Manchester's typical home sells for less than half of London's and has a third more of its housing stock rated a good energy efficiency band. Birmingham's typical home is cheaper still than London's — yet it has the worst EPC coverage of the four English cities compared here. Put those two facts side by side and a simple "cheaper city, greener home" story falls apart: across every possible pairing of London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, the cheaper city comes out ahead on energy rating in exactly half the match-ups.
The figures come from HM Land Registry's 2025 sales (categorised, full market value sales only) and the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) register, using the latest certificate recorded for each address, fetched 30 October 2026.
The four cities, side by side
| City | 2025 median price (all property types) | 2025 sales (n) | EPC C-or-above share |
|---|---|---|---|
| London (33 boroughs) | £530,000 | 86,191 | 31.7% |
| Manchester | £253,000 | 4,921 | 41.2% |
| Leeds | £250,000 | 10,382 | 35.8% |
| Birmingham | £239,000 | 9,961 | 26.2% |
Sorted by price, London is the clear outlier at more than double its nearest rival. Sorted by EPC rating, the order is completely different: Manchester leads, Birmingham trails, and London — the most expensive city by a wide margin — sits in the middle of the pack, not at either end.
Four cities, four match-ups
Testing every pair individually shows how little the price gap predicts the EPC gap.
| Comparison | Cheaper city | Price gap | Which has the better EPC share | EPC gap | Cheaper = greener? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London vs Manchester | Manchester (£253,000) | 2.1× | Manchester (41.2%) | +9.5pp | Yes |
| London vs Birmingham | Birmingham (£239,000) | 2.2× | London (31.7%) | +5.5pp | No |
| London vs Leeds | Leeds (£250,000) | 2.1× | Leeds (35.8%) | +4.1pp | Yes |
| Manchester vs Birmingham | Birmingham (£239,000) | 1.06× | Manchester (41.2%) | +15.0pp | No |
Two comparisons say cheaper means greener. Two say the opposite. A coin flip would have done about as well.
Why Birmingham loses every match-up it's in
Look closer and the pattern isn't really about price at all — it's about which two cities happen to be in the room. Birmingham has the lowest EPC coverage of the four cities tested, so it reads as the "colder" option against London (which costs 2.2 times as much) and against Manchester (which costs only 6% more) alike. Manchester has the highest EPC coverage of the four, so it reads as "greener" against both of its comparison partners too, regardless of the size of the price gap between them.
The clearest sign that price isn't driving this: the widest EPC gap in the whole set (15.0 percentage points, Manchester vs Birmingham) sits on the pairing with the smallest price gap of the four (1.06×), while two of the biggest price gaps (London vs Birmingham at 2.2×, London vs Leeds at 2.1×) produce much narrower EPC gaps (5.5 and 4.1 points). If price were the driver, the relationship should run the other way.
It's not really about price
Comparisons built elsewhere on this site, pairing individual property types within single cities, have generally found that EPC coverage differences track the age and mix of the housing stock — how much was built before and after the 2003 tightening of Building Regulations, and what share is flats versus houses — more reliably than they track price. That's consistent with what shows up here: Birmingham's lower rating and Manchester's higher one most likely come down to what was built, and when, in each city, rather than to what either one costs to buy.
What this means if you're comparing areas
If you're weighing up two cities, or two neighbourhoods within a city, on cost, don't assume the cheaper one is either the greener or the colder option by default. The honest approach is to check the EPC rating of the specific area — or specific property — you're actually considering, rather than inferring it from the asking price. An individual home's current EPC certificate is also the only reliable guide to its own running costs; city and borough averages, including the ones above, describe a whole housing stock, not any single home within it.
Homecost's postcode tool shows the EPC rating and modelled running costs behind any individual property alongside its purchase-cost breakdown — for example, a semi-detached home in Manchester sold in 2025 close to the city's own median price.
Based on 86,191 to 4,921 Land Registry sales and EPC records across 70,491 to 1,002,848 certified addresses per city (fetched 30 October 2026). More cross-city comparisons are on the market analysis section of the Homecost blog.