Local market reports › SW area › SW12
Balham market report SW12, London
The SW12 (Balham) house price history in full, 1995 to 2026, in cash and in today's money. The raw material for this page is 22,114 HM Land Registry entries for SW12 (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 data to August 2026. Rents: ONS, May 2026. Regenerated with every monthly data refresh. Page updated 19 October 2026.
In short: a typical SW12 (London) home changed hands for £655,000 in 2026 (median of 205 registered sales, down 6% on five years earlier), with the mean at £799,000, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £9,170 per square metre over the last five years. Source: 22,114 completed sales on the HM Land Registry record since 1995, updated with each monthly release. No valuations, no asking prices.
SW12 is a postcode district covering Balham 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 SW12 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.
Today's SW12 prices, from the sold record
The SW12 median stands at £655,000 for 2026, built from 205 registered sales; the mean, the figure usually quoted as the "average house price", is £799,000, well clear of it: the mark of a market where a small number of costly homes drag the average upwards.
Price per square metre in SW12
The last five years of sales put SW12 at roughly £9,170 per square metre. That figure, built from each sale's Energy Performance Certificate floor area, is the one that makes a small flat and a big house comparable.
Against a national (England and Wales) median of £285,000, SW12 runs 130% above it.
SW12's median sold price, 1995 to 2026
Year by year: the median as it was recorded, and the same figure brought into today's money with ONS CPIH, which is where "did homes get dearer" actually gets answered. Hover shows each year; the legend isolates a series.
See this chart as a table
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | £655,000 | £655,000 | 205 |
| 2025 | £725,000 | £742,337 | 564 |
| 2024 | £697,000 | £741,054 | 571 |
| 2023 | £732,000 | £804,289 | 459 |
| 2022 | £725,000 | £850,145 | 696 |
| 2021 | £700,000 | £886,290 | 707 |
| 2020 | £707,000 | £917,347 | 481 |
| 2019 | £676,800 | £887,123 | 472 |
| 2018 | £650,000 | £866,462 | 486 |
| 2017 | £658,800 | £898,537 | 501 |
| 2016 | £645,000 | £902,361 | 546 |
| 2015 | £605,000 | £854,865 | 559 |
| 2014 | £565,000 | £801,551 | 673 |
| 2013 | £500,000 | £719,450 | 737 |
| 2012 | £475,000 | £699,141 | 575 |
| 2011 | £430,000 | £649,135 | 582 |
| 2010 | £399,500 | £626,519 | 624 |
| 2009 | £367,000 | £589,956 | 521 |
| 2008 | £372,000 | £609,787 | 379 |
| 2007 | £396,000 | £671,726 | 866 |
| 2006 | £333,000 | £578,045 | 1,011 |
| 2005 | £286,000 | £508,965 | 842 |
| 2004 | £280,500 | £509,443 | 930 |
| 2003 | £250,000 | £460,561 | 772 |
| 2002 | £250,000 | £470,373 | 953 |
| 2001 | £225,000 | £432,551 | 991 |
| 2000 | £203,000 | £398,388 | 791 |
| 1999 | £170,000 | £338,801 | 1,033 |
| 1998 | £134,000 | £270,489 | 972 |
| 1997 | £115,000 | £235,842 | 1,041 |
| 1996 | £92,500 | £195,078 | 921 |
| 1995 | £84,000 | £182,603 | 653 |
In cash terms the typical SW12 home went from £84,000 in 1995 to £655,000 in 2026, roughly 8 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 259%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not merely more expensive on paper. In inflation-adjusted terms the high-water mark was 2020. The market now sits about 29% below it, so a peak-time purchase has yet to recover its real value.
Year-on-year change in the SW12 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 1999 (+26.9% on the year before); the weakest, 2026 (−9.7%). 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 year (since 2025) | −9.7% | −11.8% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | −1.3% | −5.9% |
| 6 years (since 2020) | −1.3% | −5.5% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | +0.2% | −3.2% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +3.4% | +0.6% |
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.
Detached, semi, terraced, flat: four markets in one
A single median hides the split beneath it. Sales of flats dominate the record here, 62% of the typed total. In 2024, the last year both were recorded here, a detached home traded at £1,500,000 against £605,000 for a flat, 2.5 times the price.
Median by property type, SW12
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 | £1,500,000 (2024) | – | 272 |
| Semi-detached | £1,501,500 | 10 | 1,378 |
| Terraced | £1,295,000 | 50 | 6,790 |
| Flats | £582,500 | 144 | 13,653 |
How many homes change hands in SW12
How many homes change hands
Annual recorded sales. The post-2008 trough is the financial crisis; treat the final bar as provisional while registrations catch up.
The monthly pulse, last five years
Registrations by month. The repeating sawtooth is seasonality, and the right-hand edge always dips because the register lags completions.
The register shows 369 SW12 sales across the most recent twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 895 sales a year before the financial crisis and 499 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.
Rents around SW12
SW12 falls under Wandsworth, where the ONS puts the average private rent at £2,599 a month (May 2026 figures). A one-bed averages £1,911 a month here and a four-or-more-bed £3,782, so size does most of the work in setting the rent.
Average monthly rent by size, Wandsworth
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
Set against the £655,000 median sold price, £2,599 a month is £31,188 a year, a gross yield of 4.8%: 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.
The shape of the SW12 market
Flats dominate what actually sells, at 68% 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.
Asked and answered: SW12 (Balham)
Are property prices falling in SW12 (Balham)?
Is SW12 (Balham) a good place to buy a house?
How much did a house sell for in SW12 (Balham)?
Where do SW12 prices go next?
No honest page predicts prices, so this one sticks to the record: the median is down 6% over five years in cash but down 26% 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.
What you could buy in SW12 now
Everything above is what homes in SW12 sold for. The live side of the market holds 12 homes at the moment, listed by 6 agents publishing to HomesIndex, at a typical asking price 31% below the SW12 median sold price.
Set against 369 registered sales in the last twelve months, the 12 homes on the market here are roughly 2 weeks of supply at last year's pace, and more in reality, since only agents who publish to HomesIndex are counted. Supply that short favours the seller; a sensibly priced home here does not sit for long.
33% of current listings sit under the prices comparable homes actually fetched. Every listing is measured against recent recorded sales of similar nearby homes.
- Lochinvar Street, Rokeby House Lochinvar Street, SW12, London
- Flat First Floor C, 101 Bedford Hill, London, Greater London
- Verran Road, London, SW12, London
"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 SW12 home for sale on the map →
Live asking prices from estate agents who publish a feed to HomesIndex, refreshed every Monday and Thursday: a sample of the market, not every home for sale. Asking prices are not sale prices.
When homes in SW12 change hands
Across the 2,997 sales completed in SW12 from 2021 to 2025, June was the busiest month for completions (13.0% of the total) and April the quietest (5.5%). 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 | 217 | 7.2% |
| February | 222 | 7.4% |
| March | 314 | 10.5% |
| April | 165 | 5.5% |
| May | 213 | 7.1% |
| June | 391 | 13.0% |
| July | 242 | 8.1% |
| August | 306 | 10.2% |
| September | 274 | 9.1% |
| October | 244 | 8.1% |
| November | 202 | 6.7% |
| December | 207 | 6.9% |
The price of an extra bedroom in SW
The Land Registry record, split by size: what each kind of home actually sold for across the SW 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 | — | — | £852,750 | £1,211,000 (+42%) | £1,650,000 (+36%) |
| Semi-detached | — | £616,000 | £735,000 (+19%) | £962,500 (+31%) | £1,280,000 (+33%) |
| Terraced | £540,000 | £691,876 (+28%) | £867,500 (+25%) | £1,210,000 (+39%) | £1,605,071 (+33%) |
| Flat | £415,000 | £545,000 (+31%) | £800,000 (+47%) | £1,550,000 (+94%) | £3,200,000 (+106%) |
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. Where too few homes exist to say anything meaningful, the cell is blank.
The risers and the fallers
SW12 ranks 9 of 27 in the SW 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.
Five-year change in the median, SW area districts
The districts that gained and lost most in cash terms, each row linking through to its own report.
Inside SW12, sector by sector
Below district level sit the sectors, street groups with reports of their own, and the gaps between neighbouring ones can be sharp.
How SW12 compares nearby
Same city, different markets. The neighbouring districts of the SW area, dearest first:
| District | Median | 5-year |
|---|---|---|
| SW1X | £3,450,000 | +57% |
| SW1A | £1,765,000 | -41% |
| SW1W | £1,312,500 | -36% |
| SW7 | £1,170,000 | -26% |
| SW13 | £1,106,200 | -12% |
| SW3 | £1,100,000 | -27% |
| SW1Y | £1,037,500 | -7% |
| SW10 | £870,000 | -19% |
| SW5 | £850,000 | -8% |
| SW14 | £825,000 | -14% |
| SW1E | £761,900 | -7% |
| SW6 | £757,500 | -11% |
| SW1P | £725,000 | +1% |
| SW11 | £707,500 | -8% |
| SW20 | £690,000 | +0% |
| SW12 (this report) | £655,000 | -6% |
| SW1H | £650,000 | -39% |
| SW1V | £638,000 | -15% |
| SW15 | £615,000 | +0% |
| SW18 | £612,500 | -2% |
| SW19 | £585,000 | -11% |
| SW17 | £582,500 | -1% |
| SW4 | £577,500 | -10% |
| SW8 | £550,000 | -9% |
Before you sell in SW12: what the record supports
Ground the asking price in real sold prices first. The average prices map gives a rough value in a minute: start at SW12's shading and zoom to the sold homes on the street itself. Agents work from this same Land Registry record when they value; this page puts it in front of you before they arrive.
Dig further
Answers come from the same Land Registry data behind this report, and the AI knows you are asking about SW12. Free, with a one click sign in.
The live map plots every individual SW12 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.
Method, briefly: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0) supplies every sale, geocoded to address level; CPIH from the ONS restates prices in today's money; ONS local-authority figures supply the rents. Medians of real sales, not valuations. No part of this page is financial advice.