What can you buy for Great Britain’s average house price?

What can you buy for Great Britain’s average house price?

The property market has been booming, with combined data from Halifax and the Land Registry revealing that the average house price in Britain came in at £268,000 over the last year.1 But what can you really buy for £268k in different areas of the country?

British house prices can vary depending on where you are looking to buy. For example, the average house price in London is now over £500,000 while the average house price in Scotland sits just below £200,000.

We have analysed data on ‘sold’ listings across the last six months from Zoopla2 to find out what you can buy for the average house price in 32 major cities across the country.

Which British cities offer the best value?

The research reveals what type of house you can buy for £268,000 in the cities analysed, and the average number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and reception rooms the property consists of.

According to the findings, Bradford is the place to buy to get the most out of your money. The average £268k property in Bradford consists of an impressive four bedrooms, two bathrooms and two reception rooms. This comes as no surprise, as according to Zoopla over the last year, the average house price in the Yorkshire city has been sold for just £150,000.

Out of the 32 cities we analysed, one-third (34%) have detached properties as the most common type of house that has been sold across the last six months for the average house price including Newcastle, Glasgow, and Swansea.

However, the Yorkshire city Bradford is the only place where you can purchase a four-bed detached house.

The average house price can buy you a terrace house in six cities including Bristol, Reading and Cardiff. In the Welsh capital, you could buy a three-bed terrace property with two reception rooms and one bathroom

Semi-Detached is the most common property you can buy

The findings showed that the average property you can buy in Britain for circa £268,000 is a semi-detached three bed, with one bathroom and two reception rooms.

This is the case in popular British cities including Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Nottingham. You get slightly less for your money in Leeds, York and Norwich where recent sold houses showed that a three-bed property with two bathrooms is the most common but with only one reception room.

In six of the cities, a terrace house can be bought for the average house price including Bristol, Reading and Cardiff. In the Welsh capital, you could buy a three-bed terrace property with two reception rooms and one bathroom.

 

City	Type of House	Bedrooms	Bathrooms	Reception rooms
Bradford	Detached	4	2	2
Newport	Semi-Detached	4	2	2
Preston	Semi-Detached	4	2	2
Glasgow	Detached	3	2	1
Hull	Detached	3	1	2
Newcastle	Detached	3	1	2
Peterborough	Detached	3	1	2
Swansea	Detached	3	1	2
Stoke on Trent	Detached	3	1	2
Wolverhampton	Detached	3	1	2
Aberdeen	Detached	3	1	1
Derby	Detached	3	1	1
Northampton	Detached	3	1	1
Plymouth	Semi-Detached	3	2	2
Birmingham	Semi-Detached	3	1	2
Leicester	Semi-Detached	3	1	2
Liverpool	Semi-Detached	3	1	2
Nottingham	Semi-Detached	3	1	2
Sheffield	Semi-Detached	3	1	2
Manchester	Semi-Detached	3	1	2
Leeds	Semi-Detached	3	1	1
Norwich	Semi-Detached	3	1	1
York	Semi-Detached	3	1	1
Coventry	Terrace	3	2	1
Cardiff	Terrace	3	1	2
Bristol	Terrace	3	1	1
Reading	Terrace	3	1	1
Southampton	Terrace	3	1	1
Cambridge	Terrace	2	1	1
Brighton	Flat	2	1	1
Edinburgh	Flat	2	1	1
London	Flat	2	1	1

Top five cities to get the best value when buying a property

As previously discussed, Bradford offers the best value for money, as a detached four-bed house can be purchased here for the average house price in Britain. But what other locations offer excellent value for money when purchasing a property?

Just outside the Welsh capital of Cardiff, in the city of Newport, you can buy a four-bed property for the average British house price. Like Bradford, a property is likely to come with two bathrooms and two reception rooms for around £268,00, with the only difference in Newport being that the property is semi-detached. Although the Welsh house price average has hit a record high increasing to £216,000 in May 2022, you can still find good value for money in major cities such as Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport.

The only other city in the country where a four-bed can be purchased for Britain’s average house price is Preston, Lancashire. Like Newport, a semi-detached house with two bathrooms and reception rooms is also the most popular house type on the market at that price.

Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, ranks 4th on the list being the only city to offer three-bed detached houses with an average of two bathrooms. After Glasgow, most cities that make up the top 10 present three-bed detached houses but with only one bathroom and reception room. This includes another Scottish city, Aberdeen.

Unsurprisingly, you get very little for your money in London….

As mentioned earlier, London boasts the highest average house price, but what does £268,000 buy you in England’s capital?

With London’s average house price double the UK’s average, predictably you can only get a two-bed flat with one bathroom and reception room for £268k. This is far-less than the four-bed detached house, with two bathrooms and reception rooms that the same cash can buy you in Bradford.

According to sold house price data from Zoopla, it will cost over £800,000 on average to buy a semi-detached house in London and over £1.2million for a detached house.

Likewise in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh, a two-bed flat with one bathroom and reception room is the most typical property type that has been sold in the last six months at the average price point.

Surprisingly, the coastal city of Brighton is the only other location where a flat is the most likely property you can purchase for £268,000.

Conclusion

Property prices continue to rise across the country with the average house price rising every month since May 2021, yet there are many cities where you can still get excellent value for money with a three-bed semi-detached being the most common property sold for the average house price over the last 12 months.

London and Edinburgh only offer a two-bed flat for around £268,000 but this is not the case in the rest of Great Britain with some cities like Bradford and Preston selling a four-bed property for that price.

No matter how many bedrooms or reception rooms your house has, stylish fitted wardrobes or fitted living spaces can offer a practical and aesthetical benefit to your house.

Methodology and Sources:

Combining data between March 2021 and May 2022 from the latest Halifax’s house price index and Land Registry figures we worked out the average house price in Great Britain over the past year.

Then using Zoopla sold house price data, we analysed 20 listings that have been sold over the past six months that came to an average sold price of £268,000 (The British average house price over the past year).

The data we collected was the type of house, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, number of reception rooms and postcode area. We then took an average of all 20 listings to find out the most common property that sold in that area for the average house prices.

1 Hammonds found the average for house prices sourced from Halifax and the Land Registry from March 2021 to May 2022, and then found the average of these two numbers to find £268,000.

2 Sold listings located from: https://www.zoopla.co.Britain/house-prices/