House price statistics for small areas in England and Wales: year ending December 2022

• The median price paid for residential properties in Lower-layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in England ranged from £32,000 (within Sunderland) to £6.5 million (within Barnet) in the 12 months ending December 2022.

• The median price paid for residential properties in LSOAs in Wales ranged from £54,000 (within Denbighshire) to £668,000 (within Monmouthshire) in the 12 months ending December 2022.

• The number of residential property sales decreased by 32% in England and 27% in Wales between the 12 months ending December 2021 and the 12 months ending December 2022.

• The number of detached property sales decreased by 42% in England and 38% in Wales between the 12 months ending December 2021 and the 12 months ending December 2022; this was the largest decrease of all property types.

There are 49 house price statistics for small areas (HPSSA) datasets in total, which show house prices by property type for various geographies in England and Wales, as well as the number of property transactions. Linked here are the most frequently downloaded datasets.

Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA)

A Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA) is a geographic hierarchy designed to improve the reporting of small area statistics in England and Wales. As at 1 April 2022, using Census 2011 data, there were 34,753 LSOAs in England and Wales, each containing between 400 and 1,200 households. In our next publication on 20 September 2023, we aim to publish using geography boundaries as at 1 April 2023, using Census 2021 data. More information can be found by visiting the Census geography webpage.

Data collection

The house price statistics for small areas (HPSSAs) use data from HM Land Registry. This is to provide statistics on the price paid and number of residential property transactions for properties sold in each area in England and Wales. Properties sold at a discount to the market level, such as properties sold under the Right to Buy scheme, are not included in these statistics.

HPSSAs are currently updated quarterly or annually, with each release adding a new 12-month period to the data. However, HPSSA publication frequency is under review. More information is available in "Upcoming changes". The use of rolling annual data removes seasonal effects, which refers to peaks and troughs in property transactions at particular times of the year. It also reduces the impact of registration lag, where there is a delay in registration by HM Land Registry after the completed date.

The HPSSAs are compiled using the latest available version of the published Price Paid dataset from HM Land Registry. The property registration process can take time, particularly for new build properties. Therefore, the HPSSAs may not fully reflect all transactions that have taken place in the reference period and may be subject to revision.

Currently, estimates for all time periods (since the period "year ending December 1995") are revised with each HPSSA release using the latest available Price Paid dataset. Users should use caution when drawing conclusions from these data. Further information can be found within our UK House Price Index (UK HPI) bulletin.

Differences to other house price statistics

There are two sets of official statistics for house prices. In addition to these HPSSAs, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also produces the UK House Price Index (UK HPI). The HPSSAs measure the number of property transactions and the price paid for properties sold in a given period, while the UK HPI measures the changing value of properties in the housing market.

HPSSA estimates reflect average house prices at particular points in time and do not account for changes in property mix between time periods. This means that each 12-month period estimate is not comparable with other 12-month period estimates. Users are advised not to infer trends in the house price market over time by comparing price estimates.

The UK HPI publishes average house price statistics which are comparable over time.

You can find out more about the differences and uses of these outputs in our House price statistics for small areas Quality and Methodology information (QMI).

Quality

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the our House price statistics for small areas QMI.

Dataset publication frequency

The HPSSA collection provides annual statistical datasets which are updated annually or quarterly, as described in Table 1 of our previous HPSSA release.

Upcoming changes

We are making changes to the revision period for the HPSSAs. Currently, estimates for all time periods (since the period "year ending December 1995") are revised with each HPSSA release. However, the majority of transactions are processed within 10 years of completion and HPSSA estimates are therefore unlikely to change after a period of 10 years following the end of the reference period. Therefore, we are reducing the HPSSA revision period to 10 years. This means that, for example, the HPSSA releases covering the period "year ending March 2023" will revise estimates for the period "year ending March 2013" and later periods.

We also propose to change the publication frequency of some HPSSA datasets, to change the timing of some annual HPSSA datasets, and to discontinue some other HPSSA datasets. This change will take effect from the next publication in September 2023 for "year ending March 2023".

In Table 1:

• HPSSA datasets with "annual" periodicity will be published in September (estimates for "year ending March")

• HPSSA datasets with "bi-annual" periodicity will also be published in March (estimates for "year ending September") in addition to publication in September (estimates for "year ending March")

• HPSSA datasets with "discontinued" periodicity will no longer be published

Annual HPSSA datasets will be published for the period "year ending March" to meet user needs for data covering the financial year. If you have any feedback about this change, please contact hpi@ons.gov.uk.