House price statistics for small areas in England and Wales: year ending March 2023

• Median house price for residential properties was £290,000 in England and £200,000 in Wales in the 12 months ending March 2023.

• The median price paid for residential properties in local authorities in England ranged from £116,000 (in Burnley) to £1.36 million (in Kensington and Chelsea) in the 12 months ending March 2023.

• The median price paid for residential properties in local authorities in Wales ranged from £132,500 (in Blaenau Gwent) to £320,000 (in Monmouthshire) in the 12 months ending March 2023.

• The number of residential property sales decreased by 26% in England and 26% in Wales between the 12 months ending March 2022 and the 12 months ending March 2023.

• The number of detached property sales decreased by 34% in England and 34% in Wales between the 12 months ending March 2022 and the 12 months ending March 2023; this was the largest decrease of all property types.

• This is the final house price statistics for small areas (HPSSA) publication in its current format and level of detail; for further information, see “Upcoming changes” in Section 4: Measuring the data.

There are 49 house price statistics for small areas (HPSSA) datasets in total, which show house prices by property type for various geographies in England and Wales, as well as the number of property transactions. You can find the most frequently downloaded datasets in this section.

Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA)

A Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA) is a geographic hierarchy designed to improve the reporting of small area statistics in England and Wales. As at 1 April 2022, using 2011 Census data, there are 34,753 LSOAs in England and Wales, each containing between 400 and 1,200 households. For more information, see the Census geography web page.

Data collection

The house price statistics for small areas (HPSSAs) use data from HM Land Registry. This is to provide statistics on the price paid and number of residential property transactions for properties sold in each area in England and Wales. Properties sold at a discount to the market level, such as properties sold under the Right to Buy scheme, are not included in these statistics.

HPSSAs are currently updated bi-annually or annually, with each release adding a new 12-month period to the data. However, the HPSSA release in its current format is being discontinued. For more information, see the “Upcoming changes” section.

The use of rolling annual data removes seasonal effects, which refers to peaks and troughs in property transactions at particular times of the year. It also reduces the impact of registration lag, where there is a delay in registration by HM Land Registry after the completed date.

The HPSSAs are compiled using the latest available version of the published Price Paid dataset from HM Land Registry. The property registration process can take time, particularly for new build properties. Therefore, the HPSSAs may not fully reflect all transactions that have taken place in the reference period and may be subject to revision.

The HPSSA revision period is 10 years. This means that estimates have been revised using the latest available Price Paid dataset for the period “year ending March 2013” and later periods. Users should use caution when drawing conclusions from these data. For further information, see our UK House Price Index (UK HPI) bulletins.

Differences to other house price statistics

There are two sets of official statistics for house prices. In addition to these HPSSAs, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also produces the UK House Price Index (UK HPI). The HPSSAs measure the number of property transactions and the price paid for properties sold in a given period, while the UK HPI measures the changing value of properties in the housing market.

HPSSA estimates reflect average house prices at particular points in time and do not account for changes in property mix between time periods. This means that each 12-month period estimate is not comparable with other 12-month period estimates. Users are advised not to infer trends in the house price market over time by comparing price estimates.

The UK HPI publishes average house price statistics which are comparable over time, down to local authority level.

You can find out more about the differences and uses of these outputs in our House price statistics for small areas Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Quality

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the our House price statistics for small areas QMI.

Dataset publication frequency

The HPSSA collection provides annual statistical datasets which are currently updated annually or bi-annually, as shown in Table 1 of our previous HPSSA release.

Upcoming changes

The House price statistics for small areas in England and Wales (HPSSA) bulletin series has been discontinued. This release, published on 20 September 2023 for the period “year ending March 2023”, is the final HPSSA publication in its current format and level of detail.

We are aware that some HPSSA datasets are used for other core statistics that are required, so we will be engaging with stakeholders to minimise any impact. If you have any questions about this engagement, please contact hpi@ons.gov.uk.