Local market reports › SW area › SW3
Chelsea market report SW3, London
The SW3 (Chelsea) house price history in full, 1995 to 2026, in cash and in today's money. The raw material for this page is 16,345 HM Land Registry entries for SW3 (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 July 2026. Rents: ONS, May 2026. Regenerated with every monthly data refresh.
In short: the 2026 median for SW3 (London) is £1,100,000, from 80 registered sales, down 27% on five years earlier; the mean is £1,872,700, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £18,260 per square metre over the last five years. Behind the figures sit 16,345 HM Land Registry entries going back to 1995, refreshed monthly, every one a completed sale rather than a valuation or an asking price.
SW3 is the postcode district covering Chelsea, Brompton in London. Districts are a practical way to slice a market: small enough to mean something locally, big enough to have a steady flow of sales to measure.
Where SW3 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 SW3
80 sales were registered in SW3 in 2026, and the middle one of them, the median, went for £1,100,000. The mean works out at £1,872,700, well above it, the signature of a heavy top tail: a handful of expensive sales lifting the average.
Price per square metre in SW3
By floor space, homes in SW3 have sold for about £18,260 per square metre on average over the last five years: the like-for-like measure that lets you compare a small flat with a large house, from the Energy Performance Certificate floor areas behind each sale.
For scale: the England and Wales median is £285,000, so SW3 trades 286% above the country as a whole.
The price of a typical SW3 home, 1995 to 2026
The cash median beside its inflation-adjusted twin (ONS CPIH). The adjusted line answers the harder question, whether homes really got dearer. Hover for the figures; the legend toggles each series.
See this chart as a table
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | £1,100,000 | £1,100,000 | 80 |
| 2025 | £1,500,000 | £1,535,870 | 300 |
| 2024 | £1,555,000 | £1,653,284 | 327 |
| 2023 | £1,600,000 | £1,758,009 | 303 |
| 2022 | £1,650,000 | £1,934,813 | 383 |
| 2021 | £1,500,000 | £1,899,194 | 340 |
| 2020 | £1,752,500 | £2,273,905 | 224 |
| 2019 | £1,642,500 | £2,152,924 | 256 |
| 2018 | £1,575,000 | £2,099,505 | 243 |
| 2017 | £1,475,000 | £2,011,752 | 270 |
| 2016 | £1,437,500 | £2,011,077 | 272 |
| 2015 | £1,432,500 | £2,024,123 | 360 |
| 2014 | £1,600,000 | £2,269,880 | 455 |
| 2013 | £1,297,500 | £1,866,973 | 492 |
| 2012 | £1,075,000 | £1,582,266 | 390 |
| 2011 | £975,000 | £1,471,875 | 418 |
| 2010 | £962,500 | £1,509,448 | 448 |
| 2009 | £782,500 | £1,257,875 | 426 |
| 2008 | £785,000 | £1,286,781 | 321 |
| 2007 | £672,500 | £1,140,747 | 658 |
| 2006 | £565,000 | £980,768 | 811 |
| 2005 | £515,000 | £916,492 | 623 |
| 2004 | £438,000 | £795,494 | 767 |
| 2003 | £395,000 | £727,686 | 643 |
| 2002 | £400,000 | £752,597 | 845 |
| 2001 | £370,000 | £711,306 | 710 |
| 2000 | £375,000 | £735,938 | 834 |
| 1999 | £325,000 | £647,708 | 907 |
| 1998 | £273,500 | £552,079 | 762 |
| 1997 | £270,000 | £553,716 | 928 |
| 1996 | £230,000 | £485,060 | 846 |
| 1995 | £190,000 | £413,031 | 703 |
In cash terms the typical SW3 home went from £190,000 in 1995 to £1,100,000 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. Measured in today's money the market peaked in 2020; the current median sits about 52% below that. Someone who bought at the 2020 peak has not yet seen that price back in real terms.
Year-on-year change in the SW3 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 2014 (+23.3% on the year before); the weakest, 2026 (−26.7%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
The long view: annualised growth
| Period | Cash, per year | Real terms, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 years (since 2025) | −26.7% | −28.4% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | −6.0% | −10.3% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | −2.6% | −5.9% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +3.4% | +0.6% |
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, 76% of the typed total. In 2001, the last year both were recorded here, a detached home traded at £1,330,000 against £300,000 for a flat, 4.4 times the price.
Median by property type, SW3
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 | £1,330,000 (2001) | – | 34 |
| Semi-detached | £8,658,100 (2023) | – | 197 |
| Terraced | £3,125,000 | 15 | 3,737 |
| Flats | £942,500 | 64 | 12,300 |
The turnover behind the prices
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 monthly pulse, last five years
Monthly registrations. The sawtooth is seasonal; the register runs weeks behind completions at the right-hand edge.
The register shows 196 SW3 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 736 sales a year before the financial crisis and 279 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.
Reading the SW3 market
Expect volatility in the annual figures: swings past ten per cent show up repeatedly above, and they usually reflect the mix of homes sold in a given year rather than genuine repricing. Among the 27 measurable districts of its area, SW3 ranks 5 by median price: firmly in the dearer tier.
The rental side of SW3
For renting purposes SW3 sits in Kensington and Chelsea. The ONS average private rent there is £3,591 a month (May 2026). The spread runs from £2,567 a month for a typical one-bed to £5,497 at four-plus bedrooms, which is size doing most of the pricing.
Average monthly rent by size, Kensington and Chelsea
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
Set against the £1,100,000 median sold price, £3,591 a month is £43,092 a year, a gross yield of 3.9%: 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.
What people ask about SW3 (Chelsea)
How much did a house sell for in SW3 (Chelsea)?
Are property prices falling in SW3 (Chelsea)?
Is SW3 (Chelsea) a good place to buy a house?
Are SW3 prices heading up or down?
That question has no honest answer, only evidence. The evidence: the median is down 27% over five years in cash but down 42% after inflation. Weigh the volume chart alongside the price one before deciding anything, and bear in mind every figure is a completed sale that reached the register weeks after completion.
On the market in SW3 today
Everything above is what homes in SW3 sold for. This is what you could actually buy today: 92 homes currently on the market from 13 agents publishing to HomesIndex, at a typical asking price 89% above the SW3 median sold price.
26% 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" compares each asking price with what similar homes nearby actually sold for. It is a starting point for a conversation, not a valuation. Always look at the home itself.
See every SW3 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.
The price of an extra bedroom in SW
Real sold prices by size across the SW area, straight from the Land Registry record. 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 | — | — | £1,050,000 | £1,797,500 (+71%) | £2,600,000 (+45%) |
| Semi-detached | £478,500 | £645,000 (+35%) | £850,000 (+32%) | £1,200,000 (+41%) | £1,800,000 (+50%) |
| Terraced | £535,000 | £685,000 (+28%) | £850,000 (+24%) | £1,210,000 (+42%) | £1,680,000 (+39%) |
| Flat | £428,000 | £590,000 (+38%) | £900,000 (+53%) | £1,850,000 (+106%) | £3,700,000 (+100%) |
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. Sizes with too few homes to be meaningful are left blank.
The risers and the fallers
SW3 ranks 25 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
Cash-terms risers and fallers across the area; click any row for that district's full report.
Inside SW3, 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 |
|---|---|---|
| SW3 1 | £1,260,000 | 2 |
| SW3 2 | £1,400,000 | 13 |
| SW3 3 | £820,000 | 17 |
| SW3 4 | £1,142,500 | 20 |
| SW3 5 | £890,000 | 21 |
| SW3 6 | £1,470,000 | 7 |
How SW3 compares nearby
Same city, different markets. The neighbouring districts of the SW area, dearest first:
| District | Median | 5-year |
|---|---|---|
| SW1X | £3,600,000 | +64% |
| SW1A | £1,765,000 | -41% |
| SW1W | £1,700,000 | -17% |
| SW7 | £1,170,000 | -26% |
| SW3 (this report) | £1,100,000 | -27% |
| SW1Y | £1,037,500 | -7% |
| SW13 | £1,005,000 | -20% |
| SW10 | £872,400 | -19% |
| SW5 | £863,000 | -7% |
| SW14 | £785,000 | -18% |
| SW1E | £761,900 | -7% |
| SW6 | £755,000 | -11% |
| SW11 | £695,000 | -10% |
| SW20 | £685,000 | -1% |
| SW1P | £675,000 | -6% |
| SW1V | £644,000 | -14% |
| SW1H | £630,000 | -41% |
| SW12 | £623,500 | -11% |
| SW18 | £615,000 | -2% |
| SW15 | £600,000 | -3% |
| SW17 | £585,000 | -1% |
| SW4 | £555,000 | -13% |
| SW8 | £555,000 | -9% |
| SW19 | £555,000 | -15% |
Selling a home in SW3? Price it on the evidence
Ground the asking price in real sold prices first. The average prices map gives a rough value in a minute: start at SW3'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.
Local estate agents: one agent per district gets the featured spot on this report, free for founding agents. Claim SW3.
Go deeper
Behind the answers sits the same Land Registry record as this page, with SW3 already set as the subject. Free, one click sign in.
See every individual SW3 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.
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.