The Best and Worst Places to Sell a Property in the UK

Investors may be interested to find out where in the country vendors are most likely to exceed average asking prices for their specific area. Well, now new research has uncovered the best – and worst – places to sell your home based on the sold price to asking price performance.

The best performers

The research has revealed that the northern city of Preston in Lancashire was the best place to have sold a home in the last year. This is because home sellers achieved an average sold price of £214,325, some 121% of the average asking price for the city of £177,177 (table 1).

Kingston Upon Hullin East Yorkshire was home to the second-best city to have sold a home last year with the average sold price commanding 120.9% of the average asking price of £118,857.

The research shows that across the UK in 2019, the average sold price of £339,064 was 96 per cent of the average asking price of £352,552 (table 1).

Other areas seeing the average sold price exceed the average asking price over the past year were Sheffield (120.4%), Southampton (119.3%), Barking and Dagenham (111.3%), Northampton (110.9%), Newham (110%), Sunderland (108.6%) and Wigan (108.3%).

Within the capital, in addition to the top-performing borough of Barking and Newham mentioned above, Haringey (107.2%), Islington 106.6%), Hammersmith and Fulham (106.4%), Tower Hamlets (106.3%), Ealing (105.9%), Hillingdon (105.6%), Brent (104.5%), Bexley (102.1%), Sutton (101.4%), Lewisham (100.6%) and Waltham Forest (100.2%) all saw their average sold prices exceed the average asking price (table 2).

To discover these statistics, GetAgent, the estate agent comparison site, collated data from all of the major property listing portals which were then cross-referenced with the Land Registry using their proprietary algorithms and input from partner agents to see where had enjoyed the best property sale performance, as well as where had endured the worst.

The worst performers

The research ranked Copeland, in the Lake District, as the worst place to have sold a property in the UK with sellers achieving just 72.7 per cent of the local average asking price (table 3). Towns and cities also in negative territory were Pendle, just east of top-performing city Preston (74%), Pembrokeshire, in the southwest of Wales (74.3%) and Burnley in the North (75.1%).

In London, the City of London performed the worst with sellers achieving just 78.9 per cent of the average asking price while Camden (81.9%) and Westminster (84.8%) performed only marginally better (table 2).

Founder and CEO of GetAgent, Colby Short, commented: “A very tough year for the UK property market was always going to bring an underachievement where sold price to asking price performance was concerned and the extent of the damage caused by an uncertain Brexit backdrop is very clear in a large number of areas.

However, what’s perhaps more impressive is the vast number of areas that have defied wider market conditions to see sold prices climb beyond the average asking price.

Not only does this demonstrate the resilience of the market but it shows that in areas where marginal top-line price declines amounted to very little on the average house price, a realistic business as usual attitude from both buyers and sellers kept things moving and in many cases ensured sellers exceeded their asking price expectations.”