Nottingham, Derby and Leicester: what it costs to buy and run a home in 2026

The East Midlands' three biggest cities sit within 40 miles of each other, yet they price up quite differently — and the cheapest one to buy carries the heaviest council tax bill of the three.

Across 2025, the median home sold for £200,000 in Nottingham, £220,000 in Derby and £241,500 in Leicester, according to HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (accessed June 2026). All three are well below the England-and-Wales median of £295,000 — between 18% and 32% cheaper — which is part of what makes the region one of the more affordable places to buy a city home.

But the purchase price is only half the picture. What you pay every year to run a home — starting with council tax — can reorder that ranking. This is a like-for-like comparison of what the same buyer would pay to buy, and then to run, a typical home in each city, using the most recent full year of sales data and the 2026-27 council tax rates.

The three cities at a glance

Figures cover each city council area only (Nottingham E06000018, Derby E06000015, Leicester E06000016) — not the wider NG, DE and LE postcode areas, which take in separate districts such as Rushcliffe, South Derbyshire and Charnwood. We report the median (the middle sale) rather than the average, and exclude non-standard sales — repossessions, transfers below market value and bulk purchases — to keep each figure representative.

For the full picture on each market individually, see our breakdowns of average house prices in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.

What you'd pay to buy

On purchase price, the order is straightforward: Nottingham is the cheapest of the three, Leicester the dearest, with Derby in the middle. The gap from Nottingham to Leicester — £41,500 — is about 21%.

Stamp duty follows the price. England's current residential SDLT charges nothing on the first £125,000, then 2% on the slice up to £250,000 (HMRC, 2026). At each city's median, a home-mover buying their only property would pay:

All three medians sit below the £250,000 threshold, so the bills are modest. A first-time buyer would pay £0 in every case: first-time buyers purchasing their main residence pay no SDLT up to £300,000, with partial relief tapering to £500,000 (HMRC, 2026, following the 1 April 2025 reversion). You can check any price on the stamp duty calculator; a conveyancer confirms eligibility on completion.

For the mortgage, a buyer putting down 25% and borrowing the rest over 25 years at the Bank of England's average 5-year fixed rate at 75% loan-to-value (4.32% in April 2026) would face roughly:

These are illustrative: your actual rate will depend on your lender, deposit and credit profile, and quoted rates move month to month.

What you'd pay to run

Here the order changes. Council tax is not a percentage of price — it is a flat annual charge set by each authority against a property's 1991 valuation band. A council with a lower-value tax base, or tightly drawn boundaries that exclude wealthier suburbs, has to set a higher Band D to raise the same money.

That is what happens in Nottingham. Its Band D of £2,755.39 for 2026-27 is the third-highest of all 296 English billing authorities — behind only Dorset (£2,765.02) and Lewes (£2,756.17). Nottingham's city boundary is unusually tight, excluding affluent neighbours such as West Bridgford in Rushcliffe, which leaves a smaller, lower-value base to fund city services.

Derby sits at the other end: its Band D of £2,306.00 ranks 237th of 296 — among the lightest of any major English city. Leicester is in between, at £2,528.75 (75th).

So the cheapest city to buy carries the heaviest council tax, while Derby, the middle city on price, is the lightest on the annual bill. Expressed as a share of the local median price, Nottingham's Band D is about 1.38% of the purchase price a year, against 1.05% for both Derby and Leicester.

Putting it together

Adding the mortgage and council tax gives an approximate monthly running cost (before energy, insurance and maintenance):

Even with the highest council tax, Nottingham stays the cheapest of the three overall: its lower purchase price saves more on the mortgage than its council tax adds. The council-tax premium over Derby works out at about £38 a month — real, but smaller than the £82 monthly mortgage gap created by the price difference. Leicester is the dearest on both the purchase price and the all-in monthly figure.

The point that recurs across UK cities is this: a low headline price does not automatically mean a low cost of ownership, and the annual running bill can pull in a different direction from the purchase price. We found the same tension in South Wales, where the cheapest city to buy was the most expensive to run.

Energy efficiency: the older the stock, the lower the rating

Running costs do not stop at council tax. Energy is the other big recurring line, and it tracks the age and efficiency of the housing stock. Across the three cities' Energy Performance Certificate records:

All three sit below the level of newer-built cities — a reflection of their large Victorian and Edwardian terraced cores, which are harder to insulate. Leicester is the least efficient of the trio, with a stock that is roughly 60% pre-1945. (EPC modelled running costs use dated assumptions and are best read as directional, not as a current bill.) For where the greener stock is concentrated, see our ranking of the greenest housing stock by UK city.

Which way are prices moving?

The official UK House Price Index — which adjusts for the mix of homes sold, unlike a raw median — shows the three cities diverging slightly in the year to March 2026. Derby's city index rose 0.5% and Leicester's 2.0%, both broadly in line with their surrounding counties (Derbyshire +1.1%, Leicestershire +1.9%). Nottingham's city index was the outlier, easing 0.8% even as Nottinghamshire rose 1.7% (ONS / HM Land Registry UK House Price Index, March 2026 release). For comparison, the UK index was essentially flat, at +0.1%.

These are published index movements for the year already passed, not forecasts.

Try it for your own postcode

Headline city medians hide a lot of local variation — Nottingham's districts alone run from around £150,000 in the centre to £235,000 in the leafier outer suburbs. To see the all-in monthly cost for a specific home, including the mortgage at today's rate, the council tax band and an energy estimate, search any East Midlands postcode on Homecost or browse the full set of regional price guides. For a line-by-line cost breakdown at a typical price point, see our guide to the true cost of buying a £250,000 home.

These figures are based on more than 7,800 standard Land Registry sales across the three cities in 2025 and the 2026-27 council tax rates set by each authority. They are general information, not advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.