Buy the typical home in Portsmouth or Southampton and the price is almost identical — £259,000 and £260,000 in 2025 — but head 30 miles west to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and the median jumps to £337,500. Add a mortgage at today's quoted rate and the council tax bill, and these three south-coast cities separate into a clear ladder: roughly £1,251 a month for the median Portsmouth home, £1,263 in Southampton and £1,584 across the BCP conurbation. Every figure below comes from completed HM Land Registry sales, published council tax rates and HMRC's stamp duty tables.
Based on nearly 10,900 completed Land Registry sales across the three areas in 2025, 2026-27 council tax rates and HMRC's 2026 stamp duty tables. Browse the full regional price guides for the single-city detail.
What the typical home costs to buy
| City (2025 sales) | Median sale price | Average (mean) | Sales | Most-sold type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portsmouth | £259,000 | ~£302,000 | 2,445 | Terraced (57%) |
| Southampton | £260,000 | ~£278,000 | 2,698 | Flats (largest segment) |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole | £337,500 | ~£395,000 | 5,696 | Detached + flats (bimodal) |
The two Solent cities are priced within £1,000 of each other, but they get there differently. Portsmouth is Britain's only island city — dense Victorian and Edwardian terraces dominate, making up about 57% of 2025 sales, which keeps the median low; genuinely detached houses are a rarity (just 91 sold, at a £545,000 median). Southampton is flat-led: flats were its single largest segment, at a £160,000 median, sitting below its semis (£305,000) and terraces (£260,000).
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is a bigger, more polarised market. Detached houses (2,193 sold, £475,000 median) and flats (1,912 sold, £215,000) are its two largest segments, which is why its average sale sat about £58,000 above its median — a gap we unpack in our guide to the difference between median and mean house prices. Within the conurbation, Christchurch (£415,000 median) is dearer than Poole (£335,000) and Bournemouth itself (£306,500).
Council tax: all three below or near the England average
| City | Band D 2026-27 | vs England average (£2,410.97) |
|---|---|---|
| Portsmouth | £2,291.71 | −£119 |
| Southampton | £2,381.48 | −£29 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole | £2,435.58 | +£25 |
None of the three is an outlier. Portsmouth has the lowest Band D of the group, £119 below the England average across all 296 billing authorities; BCP sits £25 above it. Band D is a benchmark rather than most people's actual bill — a Band A home pays six-ninths of the Band D figure and a Band H home three times as much as Band A, under the Local Government Finance Act 1992. Our guide to how council tax bands work explains how the band is set.
The all-in monthly cost
Purchase price is a one-off; the monthly cost is what you live with. Combining a mortgage on the median home with the council tax bill produces this ladder:
| City | Median price | Mortgage (75% LTV, 25 yr) | Council tax /mo | All-in /mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portsmouth | £259,000 | ~£1,060 | £191 | ~£1,251 |
| Southampton | £260,000 | ~£1,064 | £198 | ~£1,263 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole | £337,500 | ~£1,381 | £203 | ~£1,584 |
These figures assume a 25% deposit and a repayment mortgage over 25 years at the Bank of England's quoted rate for a five-year fixed deal at 75% loan-to-value — 4.32% in its most recent monthly data. They cover the mortgage and council tax only: energy, buildings insurance, maintenance, and any service charge or ground rent (relevant to the many leasehold flats in all three cities) are on top. An individual rate will depend on the lender, deposit and circumstances.
The pattern is striking. Portsmouth and Southampton land within about £12 a month of each other — the near-identical price feeds through to a near-identical bill. BCP costs roughly £320 to £330 a month more, and almost all of that gap is the mortgage: the home costs about £78,000 more to buy, while the council tax difference between BCP and Portsmouth is only around £12 a month.
Stamp duty on the median home
| City | Median | Home mover | First-time buyer | Additional property (+5%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portsmouth | £259,000 | £2,950 | £0 | £15,900 |
| Southampton | £260,000 | £3,000 | £0 | £16,000 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole | £337,500 | £6,875 | £1,875 | £23,750 |
The £300,000 first-time-buyer nil-rate band is the dividing line. Both Solent medians sit below it, so a qualifying first-time buyer pays no stamp duty at all, while a home mover pays about £3,000. In BCP the median sits above £300,000, so first-time buyer relief tapers to £1,875 and a mover pays £6,875. Buyers of an additional property — a second home or a buy-to-let — add the 5% surcharge across the whole price, which is why the right-hand column runs into five figures everywhere. These are HMRC's 2026 residential rates for England; you can run any price through the stamp duty calculator, and a conveyancer confirms which rate applies on completion.
Which way have prices moved
The UK House Price Index, which adjusts for the changing mix of homes sold, shows all three areas easing over the year to April 2026 on a three-month-smoothed basis: Portsmouth −1.5%, Southampton −1.5% and BCP −2.3%, against +1.4% for England as a whole, −0.4% for the South East and +0.9% for the South West. These are backward-looking measures of movement that has already happened, not a forecast. Raw median prices, which do not adjust for the mix of homes sold, were flatter — BCP's raw median actually edged up about 1.4% into 2025 — so the mix-adjusted index is the steadier read, with both worth keeping in view.
See the numbers for a specific street
Homecost calculates the all-in cost of every home on a street from its last sale price, EPC and today's rates. Try a postcode in Portsmouth (PO4 0AA), Southampton (SO14 0AA) or Bournemouth (BH1 1AA), or open the mortgage calculator with any price and deposit. For the full single-city picture behind this comparison, see our guides to house prices in Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole.
This is general information based on published data, not financial, tax or property advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.