Average house price in Cornwall 2026: the coast sets the price
Cornwall trades on a certain image: clifftop cottages, second homes, surf towns. Yet the typical Cornish home changed hands for £285,000 in 2025 — a shade below the £295,000 median for England and Wales as a whole. The county is not, on average, an expensive place to buy.
That average hides two very different Cornwalls. The prime north- and south-coast districts sold at more than double the price of the old mining and china-clay towns inland. And it is Cornwall's running costs — one of England's higher council tax bills, plus a new second-home premium that can double it — where the real bite lands.
The figures below are drawn from HM Land Registry Price Paid records for the Cornwall unitary authority, fetched on 1 July 2026. They cover standard residential sales (houses and flats) completed in 2025.
The headline numbers
| Measure | Cornwall (2025) | Cornwall (2024) |
|---|---|---|
| Median sale price | £285,000 | £288,000 |
| Mean (average) sale price | £336,710 | £346,736 |
| Recorded sales | 7,914 | 8,134 |
Two things stand out. First, prices softened over the year: the median edged down about 1% and the mean fell nearly 3%. The Office for National Statistics' UK House Price Index tells the same story — its Cornwall series fell from 94.6 in March 2025 to 92.3 in March 2026, a 2.4% decline, against a broadly flat UK index. Both the raw sale prices and the mix-adjusted index point the same way: down, gently.
Second, look at the gap between the mean and the median. The average sale (£336,710) sits £51,710 above the typical one (£285,000). That skew is the coast. A relatively small number of high-value seaside and estuary sales drag the average up, while most of the market trades well below it. When a county average feels higher than the homes you are actually seeing, this is usually why — the average is not the typical.
A detached county
Cornwall is a house market, and specifically a detached-house market. Detached homes were the single largest slice of 2025 sales and carried by far the highest median.
| Property type | Median (2025) | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | £400,000 | 2,953 |
| Semi-detached | £269,725 | 1,800 |
| Terraced | £235,000 | 2,319 |
| Flat | £172,250 | 842 |
A detached home cost about 2.3 times the price of a flat. That is a different shape from the flat-led big-city markets — the typical Cornish purchase is a house, not an apartment.
Two Cornwalls: the coast-versus-inland ladder
Break the county into postcode districts and the split is stark. The dearest districts are the coastal and estuary honeypots; the most affordable are the inland towns built around mining and clay.
| District (approx. area) | Median (2025) | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| PL28 — Padstow, Rock, Wadebridge | £465,000 | 63 |
| TR5 — St Agnes | £441,500 | 66 |
| PL23 — Fowey | £430,000 | 73 |
| TR3 — Feock, Devoran (Truro rural) | £399,975 | 178 |
| TR26 — St Ives | £364,000 | 177 |
| TR2 — Roseland, St Mawes | £363,000 | 117 |
| TR11 — Falmouth | £355,000 | 464 |
| EX23 — Bude | £355,000 | 250 |
| TR7 — Newquay | £305,000 | 419 |
| TR1 — Truro (city) | £290,000 | 327 |
| TR18 — Penzance | £259,000 | 264 |
| PL25 — St Austell | £255,000 | 369 |
| TR15 — Redruth | £238,975 | 292 |
| PL14 — Liskeard | £232,000 | 361 |
| PL31 — Bodmin | £220,000 | 223 |
| TR14 — Camborne | £219,250 | 340 |
The spread from Padstow (PL28, £465,000) to Camborne (TR14, £219,250) is 2.1 times — and both are unmistakably Cornwall, a short drive apart. Falmouth (TR11) was the busiest single district, with 464 recorded sales. (Figures are anchored to the Cornwall authority, which is why Bude's EX23 postcodes appear here while Plymouth's PL1–PL9 — across the Devon border — do not.)
You can see the full picture for any street by entering a postcode into the Cornwall true-cost tool — mortgage, council tax and energy costs are calculated together for each property.
The second-home premium
Cornwall has one of the largest concentrations of second homes in England, and the rules around them changed in 2025. Since 1 April 2025, English councils have been able to charge a premium of up to 100% — doubling the bill — on furnished properties that are no one's sole or main residence (gov.uk). The power comes from the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.
Cornwall Council resolved to apply the maximum premium from that date. At the authority's 2026-27 Band D charge of £2,590.93, a full premium takes the annual council tax on a second home to £5,181.86. Band D is a benchmark, not most bills — the actual figure scales with the property's band, and there are statutory exceptions (for example, homes being actively marketed for sale or let, and certain job-related dwellings). Owners should confirm their own position with Cornwall Council.
The purchase tax differs too. A main-home buyer at the £285,000 county median pays £4,250 in Stamp Duty Land Tax. An additional-property buyer pays a 5% surcharge on the whole price on top — £18,500 in total at that price. First-time buyers buying their main residence pay nothing, because £285,000 sits under the £300,000 first-time-buyer nil-rate band (HMRC, 2026). You can model any of these on the Homecost stamp duty calculator.
What it costs to run — and to buy
Cornwall is not a cheap county to run a home in. Its 2026-27 Band D of £2,590.93 is the 43rd highest of England's 296 billing authorities, roughly £180 above the £2,410.97 national average. Rural unitaries like Cornwall carry the full cost of adult social care with a limited commercial tax base, which pushes the Band D benchmark up. For how that compares nationally, see our guide to the cheapest and most expensive council tax areas in England.
Energy is the other running cost, and Cornwall's older, off-gas-grid stock shows. Of about 167,500 domestic Energy Performance Certificates on record, 31.5% are rated C or above — but a notably large 15.2% sit in the lowest F or G bands, reflecting the county's granite, cob and solid-wall rural homes. (EPC modelled running costs use dated assumptions and should be read as directional, not as a current bill.)
On the mortgage side, the Bank of England's most recent quoted rate for a five-year fix at 75% loan-to-value was 4.32% (April 2026). On the £285,000 median, a 25% deposit (£71,250) leaves a £213,750 loan — roughly £1,166 a month over 25 years. At the £400,000 detached median that rises to about £1,637; at Camborne's £219,250 it falls to about £897. These are illustrations only; your rate will depend on your lender, deposit and credit profile.
The bottom line
Cornwall's headline average makes it look mid-priced, and for much of the inland county that holds. But the coast is a separate market, the council tax is above average, and a second home now carries a doubled tax bill and a 5% purchase surcharge. Buyers comparing areas can see the all-in monthly cost for any Cornish postcode on the Homecost true-cost tool, and compare Cornwall with nearby West Country cities such as Bristol and Bath, or with the cheapest postcode areas to buy across the UK. For the wider picture on holiday-home costs, see our guide to the true cost of a second home.
This is general information, not advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.
Based on 7,914 Cornwall residential sales recorded by HM Land Registry in 2025, the 2026-27 council tax set by Cornwall Council, and about 167,500 domestic EPCs. Browse more property cost guides.