Buying the "average" home costs wildly different amounts of cash up front depending on which city you buy in — and the gap is far wider than house prices alone suggest. On a home sold at the 2025 median price, the cash needed to reach completion ranges from about £14,600 in Hull to about £177,000 in Kensington & Chelsea — a twelve-fold spread, even though the deposit gap between those two areas is "only" eight-fold. The extra stretch comes almost entirely from stamp duty, which stacks on top only where prices are high.
This is upfront cash — the money that has to leave a buyer's account to complete a purchase — not the monthly cost of owning. It has three moving parts.
What "cash to completion" is made of
Three main figures make up the cash a buyer needs on completion day:
- The deposit — the share of the price not covered by the mortgage. A 10% deposit is used throughout below as an illustration; a larger deposit means more cash up front but a smaller loan.
- Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) — the one-off purchase tax in England and Northern Ireland. A home mover pays 0% up to £125,000, 2% on the slice to £250,000 and 5% on the slice to £925,000 (HMRC, 2026). A first-time buyer buying a main residence pays nothing up to £300,000, with the relief tapering to nil at £500,000.
- Fees and disbursements — the conveyancer's legal fee, property searches, and the HM Land Registry registration fee.
The deposit and stamp duty are where the regional gap explodes; the fees stay broadly similar wherever you buy.
The cash-to-completion ladder (home mover)
The table ranks 16 English cities by the median price of a home sold in 2025 (HM Land Registry, category-A sales of houses and flats), and shows the cash a home mover would need at a 10% deposit. "Core cash-in" is deposit plus stamp duty plus the Land Registry fee; add roughly £1,500–£2,000 for legal fees and searches on top (see below).
| City | 2025 median price | Deposit (10%) | Stamp duty (mover) | Land Registry fee | Core cash-in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | £142,000 | £14,200 | £340 | £100 | £14,640 |
| Sunderland | £157,500 | £15,750 | £650 | £100 | £16,500 |
| Liverpool | £182,500 | £18,250 | £1,150 | £100 | £19,500 |
| Bradford | £186,500 | £18,650 | £1,230 | £100 | £19,980 |
| Nottingham | £200,000 | £20,000 | £1,500 | £100 | £21,600 |
| Newcastle | £205,000 | £20,500 | £1,600 | £150 | £22,250 |
| Birmingham | £238,000 | £23,800 | £2,260 | £150 | £26,210 |
| Leicester | £242,000 | £24,200 | £2,340 | £150 | £26,690 |
| Leeds | £248,000 | £24,800 | £2,460 | £150 | £27,410 |
| Manchester | £250,000 | £25,000 | £2,500 | £150 | £27,650 |
| Portsmouth | £259,000 | £25,900 | £2,950 | £150 | £29,000 |
| Southampton | £260,000 | £26,000 | £3,000 | £150 | £29,150 |
| Bristol | £350,000 | £35,000 | £7,500 | £150 | £42,650 |
| Brighton & Hove | £412,500 | £41,250 | £10,625 | £150 | £52,025 |
| Newham (London) | £450,000 | £45,000 | £12,500 | £150 | £57,650 |
| Kensington & Chelsea (London) | £1,165,000 | £116,500 | £60,250 | £500 | £177,250 |
Median prices from HM Land Registry Price Paid data (2025 category-A sales of houses and flats); stamp duty calculated at each median on the 2026 rates; Land Registry fees from the published Scale 1 (electronic lodgement). Figures as at 16 August 2026.
Why the gap is wider than the deposit gap
A 10% deposit in Kensington & Chelsea (£116,500) is 8.2 times the Hull deposit (£14,200). But once stamp duty is added, the core cash-in gap widens to 12.1 times (£177,250 against £14,640).
The reason is that stamp duty is progressive: it barely registers at the bottom of the ladder and dominates at the top. A mover buying Hull's median home pays £340 in SDLT; a mover buying the Kensington median pays £60,250 — roughly 177 times as much. So the further up the price ladder a buyer goes, the more the tax bill compounds the deposit gap.
First-time buyers: the £300,000 dividing line
For first-time buyers the picture changes sharply, because first-time buyer relief removes all stamp duty on a main residence up to £300,000 (HMRC, 2026).
Every city in the table up to and including Southampton (£260,000) sits under that ceiling — so a typical first-time buyer there pays no stamp duty at all, and the cash to completion is essentially the deposit plus fees:
| City | 2025 median | First-time-buyer stamp duty | Core cash-in (first-time buyer) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | £142,000 | £0 | £14,300 |
| Manchester | £250,000 | £0 | £25,150 |
| Southampton | £260,000 | £0 | £26,150 |
| Bristol | £350,000 | £2,500 | £37,650 |
| Brighton & Hove | £412,500 | £5,625 | £47,025 |
| Newham (London) | £450,000 | £7,500 | £52,650 |
| Kensington & Chelsea (London) | £1,165,000 | £60,250 | £177,250 |
Above £300,000 the relief tapers, and above £500,000 it disappears entirely — which is why a first-time buyer at the Kensington median pays exactly the same stamp duty as a home mover (£60,250). Between the two extremes, the first-time-buyer saving is the difference between the mover and first-time-buyer columns: a few hundred pounds in Hull, but £5,000 in Bristol, Brighton and Newham.
The net effect is that across the twelve cities priced under £300,000, a first-time buyer's upfront cash is set almost entirely by the deposit. Stamp duty only becomes a material part of the bill in the higher-priced South and in London.
The fees that stay roughly the same
Two components move very little between cities:
- HM Land Registry registration fee. For a registered freehold bought and lodged electronically, HM Land Registry charges on a fixed scale: £20 up to £80,000, £40 to £100,000, £100 to £200,000, £150 to £500,000, £295 to £1m and £500 above £1m (HM Land Registry Scale 1, effective 9 December 2024). Paper applications cost more. So the fee is £100–£150 for almost every city in the table, reaching £500 only at the very top.
- Legal fees and searches. A conveyancer's own fee, plus local, water and environmental searches and the smaller disbursements (bankruptcy and identity checks, official copies), typically add roughly £1,500–£2,000. Firms must publish their prices under Solicitors Regulation Authority transparency rules; the figure varies by firm and by whether the property is leasehold, but it does not scale with the purchase price the way the deposit and stamp duty do.
Adding an indicative £1,800 for legal work and searches takes the all-in cash to completion to about £16,400 in Hull and about £179,000 in Kensington & Chelsea.
What these figures don't include
These are the cash sums needed to complete a purchase. They exclude the ongoing monthly cost of owning — the mortgage repayment, council tax and energy bills — which varies independently of the purchase price. A cheap-to-buy city is not always a cheap-to-run one: several low-priced northern authorities levy above-average council tax. To see the full monthly picture for a specific address, check the true cost of a home in Manchester or in Hull with the Homecost tool.
They also assume a 10% deposit and a single main-residence purchase. A buyer of an additional property (a second home or buy-to-let) pays a 5% surcharge on the whole price on top of the figures above, and a smaller deposit raises the loan rather than the cash needed up front. First-time buyers weighing what the relief is worth can read how first-time buyer stamp duty relief works, and anyone comparing the deposit alone across cities can see the deposit gap between the cheapest and dearest cities.
For the wider context — how much to save for a deposit, what income lenders look for, and what leaves your account on completion day — see how much deposit you need, what salary buys a home across the UK, what conveyancing actually costs and the completion-day cost checklist. You can also model the tax directly with the stamp duty calculator or browse more buyer guides.
This is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. Actual costs depend on your lender, deposit, conveyancer and circumstances. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.