Revealed - UK’s best and worst performing property markets

Property purchasing specialist, HBB Solutions, has carried out a study recently which revealed areas of the UK property market that have been the worst place to sell a home, based on the most muted market performance recorded over the last five years.

Figures were analysed according to the average annual number of homes sold across each area of the UK over the past five years, to disclose which areas of the property market have consistently ranked as the best and the worst to sell a home.

Managing director of House Buyer Bureau, Chris Hodgkinson, commented: “The pandemic property market boom has pushed house prices and transaction levels to record highs over the last two years, but a period of unprecedented boom doesn’t necessarily reveal where the best performing pockets of the housing market are.”

“When also taking into account a prolonged period where the market underperformed due to political uncertainty caused by Brexit, we can see which towns and cities have put in the strongest and most consistent performance over a longer period of time.”

“That isn’t to say that those areas to have seen the lowest level of sales volumes aren’t desirable, but it highlights the diversity of the market and how one area won’t necessarily enjoy the same boom period as another.”

Hodgkinson concluded: “This is an incredibly important consideration when looking to sell your home as these granular levels of market activity and the prices achieved locally are the factors that will impact your chances of selling, not the benchmark set by the UK average.”

A closer look at the top 5 performing areas

Over the last five years, the study shows that an average of 986,839 homes have been sold across the UK each year.

The South East region sits top of the ranks with an annual average of 143,886 homes sold per year, followed by the North West (110,437) and Scotland (101,885).

At local authority level, Birmingham has been the UK’s homeseller’s hotspot, with an average of 12,179 properties sold on an annual basis.

Leeds also makes the cut with 11,726 homes sold on average each year, with Glasgow (11,579), Edinburgh (11,369), and Cornwall (10,093) also ranking within the top five.

Now, for the worst

When it comes to the worst place to be a homeseller, the City of London, Rutland, and Merthyr Tydfil is top of the list.

An average of just 201 homes per year have been sold across the capital over the last five years, with Rutland seeing only 650, and Merthyr Tydfil climbing slightly by just 739 per year.

Richmondshire (746) and Oadby and Wigston (774) also rank within the top five areas with the lowest sales volume.