In 2025, almost one in five homes sold across England and Wales changed hands for £500,000 or more — but where a sale sits above that line has far less to do with the house than with the city it stands in. Of the 778,998 standard residential sales recorded by HM Land Registry for the year (houses and flats, excluding repossessions and bulk transfers), 145,964 — 18.7% — reached £500,000 or above. In Kensington and Chelsea the figure was 88.9%. In Kingston upon Hull it was 0.2%. That is a spread of more than 400 times between two cities in the same country.
The £500,000 mark matters because of what happens to a buyer's tax bill on either side of it. This is a snapshot of where the half-million-pound market actually is, based on Land Registry transactions for the 2025 calendar year (data queried 20 August 2026).
Why £500,000 is a line that bites
£500,000 is not one of the boundaries on the standard stamp duty scale a home mover pays — those fall at £125,000, £250,000, £925,000 and £1.5m. But it is a pivotal figure in two other places.
First-time buyer relief runs out at exactly £500,000. A first-time buyer purchasing their only or main residence pays no Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) on the first £300,000 and 5% on the slice from £300,001 to £500,000 — but only where the price is £500,000 or less. Above that, the relief disappears entirely and the standard rates apply (HMRC, checked 20 August 2026). The effect at the threshold is stark: a first-time buyer paying exactly £500,000 owes £10,000, while at £500,001 the bill jumps to about £15,000 — roughly £5,000 more for a single extra pound, because the relief is lost in full. We explain that step in detail in the £500,000 stamp duty cliff edge and how the relief is structured in first-time buyer relief explained.
The corporate flat rate begins above £500,000. A company or other "non-natural person" buying a single dwelling for more than £500,000 can face a flat 17% charge on the whole price under Schedule 4A of the Finance Act 2003 — raised from 15% on 31 October 2024 — unless a relief applies, for example where the property is held for a genuine letting business (HMRC). At £600,000 that flat rate is £102,000. We cover the exemptions in the corporate flat rate and its reliefs.
Buyers and sellers respond to the line. In 2025, 4,402 homes sold for exactly £500,000, against just 469 in the entire £5,000 band immediately above it (£500,001–£505,000) — a near-tenfold cliff, and a pattern repeated at every major tax threshold.
Share of 2025 sales at £500,000 or above, by city
The table below ranks selected cities by the share of their 2025 sales that reached £500,000. The national figure of 18.7% is shown for reference.
| Area | Sales (2025) | Sold at £500k+ | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kensington & Chelsea | 1,653 | 1,469 | 88.9% |
| Westminster | 2,050 | 1,714 | 83.6% |
| Camden | 1,891 | 1,509 | 79.8% |
| Hammersmith & Fulham | 2,216 | 1,694 | 76.4% |
| Richmond upon Thames | 2,667 | 1,985 | 74.4% |
| Wandsworth | 4,914 | 3,397 | 69.1% |
| London (all boroughs) | 83,179 | 46,064 | 55.4% |
| Cambridge | 1,286 | 631 | 49.1% |
| Oxford | 1,379 | 569 | 41.3% |
| Bath & North East Somerset | 2,726 | 909 | 33.3% |
| Bristol | 6,089 | 1,195 | 19.6% |
| England & Wales | 778,998 | 145,964 | 18.7% |
| Cardiff | 4,503 | 537 | 11.9% |
| Leeds | 9,992 | 857 | 8.6% |
| Manchester | 4,735 | 375 | 7.9% |
| Sheffield | 6,179 | 451 | 7.3% |
| Birmingham | 9,550 | 648 | 6.8% |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | 3,466 | 200 | 5.8% |
| Southampton | 2,698 | 148 | 5.5% |
| Liverpool | 4,711 | 232 | 4.9% |
| Bradford | 6,663 | 326 | 4.9% |
| Coventry | 3,602 | 145 | 4.0% |
| Leicester | 2,294 | 80 | 3.5% |
| Plymouth | 3,804 | 128 | 3.4% |
| Wolverhampton | 2,282 | 70 | 3.1% |
| Nottingham | 2,835 | 72 | 2.5% |
| Sunderland | 3,246 | 33 | 1.0% |
| Stoke-on-Trent | 2,924 | 15 | 0.5% |
| Kingston upon Hull | 2,890 | 6 | 0.2% |
Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, 2025 calendar year, standard ("category A") sales of houses and flats. City figures are grouped by local authority. See more market analysis.
Three things stand out.
London is where the £500,000 market concentrates. The capital's 32 boroughs and the City accounted for around 46,000 of the 145,964 sales at £500,000 or above — roughly 32% of the national total — despite making up only about one in nine transactions. Above £500,000 the market is heavily London-weighted; the national 18.7% is an average of a small number of very high-share areas and a long tail of areas where the line is barely crossed at all.
A handful of provincial cities behave like London. Cambridge (49.1%), Oxford (41.3%) and Bath (33.3%) sit well above every large city in the North and Midlands, and above the national average. In all three, high demand and constrained supply push a large minority of ordinary sales over the half-million mark. Bristol, at 19.6%, sits almost exactly on the national figure.
In most large cities, £500,000 is rare. Leeds (8.6%), Manchester (7.9%), Sheffield (7.3%) and Birmingham (6.8%) — England's biggest cities outside London — each see fewer than one sale in ten reach £500,000. At the floor, Kingston upon Hull recorded just six £500,000-plus sales in the entire year out of 2,890, or one in every 480. For context, the national median sale price in 2025 was £295,000, so £500,000 is roughly 1.7 times the price of a typical home; you can see the low end in detail in our guide to average house prices in Hull.
Even within London, the line swings from 89% to 10%
London is not uniform. The share of sales at £500,000 or above falls steadily from the prime central boroughs to the outer edges of the capital.
| London borough | Share at £500k+ |
|---|---|
| Kensington & Chelsea | 88.9% |
| Westminster | 83.6% |
| Islington | 72.8% |
| Wandsworth | 69.1% |
| Hackney | 64.8% |
| Ealing | 57.6% |
| Southwark | 55.5% |
| Bromley | 54.2% |
| Lewisham | 45.8% |
| Croydon | 34.5% |
| Bexley | 31.0% |
| Barking & Dagenham | 9.8% |
Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, 2025. In Barking & Dagenham, fewer than one sale in ten reached £500,000 — closer to Leeds or Sheffield than to neighbouring inner boroughs.
What the tax bill looks like at exactly £500,000
Because £500,000 is where first-time buyer relief ends and the corporate rate begins, the SDLT owed on a £500,000 purchase varies sharply by who is buying. The figures below are for England and were confirmed against Homecost's stamp duty calculator on 20 August 2026.
| Buyer type | SDLT at £500,000 | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|
| Home mover (standard) | £15,000 | 3.0% |
| First-time buyer | £10,000 | 2.0% |
| Additional property (+5% surcharge) | £40,000 | 8.0% |
| Company, single dwelling over £500,000 (Schedule 4A flat 17%) | 17% of the price | 17% |
The Schedule 4A flat rate applies where the price is more than £500,000, so it does not bite at exactly £500,000; at £600,000 a company with no relief would owe £102,000. For everyone else, the standard scale applies — and a first-time buyer paying one pound over £500,000 loses the £5,000 of relief in full.
Try it for your area
Homecost calculates the all-in cost of any property — mortgage at the current Bank of England quoted rate, council tax, energy and stamp duty for your buyer type — from a single postcode. Compare a prime example such as Westminster (SW1A 1AA), where most sales clear £500,000, with Hull (HU1 1AA), where almost none do, and see how the stamp duty line changes the picture. For more data-led pieces, browse our market analysis section.
This is general information, not advice. Stamp duty depends on your circumstances and can change; speak to a qualified adviser or conveyancer before acting.