2023) estimates the annual cost to the NHS of homes in poor condition in London. It also estimates the cost of repairing all the homes in London that are in poor condition, calculating how long it would take the savings to pay off the repair costs. The analysis is broken down by tenure and compared with the same figures for the rest of England. Previous Housing Research Notes have analysed topics including housing supply, Help to Buy policy, short-term lettings, international comparisons, the factors behind increasing private rents and race equality. The Housing Research Notes are listed below in reverse date order: HRN 11 (2023) The cost of poor housing in London (November 2023) HRN 10 (2023) The affordability impacts of new housing supply: A summary of recent research (August 2023) HRN 09 (2023) Understanding recent rental trends in London’s private rental market (June 2023) HRN 08 (2022) Housing and race equality in London (March 2022) HRN 07 (2021) Who moves into social housing in London? (November 2021) HRN 06 (2021) An analysis of housing floorspace per person (February 2021) HRN 05 (2020) Intermediate housing: The evidence base (August 2020) HRN 04 (2020) Short-term and holiday letting in London (February 2020) HRN 03 (2019) Housing in four world cities: London, New York, Paris and Tokyo (April 2019) HRN 02 (2018) Help to Buy in London (September 2018) HRN 01 (2018) The profile of London's new homes in 2016/17: Analysis of the London Development Database (May 2018)

According to the forecast, the North West and Yorkshire & the Humber are the UK regions expected to see the highest overall growth in house prices over the five-year period between 2025 and 2029. Just behind are the North East and West Midlands. In London, house prices are expected to rise by **** percent.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of house sales in the UK spiked, followed by a period of decline. In 2023 and 2024, the housing market slowed notably, and in January 2025, transaction volumes fell to 46,774. House sales volumes are impacted by a number of factors, including mortgage rates, house prices, supply, demand, as well as the overall health of the market. The economic uncertainty and rising unemployment rates has also affected the homebuyer sentiment of Brits. How have UK house prices developed over the past 10 years? House prices in the UK have increased year-on-year since 2015, except for a brief period of decline in the second half of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. That is based on the 12-month percentage change of the UK house price index. At the peak of the housing boom in 2022, prices soared by nearly 14 percent. The decline that followed was mild, at under three percent. The cooling in the market was more pronounced in England and Wales, where the average house price declined in 2023. Conversely, growth in Scotland and Northern Ireland continued. What is the impact of mortgage rates on house sales? For a long period, mortgage rates were at record-low, allowing prospective homebuyers to take out a 10-year loan at a mortgage rate of less than three percent. In the last quarter of 2021, this period came to an end as the Bank of England rose the bank lending rate to contain the spike in inflation. Naturally, the higher borrowing costs affected consumer sentiment, urging many homebuyers to place their plans on hold and leading to a decline in sales.

Median monthly rental prices for the private rental market in England by bedroom category, region and administrative area, calculated using data from the Valuation Office Agency and Office for National Statistics.

This dataset results from an anthropological project that investigated the mediations that advice enables between the state, the market, charitable initiatives, families and ordinary citizens in the UK as well as selected European sites affected by austerity politics, namely Spain and Switzerland. The welfare state is not just a political-economic but a moral formation, which creates multiple boundaries of inclusion and exclusion through a variety of actors, officials and institutions. These boundaries at times challenge, and at other times reproduce, dominant logics of extraction and accumulation. Advisers are often the last call for help for their clients/dependents who find themselves increasingly at the mercy of local authorities, immigration regimes, landlords, banks and debt collection agencies. But competing visions of moral worth and social justice continue to permeate the everyday deliberations of those who administer, support and advocate advice. Struggles and dilemmas over how best to instantiate social justice, provide assistance and balance individuals’ moral judgments against the collective good frequently occur. In analyzing advice as part of a broader landscape of governing the welfare state, our research explored both the dovetailing of and divergence between political, economic and legal imperatives and domains.

To accomplish our research, four main themes (1) Empathy and expertise, (2) Brokerage or self-help, (3) Shifting advice frameworks, and (4) Comparative insights on UK-based problems, were addressed through eight research sub-projects. (2) Ryan Davey ‘Debt advice in Plymouth’; (3) Tobias Eule ‘Face-to-Face Interactions at the State/Market interface in Germany/Switzerland’; (4) Alice Forbess ‘Housing and welfare advice in Portsmouth; (5) Ana Gutierrez Garza ‘Advice as social struggle: housing and debt in Spain’; (6) Deborah James ‘Debt advice in London’; (7) Insa Koch ‘Social housing and austerity politics on council estates in England’; (8) Anna Tuckett ‘Providing immigration advice in austerity UK’; (9) Matt Wilde ‘Advice and the UK Housing Crisis’. These include statements of methodology; tables of contents of fieldnotes; anonymized ethnographic interviews and anonymized fieldnotes.

This two-year anthropological study, building on earlier research by the principle investigator and others, undertakes an ethnographic investigation of advice. Under conditions of continuing economic crisis, scholars and policy-makers are having to reshape their assumptions about the nature of society: particularly in respect of who receives assistance and who funds and arranges it. Where the 'usual' targets of welfare and benefits were the poor or destitute, they now include those who work but cannot make ends meet, and who experience increasing numbers of complex problems for which they need advice. And where the 'usual' provider of such things, at least in the post-war years, has been the state, this is increasingly not the case. As the economic crisis proceeds apace and the state's role is being whittled down, access to the counsel of experts is nonetheless increasingly essential. Without prejudging the outcomes, the project will investigate novel arrangements and their unintended consequences. It will explore innovations in advice giving provided by existing offices (under more traditional state-funded regimes), by new sources and novel agencies (under non-governmental and market-driven schemes), and by the social movements, self-help and informal network-based arrangements to which many are increasingly having to turn for counsel and support. The project proposes intensive research along two axes. Firstly, it explores in detail selected sites and cases in the UK (specifically England where a very particular set of legal/welfare arrangements is in operation), 'drilling down' to examine specific institutional settings, themes and topics at a range of different scales and levels. Topics and sites include a focus on the three specific areas of housing, debt and immigration advice, both within and beyond particular institutional settings, and law courts where litigants have started to engage in self-representation. Secondly, it uses two carefully-selected cross-national comparisons in order to illuminate, and gain a critical perspective on, aspects of UK welfare-related advice processes which are often taken as natural/inevitable by local policy-makers. Across these different settings, the project will: (1) document the ongoing effects on advice giving of the withdrawal of legal aid funds, including the rise of self-litigation; (2) explore the new roles assumed by bureaucrats, intermediaries and self-help groups, who are increasingly important in the advice encounter; (3) investigate whether funding cuts have caused the dwindling of the much-vaunted empathy that advice-givers are often required to deliver and whether, in the process, advisers are becoming less effective at shaping the behaviour of those they counsel; (4) look at how the very character of advice is changing as a result of these complex transformations; (5) explore variations between selected national settings, to illuminate the changing and context-dependent character of advice in the UK.

The total market value of real estate companies on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) fluctuated between 2018 and 2024. In December 2024, the market capitalization amounted to ***** billion British pounds, down from 138 billion British pounds in December 2021. These fluctuations could also be observed in the overall market capitalization of the LSE.

This statistic illustrates the total availability of office real estate in the West End of London, the United Kingdom (UK) from 2017 to 2018, broken down by the type of property. It can be seen that a larger share of available office properties were secondhand, with a total of nearly *** million square feet of secondhand office properties being available in 2019. As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, office availability has been growing in all areas of Cetral London.

This statistic illustrates the total availability of office real estate in the London City area, the United Kingdom (UK), from 2018 to 2019, broken down by the type of property. It can be seen that a larger share of available office properties were second-hand, with a total of approximately *** million square feet of second-hand office properties being available in 2019 and only **** million square feet of new or refurbished properties. As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, office availability has been growing in all areas of Cetral London.

The number of real estate companies trading on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) declined gradually between 2020 and 2025. In May 2025, the number of companies amounted to **, down from ** in May 2024. The largest real estate company by market capitalization was Hong Kong Land Holdings LD, followed by Segro Plc.

As of the second quarter of 2022, online agents had a market share of *** percent of exchanges in the United Kingdom. Yorkshire and The Humber had the higher share of online purchases at almost ** percent. Unlike other industries, the housing market has a relatively small online penetration rate as the overall cost and grandiosity of buying a home still encourages people into physical stores.

Average house prices

Average house prices are affected by several factors. Economic growth, unemployment, interest rates and mortgage availability can all drive them up or down. A shortage of supply means that the need for housing and the competitive market created will push house prices up. An excess of housing, on the other hand, means prices fall to stimulate buyers.

House price growth slowing down

After two years of a staggering house price growth, the UK housing market has started cooling down and in June 2022, the annual house price growth fell below ***** percent - the lowest since July 2021. In the five-year period until 2026, London is forecast to see the slowest house price growth.

This statistic illustrates the total availability of office real estate in the Canary Wharf area of London, the United Kingdom (UK), from 2018 to 2019, broken down by the type of property. It can be seen that a larger share of available office properties were secondhand at that time, with a total of nearly *********** square feet of secondhand office properties being available in 2019. As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, office availability has been growing in all areas of Cetral London.

Geneva stands out as Europe's most expensive city for apartment purchases in early 2025, with prices reaching a staggering 15,720 euros per square meter. This Swiss city's real estate market dwarfs even high-cost locations like Zurich and London, highlighting the extreme disparities in housing affordability across the continent. The stark contrast between Geneva and more affordable cities like Nantes, France, where the price was 3,700 euros per square meter, underscores the complex factors influencing urban property markets in Europe. Rental market dynamics and affordability challenges While purchase prices vary widely, rental markets across Europe also show significant differences. London maintained its position as the continent's priciest city for apartment rentals in 2023, with the average monthly costs for a rental apartment amounting to 36.1 euros per square meter. This figure is double the rent in Lisbon, Portugal or Madrid, Spain, and substantially higher than in other major capitals like Paris and Berlin. The disparity in rental costs reflects broader economic trends, housing policies, and the intricate balance of supply and demand in urban centers. Economic factors influencing housing costs The European housing market is influenced by various economic factors, including inflation and energy costs. As of April 2025, the European Union's inflation rate stood at 2.4 percent, with significant variations among member states. Romania experienced the highest inflation at 4.9 percent, while France and Cyprus maintained lower rates. These economic pressures, coupled with rising energy costs, contribute to the overall cost of living and housing affordability across Europe. The volatility in electricity prices, particularly in countries like Italy where rates are projected to reach 153.83 euros per megawatt hour by February 2025, further impacts housing-related expenses for both homeowners and renters.

Foreign investment in the European property market declined substantially in 2023. In the second quarter of the year, the value of cross-border investments amounted to ***** billion U.S. dollars, down from **** billion U.S. dollars in the same period a year ago. According to the source, the reason for the decline was the rising cost of capital, geopolitical tension, and uncertainty around monetary policy. North America was the largest foreign investor in the European property market, followed by the APAC region. In the same period, London, Milan, and Paris were the most attractive European markets for foreign investors.

The average cost of buying a property with a mortgage in Camden, London, was about ***** as high as in Croydon in June 2024. Despite experiencing one of the highest declines in property prices in the past year, Kensington and Chelsea remained the most expensive borough for residential real estate. The average cost of buying a new residential dwelling with a mortgage is usually higher than the original asking price. The amount of the down payment, interest payments placed on the repayment of the loan, and other added costs can amount to thousands of British pounds. Property prices in other cities in the UK Cambridge, Oxford, and Bristol were some of the other cities with costly housing markets. Despite the slowdown in the residential sector, many of the major cities in the UK continued to see house prices increase in 2023. Though the housing boom witnessed during the pandemic has come to an end, prices show little volatility, due to the high demand and chronic shortage of affordable housing. To buy or to rent? Buying has long been the better option for those who can afford it. Homebuyers can achieve monthly savings of several hundred British pounds, depending on the region. Nevertheless, the soaring mortgage rates and house prices in recent years have led to a narrowing gap between purchase and rental costs.