Local market reports › WC area › WC1B
Every figure on this page comes from the public record: 683 sales registered with HM Land Registry in WC1B (London) since 1995, each one a completed purchase at a real price, plus current rental figures from the ONS. Nothing here is a valuation, an estimate or an asking price.
Sales data to March 2025. Rents: ONS, May 2026. Regenerated with every monthly data refresh.
WC1B is the postcode district covering Bloomsbury, British Museum, Southampton Row 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.
Click the map to open WC1B on the live map, with every sale plotted at its address. The average pricing view shades the whole country the same way.
The 2025 median in WC1B is £725,000, from 32 registered sales; the mean, £1,198,800, sits well above it, the signature of a heavy top tail: a handful of expensive sales lifting the average.
For scale: the England and Wales median is £274,000, so WC1B trades 165% above the country as a whole.
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.
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | £725,000 | £725,000 | 32 |
| 2024 | £1,625,000 | £1,687,359 | 15 |
| 2023 | £1,017,500 | £1,091,874 | 14 |
| 2022 | £2,300,000 | £2,634,025 | 15 |
| 2021 | £1,100,000 | £1,360,215 | 17 |
| 2020 | £1,075,000 | £1,362,259 | 15 |
| 2019 | £1,065,000 | £1,363,358 | 20 |
| 2018 | £1,187,500 | £1,545,991 | 28 |
| 2017 | £1,400,000 | £1,864,865 | 9 |
| 2016 | £878,800 | £1,200,737 | 14 |
| 2015 | £1,052,500 | £1,452,450 | 16 |
| 2014 | £875,000 | £1,212,349 | 21 |
| 2013 | £1,113,800 | £1,565,218 | 18 |
| 2012 | £635,000 | £912,813 | 17 |
| 2011 | £936,200 | £1,380,295 | 8 |
| 2010 | £750,000 | £1,148,724 | 19 |
| 2009 | £665,000 | £1,044,027 | 17 |
| 2008 | £706,200 | £1,130,575 | 20 |
| 2007 | £570,000 | £944,298 | 15 |
| 2006 | £463,500 | £785,786 | 23 |
| 2005 | £495,000 | £860,327 | 27 |
| 2004 | £383,800 | £680,776 | 36 |
| 2003 | £399,000 | £717,888 | 23 |
| 2002 | £390,000 | £716,644 | 29 |
| 2001 | £410,000 | £769,796 | 20 |
| 2000 | £285,000 | £546,250 | 23 |
| 1999 | £295,000 | £574,189 | 62 |
| 1998 | £262,800 | £518,091 | 54 |
| 1997 | £171,200 | £342,897 | 20 |
| 1996 | £156,500 | £322,343 | 20 |
| 1995 | £150,000 | £318,462 | 15 |
In cash terms the typical WC1B home went from £150,000 in 1995 to £725,000 in 2025, roughly 5 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 128%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not just more expensive on paper. Measured in today's money the market peaked in 2022; the current median sits about 72% below that. Someone who bought at the 2022 peak has not yet seen that price back in real terms.
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 2022 (+109.1% on the year before); the weakest, 2023 (−55.8%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
| Period | Cash, per year | Real terms, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 years (since 2024) | −55.4% | −57.0% |
| 5 years (since 2020) | −7.6% | −11.9% |
| 10 years (since 2015) | −3.7% | −6.7% |
| 20 years (since 2005) | +1.9% | −0.9% |
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.
Recorded sales per year. The dip after 2008 is the financial crisis; the last bar is still filling in as recent sales get registered.
Monthly registrations. The sawtooth is seasonal; the register runs weeks behind completions at the right-hand edge.
WC1B recorded 58 sales in the last twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 25 sales a year before the financial crisis and 19 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.
WC1B falls under Camden, where the ONS puts the average private rent at £2,759 a month (May 2026 figures). A one-bed averages £2,008 a month here and a four-or-more-bed £3,890, so size does most of the work in setting the rent.
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
Set against the £725,000 median sold price, £2,759 a month is £33,108 a year, a gross yield of 4.6%: 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.
Nobody can tell you that, and this page will not pretend to. What the record shows: the median is down 33% over five years in cash but down 47% 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.
WC1B ranks 13 of 14 in the WC 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.
The biggest risers and fallers in cash terms; every row links to that district's report.
Postcode sectors are the next slice down, each a group of streets. Prices can differ sharply between two sectors a few minutes' walk apart.
| Sector | Median (latest) | Sales that year |
|---|---|---|
| WC1B 3 | £1,070,800 | 12 |
| WC1B 4 | £301,300 | 18 |
| WC1B 5 | £7,250,000 | 5 |
Same city, different markets. The neighbouring districts of the WC area, dearest first:
| District | Median | 5-year |
|---|---|---|
| WC1V | £4,286,200 | +107% |
| WC1A | £2,290,000 | +14% |
| WC2R | £1,390,000 | -7% |
| WC2A | £1,320,000 | -4% |
| WC2N | £1,140,000 | -35% |
| WC2E | £1,125,000 | -19% |
| WC1R | £925,000 | +31% |
| WC2B | £900,000 | -25% |
| WC1E | £835,000 | +25% |
| WC2H | £788,800 | -14% |
| WC1X | £760,400 | -32% |
| WC1B (this report) | £725,000 | -33% |
| WC1N | £485,000 | -29% |
| WC1H | £470,000 | +15% |
See every individual WC1B sale on the live map, mapped to the exact address, or the quick-reference WC1B price page. 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.
How this page is made: the statistics are computed from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0), geocoded to address level; inflation adjustment uses the ONS CPIH index; rents are the ONS Price Index of Private Rents at local-authority level. Medians of recorded sales, not valuations. Nothing on this page is financial advice.