UK house prices rise 1.4% as London falls behind other regions

What happened

UK house prices increased by 1.4% in the year to July 2026, taking the average to £273,000, according to HM Land Registry’s release on 16 September 2026. The annual rate was below June’s revised 1.5%. Although the release describes the movement as an increase in growth, its published figures show a slowdown.

The UK average rose by 0.7% between June and July on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, HM Land Registry said. That compares with a 0.8% increase over the same months in 2025. These monthly figures retain the effects of seasonal patterns, so they should not be read as a measure that has removed normal summer changes.

England’s average property price reached £293,000, following a monthly rise of 0.7% and annual growth of 1.1%, according to the release. Wales recorded a larger monthly increase of 1.0%, while its annual rate was 2.6%. The average Welsh property price stood at £215,000.

London moved in the opposite direction, with prices down 0.1% from June and 3.3% over the year, HM Land Registry reported. Its average nevertheless remained £550,000. Within England, the North East had the strongest annual growth at 4.9%, showing how far regional movements differed from the national figure.

The East Midlands recorded England’s largest monthly increase, at 1.7%, while the South West had the largest monthly fall, at 0.2%, according to HM Land Registry. Separately, HMRC estimated 97,000 UK residential transactions worth at least £40,000 in July. On a seasonally adjusted basis, that total was 1.1% below July 2025 and 1.7% below June 2026.

The background

The UK House Price Index measures completed sales rather than sellers’ initial expectations, HM Land Registry said. It therefore answers a different question from asking-price reports or forecasts, such as the Rightmove outlook for house prices in 2026. HM Land Registry said a purchase typically takes six to eight weeks to reach completion, creating a gap between negotiation and the transaction entering this measure.

According to the published methodology, the index covers market-value purchases for both owner-occupation and buy-to-let. It excludes transactions such as remortgages, where the recorded value is a valuation rather than a sale price. The average uses a geometric mean, so the headline figure is not simply the total value of sales divided by their number.

The Office for National Statistics and Land & Property Services/Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency calculate the index using property prices and characteristics. HM Land Registry said the model draws on information including its Price Paid Dataset. Its England and Wales records include completion dates, property types, new-build status and whether buyers used cash or a mortgage.

HMRC adjusts its UK transaction totals because housing activity normally varies through the year, according to the release. Those adjustments account for seasonal patterns and calendar differences, including Easter and the number of trading days. This means the reported fall in transactions and the monthly rise in prices use different treatments of seasonality.

A completed-sale price is also different from the cost of financing a purchase: the index does not measure a buyer’s monthly mortgage payment. That distinction matters when comparing these figures with family-home affordability and mortgage-rate pressures. A price measure can show the direction of sale values without establishing whether a particular household can afford to buy.

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What people are saying

HM Land Registry’s guidance is to avoid drawing strong conclusions from a single month of house price figures. It said housing indicators can fluctuate from month to month. Its emphasis on completed transactions also limits what July’s results can establish about negotiations taking place in October.

The department said it had changed publication arrangements because there were too few new-build transactions to support reliable estimates. It is withholding some recent average-price and percentage-change figures for new builds and existing resold homes. The release’s notes specify that figures for the two most recent months are affected by the shortage of new-build records.

HM Land Registry said transactions requiring a new register, including new builds, are more complex and take longer to process. Following a review, it extended the index’s revision window to 13 months so estimates could incorporate more complete information. The July release therefore contains figures that remain open to revision rather than a permanently fixed account of the market.

On repossessions, HM Land Registry reported that London had England’s highest sales volume and the East of England its lowest, but supplied no regional counts in the accompanying text. It recorded four repossession sales in Wales in May 2026. The department defines these as transactions lodged by lenders exercising their power of sale, rather than a count of households missing mortgage payments.

What happens next

HM Land Registry has scheduled the August 2026 index for 9.30am on 21 October 2026. Its normal timetable places publication on the second or third Wednesday of each month, while Northern Ireland figures are updated quarterly. The next release will provide another month of completed-sale evidence, not a direct reading of October’s asking prices.

The next figures will allow comparisons with July’s regional differences, including London’s annual decline and the North East’s stronger growth. Those averages do not establish how every price bracket is performing. Separate evidence on slower sales and asking-price gaps for £2m-plus homes addresses a narrower part of the market than the national index.

For readers checking changes to earlier estimates, HM Land Registry provides revision tables for England and Wales in downloadable CSV files. It also publishes sales volumes split between new and existing properties, and between cash and mortgage purchases. Those breakdowns offer detail not contained in the headline £273,000 UK average.

HM Land Registry publishes monthly raw and cleansed aggregated data for England, Scotland and Wales, with Northern Ireland data supplied quarterly. The files are available for reuse under the Open Government Licence. Anyone comparing successive releases should check the observation month and revised figures, rather than assuming the publication date is when the reported sales occurred.

Why this matters

For buyers and sellers, HM Land Registry’s figures show why a national average is not a valuation of an individual home: London prices fell annually while the North East recorded growth. The index measures completed sales, so it cannot establish today’s asking price or a household’s mortgage costs. With recent estimates also subject to revision, the practical distinction is between evidence of past transactions and the price and finance terms available for a particular purchase.