Average house price in Portsmouth 2026: what buyers actually pay

Portsmouth's typical home changed hands for £259,000 in 2025, based on 2,406 completed Land Registry sales of houses and flats. That places the island city below the £295,000 national median for England and Wales — cheaper than every other big city on the Solent and Dorset coast except its near-twin Southampton — yet the headline figure hides a wide gap between a rare detached house and a Southsea flat.

Here is what the numbers say about buying in Portsmouth this year, from purchase price to the monthly bill.

What homes cost in Portsmouth

Portsmouth is a terraced-house city. Terraces made up 1,378 of the 2,406 sales in 2025 — 57% of the market — a legacy of the dense Victorian and Edwardian streets that cover Portsea Island. Detached houses are a genuine rarity: just 91 sold all year, most of them on the northern mainland edge of the city.

The detached median sits more than three times above the flat median (£545,000 against £168,000), but with fewer than one sale in twenty being detached, the terrace figure of £265,000 is closer to what a typical family buyer meets. The mean sale price was £302,242 — pulled above the median by a small number of larger seafront and mainland properties, a reminder that an "average" price and a typical price are not the same thing.

Where Portsmouth is cheapest — and dearest

Prices vary far less across Portsmouth than in most cities, because the island is built up almost uniformly. The dearest postcode district — PO6, the mainland suburbs of Cosham, Drayton and Farlington — carries a median only 1.4 times the cheapest, PO5 in central Southsea.

These figures cover only the Portsmouth City Council area. The wider PO postcode reaches into Havant, Fareham and Gosport, which are separate authorities and are not counted here. You can see the recorded sale prices, council tax band and energy rating for any street on the true cost of a Southsea postcode, or check the dearer mainland suburbs around Cosham in the north of the city.

Portsmouth in its South Coast context

Portsmouth and Southampton — the two big cities either side of the Solent — are almost identical on price. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, further west along the Dorset coast, sits noticeably higher.

Portsmouth is the cheapest of the three to buy and also carries the lowest council tax. For a wider comparison, the naval city of Plymouth further down the coast recorded a 2025 median of £227,000, while Bristol to the west was £350,000.

Council tax and the monthly bill

Portsmouth's Band D council tax for 2026-27 is £2,291.71 — about £119 below the £2,410.97 average across England's 296 billing authorities. Most Portsmouth homes fall below Band D, so many households pay less: the statutory Band A charge (six-ninths of Band D) works out at £1,527.81. Council tax bands in England are still based on values as they stood on 1 April 1991, which is why how council tax bands are set can leave the letter on your bill bearing little relation to today's price.

At the median price, the running maths looks like this. A buyer putting down a 25% deposit (£64,750) would borrow £194,250. At the Bank of England's most recent quoted rate for a five-year fix at 75% loan-to-value — 4.32% as of April 2026 — a 25-year repayment mortgage on that sum comes to roughly £1,060 a month. Add council tax at about £191 a month and the core housing bill is around £1,251 a month, before energy, insurance, maintenance or any leasehold service charge.

That rate assumes a 25% deposit; the rate a lender actually offers depends on the deposit, the term and the borrower's circumstances. You can model a different deposit or term on the Portsmouth true-cost page.

Energy efficiency: an older, terraced stock

Portsmouth's dense pre-war housing shows up in its energy ratings. Of 34,577 homes with a current Energy Performance Certificate, 32.6% are rated C or above — below the England and Wales figure of about 40%. That reflects the age of the stock: solid-wall Victorian and Edwardian terraces are harder to insulate than post-2000 homes. Only 2.3% sit in the lowest F or G bands, however — a much thinner tail than rural areas carry, because very little of Portsmouth is off the gas grid. What an EPC rating means for buyers sets out how the bands translate into running costs.

Stamp duty by buyer type

Stamp Duty Land Tax depends on the price and the buyer's situation. At Portsmouth's median price of £259,000, a home mover pays £2,950 (HMRC rates, 2026). A first-time buyer pays nothing, because the price sits below the £300,000 first-time-buyer nil-rate threshold. A buyer of an additional property — a second home or a buy-to-let — pays £15,900, reflecting the 5% surcharge.

One quirk is worth noting at the top of the market: at £545,000 a first-time buyer pays exactly the same as a mover (£17,250), because first-time-buyer relief is withdrawn entirely on purchases above £500,000. You can run any price through the stamp duty calculator to see how the bands stack up.

Has Portsmouth gone up or down?

The direction of travel has been broadly flat to slightly soft. The ONS UK House Price Index for Portsmouth, smoothed over the three months to April 2026 and compared with the same period a year earlier, was down about 1.5% — against a South East region roughly 0.4% lower and an England figure about 1.4% higher over the same window. Calendar-year median sale prices told a marginally firmer story, rising from £255,000 in 2024 to £259,000 in 2025 — a gap that reflects the mix of homes sold as much as underlying values. These are historic movements, not a prediction of where prices go next.

Based on 2,406 Land Registry sales, 34,577 domestic Energy Performance Certificates and Portsmouth's 2026-27 council tax rate, all queried on 6 August 2026. Figures are city-wide medians, not valuations of any individual property. Browse more regional price guides to compare Portsmouth with other cities.

This is general information, not advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.