UK House Price Index: September 2022

• UK average house prices increased by 9.5% over the year to September 2022, down from 13.1% in August 2022.

• The annual percentage change slowed this month because UK house prices rose sharply in September 2021, which coincided with changes to Stamp Duty Land Tax.

• UK house prices remained unchanged between August and September 2022; this also caused the annual percentage change to slow.

• The average UK house price was £295,000 in September 2022, which is £26,000 higher than this time last year, and unchanged since August 2022.

• Average house prices increased over the year to £314,000 (9.6%) in England, to £224,000 in Wales (12.9%), to £192,000 in Scotland (7.3%) and to £176,000 in Northern Ireland (10.7%).

The latest house price data published on GOV.UK by HM Land Registry (HMLR) for September 2022 show that average house prices in the UK increased by 9.5% in the year to September 2022. This was down from 13.1% in the year to August 2022.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic affected the supply of housing transactions for a period of time. Further information can be found in Measuring the data.

Steadily increasing prices throughout 2022 resulted in the average UK house price reaching a joint record high. The average UK house price was £295,000 in September 2022, which is £26,000 higher than this time last year, and unchanged since August 2022.

The annual percentage change for average UK house prices for September 2022 was 9.5%, compared with 13.1% in the year to August 2022, and 15.2% in the year to July 2022. Average UK house prices increased by a smaller amount between July and September 2022 than the same period last year. This base effect has led to the slowing of annual percentage change since July 2022.

Average UK house prices increased by £3,200 between July and August 2022 and remained unchanged between August and September 2022. In contrast, average UK house prices increased by £7,500 between July and August 2021, and by £8,600 between August and September 2021. It is likely that average house prices were slightly inflated in September 2021, as buyers in England and Northern Ireland rushed to complete property purchases before Stamp Duty Land Tax changes at the end of September 2021. Further information on the effect that changes to land taxes had on UK house prices in 2021 can be found in our previous UK House Price Index bulletin.

The provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of UK residential transactions in September 2022 was 103,930, as shown in HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Monthly property transactions statistics. This is 36.8% lower than September 2021 and 0.2% higher than August 2022.

The average UK house price was £295,000 in September 2022; this is £26,000 higher than in September 2021.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the average UK house price remained unchanged between August and September 2022. The average UK house price increased by 3.3% between August and September 2021.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the average UK house price increased by 0.1% between August and September 2022, following an increase of 1.2% in the previous month. The average UK house price increased by 3.5% between August and September 2021.

The average house price in Scotland increased by 7.3% over the year to September 2022, down from an increase of 8.8% in the year to August 2022. The average house price in Scotland was £192,000 in September 2022.

The average house price in Wales increased by 12.9% over the year to September 2022, down from an increase of 14.3% in the year to August 2022. The average house price in Wales was at a record level of £224,000 in September 2022.

The average house price in England increased by 9.6% over the year to September 2022, down from an increase of 13.7% in the year to August 2022. The average house price in England was at its record level of £314,000 in September 2022, unchanged from August 2022.

The average house price in Northern Ireland increased by 10.7% over the year to Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2022. Northern Ireland remains the cheapest country in the UK in which to purchase a property, with the average house price at £176,000.

The South West was the region with the highest annual house price inflation, with average prices increasing by 11.9% in the year to September 2022. This was down from an annual percentage change of 16.8% in August 2022.

The North East continued to have the lowest average house price of all English regions, at £164,000 in September 2022, which is a record high for the region. The North East has replaced London as the region with the lowest annual percentage change. Average prices for the North East increased by 5.8% over the year to September 2022, down from 13.5% in August 2022. The base effect has reduced annual percentage change in the North East in September 2022, since average house prices rose sharply in the North East in September 2021. This rise coincided with changes to Stamp Duty Land Tax. In contrast, house prices did not rise sharply in London in September 2021, so London’s annual percentage change was not affected to the same extent. Overall, this has led to the North East having the lowest annual percentage change of all English regions in September 2022.

London’s average house prices remain the most expensive of any region in the UK, with an average price of £544,000 in September 2022.

House Price Index (HPI)

The House Price Index (HPI) measures the price changes of residential housing as a percentage change from a specific time period (12 months before, or a base period where the HPI in 2015 equals 100).

House price inflation

House price inflation in the UK is the rate at which the prices of residential properties purchased in the UK rise and fall.

Non-seasonally adjusted

A non-seasonally adjusted series is one that includes seasonal or calendar effects.

Seasonally adjusted

A seasonally adjusted series is one that has been subject to a widely used technique for removing seasonal or calendar effects from time series data.

The UK House Price Index (HPI) is a joint production by HM Land Registry (HMLR), Registers of Scotland, Land and Property Services Northern Ireland, and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). HMLR publishes the UK House Price Index reports on GOV.UK (at 9:30am, 16 November 2022). The reports contain full details, including commentary, historical data tables and analytical tools.

Economic statistics governance after EU exit

More information regarding the new governance following the UK’s exit from the EU is available in our previous Index of Private Housing Rental Prices bulletin.

HM Land Registry (HMLR) transactions

HMLR has increased the use of automation in application processing. This means that initial transaction numbers may be lower than pre-pandemic volumes; however, in the medium to long term, this will lead to higher volumes being processed.

We have temporarily changed the date we receive the transaction data from HMLR. As a result, we receive more transactions than those immediately seen in the published HMLR’s Price Paid Data datasets.

The processing of new build properties has been more affected than the processing of “old build” properties. So, to address this, we have pooled new build transactions for certain months in England and Wales, which means that:

• March 2022 includes new build transactions from February and March 2022

• April 2022 includes new build transactions from March and April 2022

• May 2022 includes new build transactions from April and May 2022

• June 2022 includes new build transactions from May and June 2022

• July 2022 includes new build transactions from June and July 2022

• August 2022 includes new build transactions from July and August 2022

September 2022 has not been affected as new builds are excluded from the model for the first estimate because of the nature of their processing.

These changes might lead to larger revisions to published estimates than usual as we reduce the reliance on pooling. Further information on how we usually process the new build properties can be found in HMLR’s Quality and methodology guidance.

Sales volumes

Sales only appear in the UK HPI once the purchases have been registered or submitted for registration in the case of sales in Scotland (based on completed sales rather than advertised or approved prices). Therefore, there can be a delay before transactions feed into the index. Estimates for the most recent months are provisional and likely to be updated as more data are incorporated into the index.

The latest estimates for September 2022 are based on approximately 39,000 records for England, which currently represent roughly 41% of monthly property transactions as published by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). They are based on approximately 6,000 records for Scotland (59% of transactions) and approximately 2,000 records for Wales (45% of transactions). This represents the number of records that are available at the time of calculating the UK HPI and not the number of transactions that have taken place. As time progresses, more records will become available for September 2022, in line with our published revision policy.

However, it should be noted that there are some coverage differences between the sales volumes used in the UK HPI dataset and the monthly property transactions statistics data. This means that the two are not directly comparable, and sales volumes in the UK HPI are unlikely to ever reach the transaction levels published by HMRC. It is believed that the main reason for this difference is that residential properties where the buyer or seller is a corporate body, company or business are excluded from the HMLR data in the UK HPI, but included in HMRC property transaction statistics.

Data sources

The main sources of data used in the UK are HMLR for England and Wales, Registers of Scotland, and HMRC’s Stamp Duty Land Tax data for the Northern Ireland HPI.

Methods

The method for calculating the UK HPI can be found in HMLR’s Quality and methodology guidance.

Quality

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in HMLR’s UK House Price Index guidance on GOV.UK.

Further information on strengths and limitations of the data can be found in Section 1.4 of HM Land Registry’s (HMLR’s) Quality and methodology guidance.