© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
The average selling price of a flat has risen by 203% since 1997 Quarter 1 from £64,503 to £195,382 in 2007 Quarter 1. The increase in the average price of a flat has outpaced the 192% increase for all residential properties during the past decade. Regionally, East Anglia has seen the sharpest increase in flat prices during the past 10 years with a rise of 330% followed by the North (254%) and the South East (247%). The smallest increases have been in Scotland (162%) and the North West (182%).
While flat prices have continued to rise rapidly during the past five years, the trend is different with flat prices rising more slowly than the average for all properties; 64% against 78%. During the past year, flat prices nationally have risen by 22%. Prices have soared in Northern Ireland during the past 12 months (55%) and there has been a 22% increase in flat prices in Greater London. By contrast, there have been modest falls in the average selling prices of flats in Wales (-4%) and the North West (-2%). These small declines, however, need to be seen in the context of the substantial increases recorded during the past few years.
Unsurprisingly, flat prices are significantly more expensive in London than elsewhere in the UK with flats in the capital currently selling at an average price of £308,535; substantially above the 3% stamp duty threshold of £250,000, presenting the average buyer with a stamp duty bill in excess of £9,000. Contrastingly, the average flat sells for less than the 1% stamp duty threshold of £125,000 in Yorkshire & the Humber, East Midlands, North and Wales. As a result, the average buyer of a flat in these regions pays no stamp duty. Prices are lowest in Wales where the average flat sells for £112,851.
There have been some significant developments in socio-economic trends relating to the demand and supply of flats in the past decade or so. In particular, there has been a decrease in the proportion of properties containing the ‘traditional’ family unit. According to the Office of National Statistics, the number of one-person households increased from 6 million (27% of all households) in 1991 to 7 million (29%) in 2005 – at the same time the number of four-people households fell from 3.6 million (16%) to 3.3 million (13%).
The types of property being built have shifted dramatically to reflect the changes in family-unit sizes. The number of new one- and two-bed flats completed has increased substantially with DCLG figures showing that the number of one- and two-bed flats completed as a percentage of all properties built was 45% in 2006, up from just 17% in 1996.