Local market reports › WC
Central London market report WC
The WC (Central London) house price history in full, 1995 to 2026, in cash and in today's money. Everything below comes from 12,516 sales recorded by HM Land Registry in the WC postcode area (Central London) since 1995, real completion prices from real purchases, alongside the ONS's current rent figures. No valuations, no estimates, no asking prices.
Sales recorded to July 2026; rents are ONS figures for May 2026. The page rebuilds with each monthly release.
In short: a typical the WC postcode area (Central London) home changed hands for £604,500 in 2026 (median of 68 registered sales, down 34% on five years earlier), with the mean at £875,000, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £13,280 per square metre over the last five years. Source: 12,516 completed sales on the HM Land Registry record since 1995, updated with each monthly release. No valuations, no asking prices.
WC is the postcode area centred on Central London, taking in 14 districts. Figures this wide smooth over big local differences, so use the district reports below for anywhere specific.
Where WC 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 WC
Take the 68 registered 2026 sales in WC and the middle price, the median, is £604,500. The mean lands at £875,000, well clear of it: the mark of a market where a small number of costly homes drag the average upwards.
WC prices by floor area
Measured by floor area, the last five years of WC sales average about £13,280 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.
Against a national (England and Wales) median of £285,000, WC runs 112% above it.
A typical WC 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 | £604,500 | £604,500 | 68 |
| 2025 | £817,500 | £837,049 | 208 |
| 2024 | £850,000 | £903,725 | 306 |
| 2023 | £969,900 | £1,065,683 | 335 |
| 2022 | £884,400 | £1,037,060 | 326 |
| 2021 | £910,000 | £1,152,177 | 347 |
| 2020 | £1,147,000 | £1,488,256 | 307 |
| 2019 | £1,131,800 | £1,483,519 | 306 |
| 2018 | £1,058,800 | £1,411,400 | 302 |
| 2017 | £1,121,800 | £1,530,023 | 410 |
| 2016 | £750,000 | £1,049,257 | 274 |
| 2015 | £725,000 | £1,024,425 | 364 |
| 2014 | £700,000 | £993,072 | 383 |
| 2013 | £536,700 | £772,258 | 551 |
| 2012 | £500,000 | £735,938 | 343 |
| 2011 | £450,000 | £679,327 | 410 |
| 2010 | £424,000 | £664,941 | 338 |
| 2009 | £370,000 | £594,778 | 316 |
| 2008 | £477,500 | £782,723 | 322 |
| 2007 | £385,000 | £653,067 | 449 |
| 2006 | £330,000 | £572,838 | 528 |
| 2005 | £300,000 | £533,879 | 435 |
| 2004 | £287,000 | £521,248 | 518 |
| 2003 | £273,400 | £503,669 | 460 |
| 2002 | £253,000 | £476,017 | 488 |
| 2001 | £250,000 | £480,612 | 536 |
| 2000 | £215,000 | £421,938 | 470 |
| 1999 | £178,800 | £356,339 | 587 |
| 1998 | £145,000 | £292,693 | 604 |
| 1997 | £131,000 | £268,655 | 524 |
| 1996 | £89,000 | £187,697 | 395 |
| 1995 | £94,500 | £205,428 | 306 |
In cash terms the typical WC home went from £94,500 in 1995 to £604,500 in 2026, roughly 6 times the price. Adjusted for inflation it still comes to a real rise of roughly 194%, so homes here got dearer in substance, not only in cash. Measured in today's money the market peaked in 2017; the current median sits about 60% below that. Someone who bought at the 2017 peak has not yet seen that price back in real terms.
Year-on-year change in the WC 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 2017 (+49.6% on the year before); the weakest, 2026 (−26.1%). 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) | −26.1% | −27.8% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | −7.9% | −12.1% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | −2.1% | −5.4% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +3.1% | +0.3% |
Each row is compound annual growth of the median; ONS CPIH supplies the real-terms deflator. Annualising irons out the cycle, which the chart above shows in full, and past growth records what happened rather than predicting anything.
Detached, semi, terraced, flat: four markets in one
A single median hides the split beneath it. Sales of flats dominate the record here, 94% of the typed total. In 2003, the last year both were recorded here, a detached home traded at £960,000 against £250,000 for a flat, 3.8 times the price.
Median by property type, WC
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 | £960,000 (2003) | – | 17 |
| Semi-detached | £625,000 (2005) | – | 60 |
| Terraced | £2,420,000 (2025) | – | 622 |
| Flats | £599,000 | 65 | 11,761 |
Sales activity in WC
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.
The register shows 162 WC 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 486 sales a year before the financial crisis and 249 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.
The shape of the WC market
Only 162 sales completed here in the last twelve months of data, which makes WC a thin market. Each figure rests on few transactions, so single streets can swing the median and the charts deserve a sceptical squint. The record here is jumpy: year-on-year moves of ten per cent or more are common in the chart above, mostly a function of which homes happened to sell rather than the market lurching.
The rental side of WC
For renting purposes WC sits in Camden, the local authority covering most of the WC area (parts fall under Westminster, where rents differ). The ONS average private rent there is £2,759 a month (May 2026). Size sets most of the rent: one-beds average £2,008 a month here against £3,890 for four or more bedrooms.
Average monthly rent by size, Camden
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
£2,759 a month is £33,108 a year, which against the £604,500 median sold price makes a gross yield of 5.5%. 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.
WC (Central London): the questions that come up
Is WC (Central London) a good place to buy a house?
How much did a house sell for in WC (Central London)?
Are property prices falling in WC (Central London)?
Will WC prices rise from here?
The record answers a different question than "what happens next": the median is down 34% over five years in cash but down 48% after inflation. Put the volume chart beside the price chart before drawing conclusions, and allow for the register's lag behind actual completions.
On the market in WC today
Everything above is what homes in WC sold for. The live side of the market holds 117 homes at the moment, listed by 6 agents publishing to HomesIndex, at a typical asking price 24% above the WC median sold price.
Of everything listed here, 30% asks less than the sold record of comparable homes. The comparison behind each listing uses recent recorded sales of similar homes close by.
"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 WC 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 WC
The Land Registry record, split by size: what each kind of home actually sold for across the WC area. The jump between sizes is local: in some areas a third bedroom adds a quarter to the price, in others nearly four fifths, so a national rule of thumb will mislead you here.
| Type | 1 bed | 2 bed | 3 bed | 4 bed | 5 bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flat | £495,000 | £860,000 (+74%) | £1,405,000 (+63%) | — | — |
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
The spread across the WC area is the point: the same five years treated these districts very differently.
WC area districts: five years of change
Cash-terms risers and fallers across the area; click any row for that district's full report.
District by district
The spread inside WC matters more than its average. These are its districts with enough sales to measure, priciest first, each with a full report of its own.
| District | Median (2026) | 5-year | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| WC1A New Oxford Street | £5,162,500 | +29% | 2 |
| WC2B Drury Lane, Kingsway | £2,300,000 | +43% | 1 |
| WC2A Lincoln's Inn Fields, Royal Courts of Justice | £2,060,000 | +18% | 2 |
| WC1B Bloomsbury, British Museum | £1,650,000 | +50% | 1 |
| WC2N Charing Cross | £1,200,000 | +24% | 1 |
| WC2H Leicester Square, St. Giles | £855,000 | -14% | 6 |
| WC2E Covent Garden | £800,000 | +37% | 6 |
| WC1X Kings Cross, Finsbury (west) | £793,000 | -29% | 7 |
| WC1E Birkbeck College, University College London | £770,000 | -17% | 3 |
| WC1V High Holborn | £763,000 | +35% | 1 |
| WC1R Gray's Inn | £590,000 | -28% | 3 |
| WC2R Somerset House, Temple (west) | £575,000 | -41% | 1 |
| WC1N Russell Square, Great Ormond Street | £530,000 | -13% | 14 |
| WC1H St Pancras, UCL Institute of Education | £445,000 | +13% | 22 |
Selling in WC? Start from the sold record
Ground the asking price in real sold prices first. The average prices map gives a rough value in a minute: start at WC'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.
Estate agents working WC: the featured spot on this report is free for founding agents, one per district. Claim WC.
Dig further
Behind the answers sits the same Land Registry record as this page, with WC already set as the subject. Free, one click sign in.
Two maps carry on from here: every WC sale at its exact address, and the average prices map from area shading down to single homes. The report tool answers a specific question in writing, and each sale's mortgage and rent calculator prices 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.