Average house price in Swansea 2026: the £207,000 median

The typical home in Swansea changed hands for £207,000 in 2025, drawn from 2,818 standard residential sales recorded by HM Land Registry across the City and County of Swansea. That is a calm, mid-market figure for Wales's second city — close to the £205,000 median of a comparable English city like Newcastle upon Tyne, and well below the £270,000 typical price across the Severn estuary in the Welsh capital, Cardiff.

There is a quieter number behind the headline, though, and it is the one that most changes what buying actually costs here: at £207,000, a Swansea buyer pays no Land Transaction Tax at all, where someone buying a £207,000 home in England would owe £1,640 in Stamp Duty. This guide breaks down what sold and for how much, how prices vary across the SA postcodes, and the two things — Welsh transaction tax and council tax — that shape the cost of living in Swansea.

What sold, and for how much

Swansea is a house-led market. Semi-detached homes were the single largest type sold in 2025 and sit at the centre of the price distribution; terraces are the most affordable mainstream option, while detached homes carry a clear premium. Flats are a small slice of the market — the opposite of flat-heavy cities like Manchester or inner London.

This is a notable contrast with Cardiff, where terraced streets dominate. Swansea's typical buyer is more likely to be looking at a semi than a terrace, and the gap between the two — roughly £52,500 at the median — is one of the widest type splits among the major cities.

Source figures: median calculated from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, category-A (full-price) residential sales in the City and County of Swansea during 2025, fetched June 2026. The mean was £245,125, pulled above the median by a thin top tail of high-value detached and coastal sales.

Where prices sit across the city

Swansea's prices vary by about 2.5 times from one end of the city to the other — and, unusually, the city centre is the cheapest part rather than the dearest. The premium sits on the coast: the SA3 postcode covering Mumbles and the Gower peninsula is the most expensive district by a wide margin, while the SA1 city-centre and Maritime Quarter postcodes are the most affordable.

A note on geography: the SA postcode area is wider than the council that gives this article its name. SA codes also reach into Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire, so the table above is filtered to the City and County of Swansea only — Llanelli, Pontardawe and Port Talbot addresses that share an SA prefix are excluded. You can see the recorded sales and running costs for any individual street on the Swansea postcode cost tool.

The tax twist: Land Transaction Tax, not Stamp Duty

Wales has run its own property transaction tax — Land Transaction Tax (LTT) — since 2018, collected by the Welsh Revenue Authority rather than HMRC. The main residential rates are:

The figure that matters for most Swansea buyers is the first one. Because the typical home (£207,000) sits below the £225,000 nil-rate threshold, a standard purchase at the median attracts £0 in LTT. For comparison, England's Stamp Duty nil-rate is only £125,000, so a £207,000 purchase there would attract £1,640. The Welsh system is most generous at the lower end and the advantage narrows higher up: at around £345,000 the English and Welsh bills roughly cross over, and above that the Welsh 6% slab makes Wales the dearer of the two. A Swansea detached home at its £343,995 median, for instance, attracts £7,139.70 of LTT.

One important difference from England: Wales has no first-time buyer relief. It does not need one at the lower end, because the universal £225,000 nil-rate already covers most ordinary purchases. The trade-off is that a first-time buyer in England buying between £300,000 and £500,000 can pay less than a Welsh buyer at the same price. For how the three UK regimes line up, see our SDLT, LBTT and LTT comparison, and for the higher-rate (additional property) position, the guide to Welsh LTT higher residential rates. You can run any Swansea price through the Land Transaction Tax calculator.

What it costs to run

Owning in Swansea costs a little less than the Welsh average to run. The City and County of Swansea's average Band D council tax for 2026-27 is £2,238, up 4.5% on the previous year (Welsh Government, March 2026). That places Swansea seventh-cheapest of the 22 Welsh billing authorities — below the Wales-wide average of £2,283, but above the cheapest authority, Cardiff, at £2,013, and well below the highest, Merthyr Tydfil, at £2,594.

That produces a clean South Wales contrast. Swansea is around 23% cheaper to buy than Cardiff (£207,000 against £270,000), yet about £225 a year dearer to run on council tax. The two SA-area neighbours, Neath Port Talbot (£2,541) and Carmarthenshire (£2,351), both charge more still — another reason the council boundary, not the postcode, is what determines the bill.

On energy, Swansea's stock is middling by national standards. Of the roughly 61,500 domestic Energy Performance Certificates on record for the city, 30.6% are rated C or above and 69.4% sit at band D or below — close to Leeds and Liverpool, and a reflection of an older terraced and inter-war housing base. (EPC running-cost estimates are modelled on dated assumptions and should be read as a guide to the gap between bands, not as a current bill.)

Putting it together: the monthly cost

For a worked example, take the £207,000 median with a 25% deposit (£51,750) and a £155,250 mortgage over 25 years. At the Bank of England's most recent quoted rate for a 75% loan-to-value five-year fix — 4.32% as of April 2026 — that works out at roughly £847 a month. Add council tax at about £187 a month and the running total is around £1,034 a month before energy, insurance and maintenance. Your own rate will depend on your lender, deposit and credit profile, so treat this as an illustration rather than a quote.

You can change the deposit, rate and term in the mortgage repayment calculator, or compare every line item across other cities and price brackets through our regional price guides and the true cost of buying a £200,000 home.

How prices are moving

The official UK House Price Index, which adjusts for the mix of properties sold, shows Swansea's index up 1.4% in the year to March 2026, with the Wales-wide index up 2.9% and the UK as a whole essentially flat (+0.1%) over the same period. The raw median rose faster — from £195,000 in 2024 to £207,000 in 2025 — but raw medians move with the mix of what happens to sell, so the index is the steadier read. These are published figures to the latest release date, not a forecast.

New-build sales were a small share of the 2025 total (under 3%, partly because new homes register on a lag), so the median reflects an established resale market rather than a wave of development pricing.

Based on 2,818 City and County of Swansea sales recorded by HM Land Registry in 2025, around 61,500 domestic Energy Performance Certificates, and the Welsh Government's 2026-27 council tax release. Browse the full set of regional price guides for how Swansea compares.

This is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.