We use some essential cookies to make this website work.
We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.
We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.
You can change your cookie settings at any time.
Find information and services
Search for a department and find out what the government is doing
Departments, agencies and public bodies
News stories, speeches, letters and notices
Detailed guidance, regulations and rules
Reports, analysis and official statistics
Consultations and strategy
Data, Freedom of Information releases and corporate reports
The UK HPI shows house price changes for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Image credit: Stephen Bridger/Shutterstock.com
In the past 12 months all those involved in the property market have been impacted by the effects of COVID-19; HM Land Registry is no different and as a result, this release of the UK House Price index is not as complete as it could be.
The data is accurate; however, this release may be subject to increased revisions as more data is added over the coming months. See Reducing delays for further information.
The May data shows:
In England the May data shows, on average, house prices have risen by 0.4% since April 2021. The annual price rise of 9.7% takes the average property value to £271,434.
The regional data for England indicates that:
The lowest number of repossession sales in March 2021 was in the East of England.
The highest number of repossession sales in March 2021 was in the North West.
*Figures for the 2 most recent months are not being published because there are not enough new build transactions to give a meaningful result.
London shows, on average, house prices have fallen by 0.7% since April 2021. An annual price rise of 5.2% takes the average property value to £497,948.
*Figures for the 2 most recent months are not being published because there are not enough new build transactions to give a meaningful result.
Wales shows, on average, house prices have risen by 0.8% since April 2021. An annual price rise of 13.3% takes the average property value to £184,297.
There were 12 repossession sales for Wales in March 2021.
*Figures for the 2 most recent months are not being published because there are not enough new build transactions to give a meaningful result.
UK house prices increased by 10.0% in the year to May 2021, up from 9.6% in April 2021. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices in the UK increased by 0.9% between April and May 2021, compared with an increase of 0.5% during the same period a year earlier (April and May 2020).
The UK Property Transactions Statistics showed that in May 2021, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the estimated number of transactions of residential properties with a value of £40,000 or greater was 114,940. This is 138.2% higher than a year ago. Between April and May 2021, UK transactions decreased by 3.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis.
House price growth was strongest in the North West where prices increased by 15.2% in the year to May 2021. The lowest annual growth was in London, where prices increased by 5.2% in the year to May 2021.
See the economic statement.
The UK HPI is based on completed housing transactions. Typically, a house purchase can take 6 to 8 weeks to reach completion. The price data feeding into the May 2021 UK HPI will mainly reflect those agreements that occurred after the government measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 took hold.
Access the full UK HPI
Our absolute top priority is to reduce any delays, both those caused by the pandemic and those existing beforehand. To deliver our services while promoting public health, we are:
We publish the UK House Price Index (HPI) on the second or third Wednesday of each month with Northern Ireland figures updated quarterly. We will publish the June 2021 UK HPI at 9.30am on Wednesday 18 August 2021. See calendar of release dates.
We have made some changes to improve the accuracy of the UK HPI. We are not publishing average price and percentage change for new builds and existing resold property as done previously because there are not currently enough new build transactions to provide a reliable result. This means that in this month’s UK HPI reports, new builds and existing resold property are reported in line with the sales volumes currently available.
The UK HPI revision period has been extended to 13 months, following a review of the revision policy (see calculating the UK HPI section 4.4). This ensures the data used is more comprehensive.
Sales volume data is available by property status (new build and existing property) and funding status (cash and mortgage) in our downloadable data tables. Transactions that require us to create a new register, such as new builds, are more complex and require more time to process. Read revisions to the UK HPI data.
Revision tables are available for England and Wales within the downloadable data in CSV format. See about the UK HPI for more information.
HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland, Land & Property Services/Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and the Valuation Office Agency supply data for the UK HPI.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Land & Property Services/Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency calculate the UK HPI. It applies a hedonic regression model that uses the various sources of data on property price, including HM Land Registry’s Price Paid Dataset, and attributes to produce estimates of the change in house prices each month. Find out more about the methodology used from the ONS and Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.
We take the UK Property Transaction statisticsare from the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) monthly estimates of the number of residential and non-residential property transactions in the UK and its constituent countries. The number of property transactions in the UK is highly seasonal, with more activity in the summer months and less in the winter. This regular annual pattern can sometimes mask the underlying movements and trends in the data series. HMRC presents the UK aggregate transaction figures on a seasonally adjusted basis. We make adjustments for both the time of year and the construction of the calendar, including corrections for the position of Easter and the number of trading days in a particular month.
UK HPI seasonally adjusted series are calculated at regional and national levels only. See data tables.
The first estimate for new build average price (July 2016 report) was based on a small sample which can cause volatility. A three-month moving average has been applied to the latest estimate to remove some of this volatility.
The UK HPI reflects the final transaction price for sales of residential property. Using the geometric mean, it covers purchases at market value for owner-occupation and buy-to-let, excluding those purchases not at market value (such as re-mortgages), where the ‘price’ represents a valuation.
HM Land Registry provides information on residential property transactions for England and Wales, collected as part of the official registration process for properties that are sold for full market value.
The HM Land Registry dataset contains the sale price of the property, the date when the sale was completed, full address details, the type of property (detached, semi-detached, terraced or flat), if it is a newly built property or an established residential building and a variable to indicate if the property has been purchased as a financed transaction (using a mortgage) or as a non-financed transaction (cash purchase).
Repossession sales data is based on the number of transactions lodged with HM Land Registry by lenders exercising their power of sale.
For England, we show repossession sales volume recorded by government office region. For Wales, we provide repossession sales volume for the number of repossession sales.
Repossession sales data is available from July 2016 in CSV format. Find out more information about repossession sales.
We publish CSV files of the raw and cleansed aggregated data every month for England, Scotland and Wales. We publish Northern Ireland data on a quarterly basis. They are available for free use and re-use under the Open Government Licence.
HM Land Registry’s mission is to guarantee and protect property rights in England and Wales.
HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. Its ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data.
HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership worth in excess of £7 trillion, including over £1 trillion of mortgages. The Land Register contains more than 26 million titles showing evidence of ownership for some 87% of the land mass of England and Wales.
For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.
Follow us on Twitter, our blog, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Press Office
Trafalgar House
1 Bedford Park
Croydon
CR0 2AQ
Email HMLRPressOffice@landregistry.gov.uk
Phone (Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5:30pm) 0300 006 3365
Mobile (5:30pm to 8:30am weekdays, all weekend and public holidays) 07864 689 344
Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details.
To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. We’ll send you a link to a feedback form. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in. Don’t worry we won’t send you spam or share your email address with anyone.
