In 2024, more than half of every home sold in London was a flat. Flats made up 53.3% of standard residential sales across the capital's 33 boroughs — the only local-authority area in England and Wales where flats are the majority of what changes hands. Nationally, flats were just 17.4% of sales.
That gap matters before you compare one city's "average house price" with another's. A headline median from a flat-heavy market and one from a house-heavy market are not measuring the same thing — and a city's flat share tells you by how much.
Figures below are drawn from HM Land Registry Price Paid data for 2024, the most recent complete year, covering 758,064 standard residential sales in England and Wales. "Flats" are Land Registry property type F; "houses" combine detached, semi-detached and terraced homes.
London is a flat market. Most of the country is not.
| City (local authority) | Flat share of sales | Homes sold, 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| London (33 boroughs) | 53.3% | 83,491 |
| Brighton & Hove | 46.3% | 3,699 |
| Manchester | 42.8% | 4,967 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole | 36.6% | 5,653 |
| Bristol | 34.1% | 5,845 |
| Salford | 34.1% | 3,412 |
| Southampton | 32.3% | 2,557 |
| Portsmouth | 26.4% | 2,322 |
| Liverpool | 23.0% | 4,787 |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | 21.8% | 3,590 |
| Cardiff | 21.8% | 4,468 |
| Birmingham | 20.1% | 9,338 |
| Plymouth | 18.7% | 3,656 |
| England & Wales (average) | 17.4% | 758,064 |
| Sheffield | 14.5% | 6,324 |
| Nottingham | 14.3% | 2,727 |
| Leeds | 13.5% | 10,048 |
| Coventry | 13.0% | 3,584 |
| Leicester | 11.6% | 2,150 |
| Bradford | 10.4% | 6,402 |
| Newport | 10.3% | 2,138 |
| Wolverhampton | 10.1% | 2,225 |
| Swansea | 8.6% | 2,888 |
| Sunderland | 8.2% | 3,205 |
| Derby | 8.0% | 2,861 |
| Stoke-on-Trent | 6.0% | 2,974 |
| Kingston upon Hull | 5.5% | 2,772 |
| Wakefield | 4.3% | 4,554 |
The spread is enormous: in London, 53.3% of sales were flats; in Wakefield, Hull and Stoke-on-Trent, fewer than one in sixteen. The first thing to take from the table is that "the average home" means something different in each place — a two-bed flat in one city, a three-bed semi in another.
Why the flat share changes what "average price" means
A median is simply the middle sale: half of homes sold for more, half for less. Because flats sell for less than houses in almost every city, a market with a high flat share has its median pulled downward, toward the price of a flat rather than a house. In a house-led market, the median already sits close to what a house costs.
Here is the effect in five cities, using 2024 medians:
| City | Flat share | Median flat | Median house | Headline (all types) | House − headline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 53.3% | £450,000 | £625,000 | £530,000 | +£95,000 |
| Manchester | 42.8% | £250,000 | £260,000 | £255,000 | +£5,000 |
| Bristol | 34.1% | £255,500 | £375,400 | £340,000 | +£35,400 |
| Sheffield | 14.5% | £145,000 | £228,000 | £213,000 | +£15,000 |
| Leeds | 13.5% | £160,000 | £254,000 | £240,000 | +£14,000 |
In London, the all-types median of £530,000 undersells what a house costs by £95,000: the median London house — detached, semi or terrace — sold for £625,000. In Bristol the same gap is about £35,000. In house-led Leeds and Sheffield, where flats are barely one in seven sales, the headline median lands within £15,000 of the house median, because there are too few flats to drag it down.
Manchester is the instructive exception. Despite a 42.8% flat share — the third-highest in the country — its median flat (£250,000) and median house (£260,000) sold for almost the same price, so the city-wide median barely moves. Manchester's flats are disproportionately new-build city-centre apartments that command house-level prices, not the cheaper converted or older flats that pull medians down elsewhere. A high flat share depresses the headline only where flats are genuinely cheaper than houses.
The pattern: capital, coast and city-centre booms vs the terraced north
The flat-heavy end of the table has two recognisable groups. The first is the capital and the southern coast: London (53.3%), Brighton & Hove (46.3%), Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (36.6%), Southampton (32.3%) and Portsmouth (26.4%) — dense, land-constrained places where flats and coastal apartments make up a large share of the stock. The second is the big regional cities that saw city-centre apartment booms over the last two decades: Manchester (42.8%), Salford (34.1%), Liverpool (23.0%) and Newcastle upon Tyne (21.8%).
At the other end are the Midlands and northern cities built around terraces and semis: Wakefield (4.3%), Hull (5.5%), Stoke-on-Trent (6.0%), Derby (8.0%), Sunderland (8.2%) and Bradford (10.4%). In these markets a buyer's default is a house, and the flat is the exception.
What a flat-heavy market means for your costs
The flat share is not just a curiosity of price statistics — it shapes the monthly bill. Nationally, the overwhelming majority of flats are sold leasehold, which typically brings a service charge, and often a ground rent, on top of the mortgage and council tax. Houses are usually freehold and carry neither. Our breakdown of the leasehold versus freehold house share by major city shows how sharply that split varies from one city to the next.
That means two cities with similar headline medians can carry quite different running costs if one is flat-led and the other house-led. A £250,000 city-centre flat with a £2,000-a-year service charge is a different proposition from a £250,000 freehold terrace with none. Our guides to typical new-build service charges and to the cost of buying a flat versus a house walk through how those line items stack up, buying in London versus Manchester sets two very different markets side by side, and the cheapest flat prices across the major cities shows where flats are cheapest to buy in the first place. For more data pieces like this, browse our market analysis.
See the real cost for a specific home
Averages hide a lot. To see the all-in monthly cost — mortgage at the current Bank of England quoted rate, council tax, energy and stamp duty — for real homes on a real street, put a postcode into the Homecost tool. Try a flat-heavy London postcode like E14 9SH (Canary Wharf), or a house-led Manchester one like M3 3EB, and compare what the same budget buys in each.
This is general information, not financial, mortgage or legal advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.
Based on 758,064 HM Land Registry standard residential sales across England and Wales in 2024. More on how we use the data.