Local market reports › DL

DL local market report Darlington

Every figure on this page comes from the public record: 206,982 sales registered with HM Land Registry in the DL postcode area (Darlington) since 1995, each one a completed purchase at a real price, plus current rental figures from the ONS. Nothing here is a valuation, an estimate or an asking price.

Sales data to May 2026. Rents: ONS, May 2026. Regenerated with every monthly data refresh.

DL is the postcode area centred on Darlington, taking in 17 districts. Figures this wide smooth over big local differences, so use the district reports below for anywhere specific.

What a home in DL sells for

The 2026 median in DL is £150,000, from 1,582 registered sales; the mean, £188,700, sits well above it, the signature of a heavy top tail: a handful of expensive sales lifting the average.

For scale: the England and Wales median is £274,000, so DL trades 45% below the country as a whole.

In cash terms the typical DL home went from £45,000 in 1995 to £150,000 in 2026, roughly 3.3 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 57%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not just more expensive on paper. Measured in today's money the market peaked in 2007; the current median sits about 27% below that. Someone who bought at the 2007 peak has not yet seen that price back in real terms.

The strongest year on record here is 2004 (+29.4% on the year before); the weakest, 2026 (−5.0%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.

Annualised returns

Period	Cash, per year	Real terms, per year
1 years (since 2025)	−5.0%	−5.0%
5 years (since 2021)	0.0%	−4.2%
10 years (since 2016)	+1.4%	−1.7%
20 years (since 2006)	+1.2%	−1.5%

Compound annual growth of the median sold price; the real column deflates by ONS CPIH. Annualised figures smooth the cycle (the chart above shows the cycle), and past growth is a record, not a forecast.

Transaction volumes

DL recorded 5,500 sales in the last twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 8,399 sales a year before the financial crisis and 6,146 a year over the last five. Volume matters as much as price: when few homes change hands, the median gets jumpy and a single street can move the figure. The most recent year is always still filling in, because sales appear in the Land Registry weeks or months after completion.

What homes rent for around DL

DL falls under County Durham, the local authority covering most of the DL area (parts fall under North Yorkshire and Darlington, where rents differ), where the ONS puts the average private rent at £638 a month (May 2026 figures). A one-bed averages £447 a month here and a four-or-more-bed £982, so size does most of the work in setting the rent.

Set against the £150,000 median sold price, £638 a month is £7,656 a year, a gross yield of 5.1%: gross, before letting costs, voids, maintenance and tax, so a ceiling rather than a promise. Rents are published at local-authority level, so nearby districts in the same authority share these figures.

Will DL prices rise from here?

Nobody can tell you that, and this page will not pretend to. What the record shows: the median is roughly flat over five years in cash but down 19% after inflation. If you are weighing a purchase, read the volume chart alongside the price one, and remember that every figure here is a completed sale, lagged by the weeks it takes the Land Registry to register it.

Ladders and snakes: five-year risers and fallers

The spread across the DL area is the point: the same five years treated these districts very differently.

District by district

The area medians above hide a lot. Here is every DL district with enough sales to measure, dearest first; each links to its own full report.

District	Median (2026)	5-year	Sales
DL11 Swaledale, Reeth	£342,500	+5%	20
DL8	£288,000	+1%	83
DL6 Northallerton (east), Ingleby Cross	£265,500	+11%	66
DL10 Richmond, Catterick	£257,500	+14%	76
DL2 Staindrop, Gainford	£235,000	+2%	93
DL7 Northallerton (west), Romanby	£235,000	-2%	55
DL12 Barnard Castle, Bowes	£235,000	+9%	37
DL9 Catterick Garrison	£155,000	+5%	31
DL3 Darlington (west), Faverdale	£140,000	-1%	202
DL16 Spennymoor	£133,500	+3%	100
DL1 Darlington (east)	£132,200	+15%	190
DL13 Stanhope, Frosterley	£130,000	-11%	51
DL5 Newton Aycliffe, Heighington	£126,800	-9%	98
DL14 Bishop Auckland, Evenwood	£108,000	+17%	207
DL15 Crook, Willington	£104,000	+4%	99
DL17 Ferryhill, Chilton	£80,200	+27%	104
DL4 Shildon	£71,200	+27%	70

Dig further

See every individual DL sale on the live map, mapped to the exact address, or the quick-reference DL price page. The report tool writes a custom answer to a specific question, and the mortgage and rent calculator on any sale runs the numbers on a real purchase.

How this page is made: the statistics are computed from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0), geocoded to address level; inflation adjustment uses the ONS CPIH index; rents are the ONS Price Index of Private Rents at local-authority level. Medians of recorded sales, not valuations. Nothing on this page is financial advice.