Local market reports › SE area › SE23
Forest Hill market report SE23, London
The standing SE23 (Forest Hill) property market report, rebuilt from the full public record every month. The raw material for this page is 18,667 HM Land Registry entries for SE23 (London), going back to 1995: each an actual purchase at an actual price. Rents come from the ONS. Valuations, estimates and asking prices appear nowhere in it.
Sales recorded to July 2026; rents are ONS figures for May 2026. The page rebuilds with each monthly release.
In short: the typical home in SE23 (London) sold for £498,900 in 2026, the median of 155 registered sales, up 4% on five years earlier. The mean was £617,800, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £6,790 per square metre over the last five years. The figures cover 18,667 sales recorded by HM Land Registry since 1995 and refresh with each monthly release: completed sale prices, not valuations or asking prices.
SE23 is a postcode district covering Forest Hill, Honor Oak, Perry Vale in London. It is the most useful size for market figures: tight enough to describe somewhere real, large enough that sales keep coming and the medians hold steady.
Where SE23 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 SE23 homes really sell for
In the SE23 property market, the 2026 median sale price is £498,900, from 155 registered sales; the mean, the "average house price" most sites quote, is £617,800, sitting well clear of it: the mark of a market where a small number of costly homes drag the average upwards.
SE23 prices by floor area
Measured by floor area, the last five years of SE23 sales average about £6,790 per square metre. Price per square metre is the fair way to compare a one-bed flat with a four-bed house, and it comes from the Energy Performance Certificate on each sold home.
Set against the £285,000 England and Wales median, SE23 sits 75% above the national market.
A typical SE23 home, priced year by year (1995 to 2026)
Two lines: the median in the money of its day, and the same years restated by ONS CPIH into today's money, which is the truer test of getting dearer. Hover for exact figures; click a legend entry to isolate a series.
See this chart as a table
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | £498,900 | £498,900 | 155 |
| 2025 | £520,100 | £532,537 | 492 |
| 2024 | £485,000 | £515,655 | 436 |
| 2023 | £465,000 | £510,921 | 372 |
| 2022 | £500,000 | £586,307 | 610 |
| 2021 | £480,000 | £607,742 | 629 |
| 2020 | £475,000 | £616,322 | 462 |
| 2019 | £455,000 | £596,396 | 475 |
| 2018 | £455,000 | £606,524 | 413 |
| 2017 | £480,000 | £654,672 | 467 |
| 2016 | £435,000 | £608,569 | 540 |
| 2015 | £400,000 | £565,200 | 586 |
| 2014 | £360,000 | £510,723 | 712 |
| 2013 | £287,500 | £413,684 | 633 |
| 2012 | £270,000 | £397,406 | 495 |
| 2011 | £250,000 | £377,404 | 427 |
| 2010 | £250,000 | £392,064 | 534 |
| 2009 | £230,000 | £369,727 | 307 |
| 2008 | £248,000 | £406,524 | 377 |
| 2007 | £245,000 | £415,588 | 842 |
| 2006 | £217,000 | £376,684 | 842 |
| 2005 | £187,800 | £334,208 | 648 |
| 2004 | £185,000 | £335,996 | 774 |
| 2003 | £170,000 | £313,181 | 785 |
| 2002 | £152,000 | £285,987 | 862 |
| 2001 | £127,500 | £245,112 | 754 |
| 2000 | £100,000 | £196,250 | 725 |
| 1999 | £80,000 | £159,436 | 839 |
| 1998 | £72,000 | £145,337 | 760 |
| 1997 | £65,000 | £133,302 | 716 |
| 1996 | £59,400 | £125,272 | 576 |
| 1995 | £57,000 | £123,909 | 422 |
In cash terms the typical SE23 home went from £57,000 in 1995 to £498,900 in 2026, roughly 9 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 303%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not merely more expensive on paper. The real-terms peak came in 2017, and today's median remains roughly 24% under it: a 2017 buyer is still waiting to get that price back in today's money.
Year-on-year change in the SE23 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 2001 (+27.5% on the year before); the weakest, 2009 (−7.3%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
Detached, semi, terraced, flat: four markets in one
A single median hides the split beneath it. Sales of flats dominate the record here, 57% of the typed total. In 2025, the last year both were recorded here, a detached home traded at £1,027,500 against £414,000 for a flat, 2.5 times the price.
Median by property type, SE23
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 | £1,027,500 (2025) | – | 630 |
| Semi-detached | £970,000 | 17 | 1,925 |
| Terraced | £764,100 | 46 | 5,502 |
| Flats | £415,000 | 90 | 10,604 |
Annualised returns
| Period | Cash, per year | Real terms, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 years (since 2025) | −4.1% | −6.3% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | +0.8% | −3.9% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | +1.4% | −2.0% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +4.3% | +1.4% |
The table annualises median growth over each period, with the real column deflated by ONS CPIH. Smoothing hides the cycle (see the chart above for it), and none of this forecasts: it is the record.
Sales activity in SE23
How many homes change hands
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 last five years, month by month
Monthly registrations. The sawtooth is seasonal; the register runs weeks behind completions at the right-hand edge.
SE23 recorded 346 sales in the last twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 779 sales a year before the financial crisis and 413 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.
What tenants pay around SE23
SE23 falls under Lewisham, where the ONS puts the average private rent at £1,821 a month (May 2026 figures). The spread runs from £1,450 a month for a typical one-bed to £2,705 at four-plus bedrooms, which is size doing most of the pricing.
Average monthly rent by size, Lewisham
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
Against the £498,900 median purchase price, a rent of £1,821 a month (£21,852 a year) works out at a 4.4% gross yield, a ceiling figure that ignores letting costs, voids, maintenance and tax. Because rents are local-authority statistics, districts sharing the authority share the figure.
What people ask about SE23 (Forest Hill)
How much did a house sell for in SE23 (Forest Hill)?
Are property prices falling in SE23 (Forest Hill)?
Is SE23 (Forest Hill) a good place to buy a house?
Will SE23 prices rise from here?
Nobody can tell you that, and this page will not pretend to. What the record shows: the median is up 4% over five years in cash but down 18% 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.
What you could buy in SE23 now
Everything above is what homes in SE23 sold for. The live side of the market holds 42 homes at the moment, listed by 8 agents publishing to HomesIndex, at a typical asking price 10% below the SE23 median sold price.
31% of what is on the market here is asking below what comparable homes actually sold for. Every listing is measured against recent recorded sales of similar nearby homes.
"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 SE23 home for sale on the map →
Refreshed every Monday and Thursday from agents' own feeds to HomesIndex, so a sample of the market rather than all of it. An asking price remains an ask, not a sale.
What another bedroom costs in SE
The Land Registry record, split by size: what each kind of home actually sold for across the SE area. How much a size step costs is a local fact: the third-bedroom premium runs from about a quarter to nearly four fifths depending on the area, and national rules of thumb miss it.
| Type | 1 bed | 2 bed | 3 bed | 4 bed | 5 bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | — | £516,250 | £795,000 (+54%) | £1,325,000 (+67%) | £2,025,000 (+53%) |
| Semi-detached | £375,000 | £480,000 (+28%) | £613,025 (+28%) | £870,000 (+42%) | £1,390,000 (+60%) |
| Terraced | £405,000 | £475,000 (+17%) | £630,000 (+33%) | £878,697 (+39%) | £1,275,000 (+45%) |
| Flat | £345,000 | £465,000 (+35%) | £645,000 (+39%) | £885,000 (+37%) | — |
Medians of recorded sales over the last four years, by built form and bedroom count. Sold homes carry no advertised bedroom count, so sizes are estimated from their EPC records; a small number of homes will sit one size out. Blank cells mean too few homes for the figure to mean anything.
The risers and the fallers
SE23 ranks 7 of 28 in the SE area on five-year growth. The gap between the top and bottom of this chart is the difference between buying well and buying badly in the same city.
SE area districts: five years of change
The districts that gained and lost most in cash terms, each row linking through to its own report.
Inside SE23, sector by sector
The next slice down is the postcode sector: a group of streets, each with its own report. Two sectors a short walk apart can trade at sharply different prices.
| Sector | Median (latest) | Sales that year |
|---|---|---|
| SE23 1 | £527,500 | 36 |
| SE23 2 | £500,000 | 58 |
| SE23 3 | £460,000 | 61 |
How SE23 compares nearby
Same city, different markets. The neighbouring districts of the SE area, dearest first:
| District | Median | 5-year |
|---|---|---|
| SE24 | £648,200 | -6% |
| SE22 | £620,000 | -3% |
| SE21 | £608,500 | -10% |
| SE4 | £562,500 | +0% |
| SE1 | £550,000 | -21% |
| SE27 | £550,000 | +5% |
| SE3 | £520,000 | +3% |
| SE15 | £520,000 | -2% |
| SE10 | £507,500 | -14% |
| SE7 | £505,000 | +4% |
| SE17 | £505,000 | +1% |
| SE26 | £500,000 | +9% |
| SE23 (this report) | £498,900 | +4% |
| SE5 | £487,500 | +4% |
| SE11 | £475,000 | -15% |
| SE9 | £472,800 | +6% |
| SE12 | £460,000 | +2% |
| SE6 | £450,000 | +3% |
| SE16 | £450,000 | -3% |
| SE14 | £446,200 | -6% |
| SE19 | £441,500 | -2% |
| SE13 | £435,000 | +1% |
| SE2 | £425,000 | +14% |
| SE18 | £415,000 | +2% |
Before you sell in SE23: what the record supports
The sold record beats any estimate as a starting point. Before a house valuation or flat valuation in SE23, open the average prices map and zoom from the SE23 shading down to the sold homes on your own street. Every recorded SE23 sale is on this page; the same Land Registry record is what agents price from, and it is now in your hands.
For local estate agents: each district report carries one featured-agent spot, free while founding places last. Claim SE23.
Dig further
The AI answers from the same Land Registry data this report is built on, already scoped to SE23. Free after a one click sign in.
The live map plots every individual SE23 sale at its exact address, and the average prices map zooms from neighbourhood shading to single homes. For a specific question, the report tool writes a custom answer, and any sale's mortgage and rent calculator 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.