Local market reports › EC
Central London market report EC
The standing EC (Central London) property market report, rebuilt from the full public record every month. Underneath every chart here sit 23,054 registered sales in the EC postcode area (Central London) since 1995, the HM Land Registry record of what buyers really paid, with ONS figures covering rents. Nothing is a valuation, an estimate or an asking price.
Sales data to August 2026. Rents: ONS, May 2026. Regenerated with every monthly data refresh. Page updated 19 October 2026.
In short: 167 registered 2026 sales put the the EC postcode area (Central London) median at £650,000, down 24% on five years earlier, with a mean of £741,800, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £11,780 per square metre over the last five years. Everything rests on 23,054 completed HM Land Registry sales since 1995, refreshed monthly; valuations and asking prices play no part.
The figures for EC centred on Central London run across 17 districts, the broad sweep by design. For a specific place, drop down to its district report below.
Where EC sits
Shaded by median price on the same scale as the average prices map. Click any shape to open it on the live map with every sale plotted at its address, or zoom in past street level to see the sold homes right here.
What buyers actually paid in EC
The EC median stands at £650,000 for 2026, built from 167 registered sales; the mean, the figure usually quoted as the "average house price", is £741,800, somewhat above it, as happens wherever a market carries an expensive tail.
Price per square metre in EC
Per square metre, EC homes have averaged around £11,780 over the last five years of sales. The floor areas behind the figure come from Energy Performance Certificates, and the by-the-metre view is the fair comparison across home sizes.
Against a national (England and Wales) median of £285,000, EC runs 128% above it.
A typical EC home, priced year by year (1995 to 2026)
The median as recorded at the time, and each year restated in today's money (ONS CPIH), the sharper test of whether homes really got dearer. Hover for the year-by-year figures; click a legend entry to isolate a series.
See this chart as a table
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | £650,000 | £650,000 | 167 |
| 2025 | £712,000 | £729,026 | 402 |
| 2024 | £850,000 | £903,725 | 730 |
| 2023 | £885,000 | £972,399 | 621 |
| 2022 | £802,500 | £941,023 | 490 |
| 2021 | £858,400 | £1,086,845 | 672 |
| 2020 | £902,400 | £1,170,883 | 540 |
| 2019 | £850,000 | £1,114,147 | 749 |
| 2018 | £873,000 | £1,163,725 | 587 |
| 2017 | £800,000 | £1,091,120 | 466 |
| 2016 | £795,000 | £1,112,213 | 680 |
| 2015 | £765,000 | £1,080,945 | 738 |
| 2014 | £721,800 | £1,023,999 | 732 |
| 2013 | £620,000 | £892,118 | 966 |
| 2012 | £500,000 | £735,938 | 659 |
| 2011 | £465,000 | £701,971 | 675 |
| 2010 | £468,800 | £735,199 | 676 |
| 2009 | £423,000 | £679,976 | 539 |
| 2008 | £400,000 | £655,684 | 485 |
| 2007 | £438,000 | £742,970 | 861 |
| 2006 | £350,000 | £607,555 | 856 |
| 2005 | £320,000 | £569,471 | 740 |
| 2004 | £291,000 | £528,513 | 785 |
| 2003 | £290,000 | £534,250 | 1,049 |
| 2002 | £283,000 | £532,462 | 1,055 |
| 2001 | £250,000 | £480,612 | 1,053 |
| 2000 | £230,000 | £451,375 | 986 |
| 1999 | £197,500 | £393,607 | 1,407 |
| 1998 | £182,400 | £368,187 | 1,040 |
| 1997 | £160,000 | £328,128 | 782 |
| 1996 | £129,800 | £273,742 | 539 |
| 1995 | £112,500 | £244,558 | 327 |
In cash terms the typical EC home went from £112,500 in 1995 to £650,000 in 2026, roughly 6 times the price. Adjusted for inflation it still comes to a real rise of roughly 166%, so homes here got dearer in substance, not only in cash. The real-terms peak came in 2020, and today's median remains roughly 44% under it: a 2020 buyer is still waiting to get that price back in today's money.
Year-on-year change in the EC median
Each bar is the change on the year before, in cash. The zero line is the boundary between rising and falling.
The strongest year on record here is 2007 (+25.1% on the year before); the weakest, 2025 (−16.2%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
Growth per year, over one to twenty years
| Period | Cash, per year | Real terms, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year (since 2025) | −8.7% | −10.8% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | −5.4% | −9.8% |
| 6 years (since 2020) | −5.3% | −9.3% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | −2.0% | −5.2% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +3.1% | +0.3% |
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.
Detached, semi, terraced, flat: four markets in one
A single median hides the split beneath it. Sales of flats dominate the record here, 97% of the typed total. In 1999, the last year both were recorded here, a detached home traded at £1,750,000 against £195,000 for a flat, 9.0 times the price.
Median by property type, EC
One line per type, years with too few sales omitted. Hover for the year's figures; click a legend entry to isolate a type.
| Type | Median (2026) | Sales that year | All-time sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | £1,750,000 (1999) | – | 12 |
| Semi-detached | £347,500 (2006) | – | 28 |
| Terraced | £1,293,800 (2025) | – | 610 |
| Flats | £650,000 | 165 | 22,341 |
The turnover behind the prices
The year-by-year sales count
Recorded sales per year. The dip after 2008 is the financial crisis; the last bar is still filling in as recent sales get registered.
The monthly pulse, last five years
Monthly registrations. The sawtooth is seasonal; the register runs weeks behind completions at the right-hand edge.
Over the last twelve months of data, 292 sales completed in EC. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 923 sales a year before the financial crisis and 482 a year over the last five. Watch the volume as closely as the price. Thin years make jumpy medians, where one street's sales can move the figure, and the newest year is always incomplete because registrations trail completions by weeks or months.
The rental side of EC
EC falls under Westminster, the local authority covering most of the EC area (parts fall under Islington and Camden, where rents differ), where the ONS puts the average private rent at £3,163 a month (May 2026 figures). A one-bed averages £2,517 a month here and a four-or-more-bed £5,378, so size does most of the work in setting the rent.
Average monthly rent by size, Westminster
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
£3,163 a month is £37,956 a year, which against the £650,000 median sold price makes a gross yield of 5.8%. Gross means before letting costs, voids, maintenance and tax: treat it as a ceiling. The ONS publishes rents by local authority, so neighbouring districts under the same authority share these numbers.
What kind of market EC is
Only 292 sales completed here in the last twelve months of data, which makes EC a thin market. Each figure rests on few transactions, so single streets can swing the median and the charts deserve a sceptical squint. Flats dominate what actually sells, at 88% of last year's transactions, and the headline median follows them. House buyers should lean on the type split above rather than the overall figure.
EC (Central London): the questions that come up
Are property prices falling in EC (Central London)?
Is EC (Central London) a good place to buy a house?
How much did a house sell for in EC (Central London)?
Are EC prices heading up or down?
No honest page predicts prices, so this one sticks to the record: the median is down 24% over five years in cash but down 40% after inflation. Anyone weighing a purchase should read the volume chart with the price chart, remembering that these are completed sales, registered weeks after the deals were actually struck.
On the market in EC today
Everything above is what homes in EC sold for. The live side of the market holds 75 homes at the moment, listed by 6 agents publishing to HomesIndex, at a typical asking price 3% below the EC median sold price.
EC registered 292 sales in the last twelve months; the 75 homes listed now would take about 3 months to clear at that rate. The count covers agents publishing to HomesIndex, so the real stock is larger.
Of everything listed here, 25% asks less than the sold record of comparable homes. Each listing is compared with recent recorded sales of similar homes nearby.
"Under comparable sales" means the asking price sits below what similar homes nearby actually fetched. Treat it as the start of a conversation, never a valuation, and always view the home.
See every EC home for sale on the map →
These asking prices come live from estate agents publishing feeds to HomesIndex, refreshed each Monday and Thursday. They are a sample of the market rather than its entirety, and an asking price is not a sale price.
EC: the homes on offer and the homes that go
What is for sale in EC looks much like what sells: no type differs by more than 2 points between the two columns.
| Type | Share of homes for sale now | Share of sales, 2024 and 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Terraced | 0% | 2% |
| Flats | 100% | 98% |
The listing shares count homes published to HomesIndex by agents today; the sales shares count HM Land Registry registrations. Listings typed only as "house", "bungalow" or similar, which the register would file under one of the four forms, are excluded from the listing side (4 of them here).
When homes in EC change hands
Take the 2,915 EC sales dated 2021 to 2025 and sort them by month: March completions lead with 13.1% of the total, January trails with 5.0%. That is a marked seasonal rhythm. A sale completes weeks after it is agreed, so the busy month reflects deals struck earlier in the year; a seller who wants competition should be on the market ahead of it.
Sales by month, 2021 to 2025
| Month | Sales | Share |
|---|---|---|
| January | 147 | 5.0% |
| February | 233 | 8.0% |
| March | 383 | 13.1% |
| April | 208 | 7.1% |
| May | 218 | 7.5% |
| June | 383 | 13.1% |
| July | 198 | 6.8% |
| August | 248 | 8.5% |
| September | 307 | 10.5% |
| October | 225 | 7.7% |
| November | 194 | 6.7% |
| December | 171 | 5.9% |
The price of an extra bedroom in EC
Real sold prices by size across the EC area, straight from the Land Registry record. Size steps are fiercely local. A third bedroom adds a quarter to the price in some areas and close to four fifths in others, which is why no national rule of thumb survives contact with a real market.
| Type | 1 bed | 2 bed | 3 bed | 4 bed | 5 bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flat | £550,000 | £822,750 (+50%) | £1,055,000 (+28%) | — | £1,510,000 |
Built from the last four years of recorded sales by form and bedroom count. Bedroom counts are estimated from EPC records (the register carries none), so expect a small number of homes one size adrift. Where too few homes exist to say anything meaningful, the cell is blank.
The risers and the fallers
The spread across the EC area is the point: the same five years treated these districts very differently.
Winners and losers across the EC area, five years
The districts that gained and lost most in cash terms, each row linking through to its own report.
District by district
Averages this wide conceal the interesting part. Every measurable EC district is below, dearest first, each linking to its own full report.
| District | Median (2026) | 5-year | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| EC2M Broadgate, Liverpool Street | £2,084,000 | +75% | 1 |
| EC3A St Mary Axe, Aldgate | £1,500,000 | +19% | 1 |
| EC4Y Temple | £846,500 | -3% | 2 |
| EC2Y Barbican | £784,100 | -3% | 28 |
| EC1V Finsbury (east), Moorfields Eye Hospital | £710,000 | -18% | 57 |
| EC4V Blackfriars | £692,500 | -1% | 2 |
| EC3R Monument, Billingsgate | £680,000 | -89% | 3 |
| EC4A Fetter Lane | £665,000 | -19% | 2 |
| EC1M Clerkenwell, Farringdon | £660,000 | -17% | 7 |
| EC1Y St Luke's, Bunhill Fields | £630,000 | -19% | 11 |
| EC4R Cannon Street | £625,000 | -5% | 1 |
| EC1N Hatton Garden | £615,000 | +11% | 12 |
| EC1R Finsbury, Finsbury Estate (west) | £600,000 | -25% | 19 |
| EC1A St Bartholomew's Hospital | £563,500 | -26% | 11 |
| EC4M St Paul's | £550,000 | -8% | 2 |
| EC2A Shoreditch | £496,500 | -48% | 10 |
| EC3N Tower Hill, Tower of London | £490,000 | -16% | 5 |
Selling in EC? Start from the sold record
Start from what homes here actually sold for, not an estimate. Before booking a house valuation or flat valuation in EC, use the average prices map for a rough value: zoom from EC's shading down to the sold homes on your own street. The figures above are every recorded EC sale; agents price with this same Land Registry record, and now you have it too.
Take it further
Answers come from the same Land Registry data behind this report, and the AI knows you are asking about EC. Free, with a one click sign in.
See every individual EC sale on the live map, mapped to the exact address, or zoom the average prices map from neighbourhood shading down to single homes. 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.
About the numbers: everything is computed from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0), geocoded to the address; today's-money figures use the ONS CPIH index, and rents are the ONS Price Index of Private Rents by local authority. These are medians of recorded sales, not valuations, and none of it is financial advice.