How the growth ranking uses sold prices
If you want to know where house prices are rising fastest, the clearest answer on sold prices is CW2, where the median sold price rose 14.8% year on year. That is the strongest change among the 20 postcode districts in our ranking. The middle district in the list recorded 5.9%. The figures come from HM Land Registry price paid data, which covers England and Wales only. Scotland and Northern Ireland are not in it.
The ranking looks at house price growth by postcode district. A district is the outward half of a postcode, the part before the space. For each one we took the median sold price over the latest year and compared it with the median over the year before.
Not every sale counts. We kept established homes sold on standard terms and left out new build and non-standard transactions such as repossessions. Sales also had to fall inside a set price band, which trims the cheapest and the most expensive deals. In prime areas where many homes sell above that band, read the change as a lower bound.
The last filter matters most. Each district needed a minimum number of qualifying sales in both years before it could appear. Without that floor, a district with a handful of sales could post a huge swing and top the table on noise alone. Those figures make good headlines. They fall apart once you count the transactions behind them.
Where house prices are rising fastest, district by district
The chart below shows the districts with the strongest annual change in median sold price.
CW2 leads at 14.8%, and by a clear margin. NE3 follows at 11.5%. After that the gaps narrow quickly, with LA14 at 8.9% and BN2 at 8.0%.
Further down, the fastest growing property areas bunch together. BB2 shows 7.5%, while CF5 shows 6.2% and RH10 shows 6.0%. In the lower half, several districts share a figure. DL14, WA9 and FY5 all sit at 5.0%, and NG24 and CO10 both come in at 4.9%.
The full table adds the area name and the number of qualifying sales behind each figure. Read the sales column alongside the change. A rise built on a larger sample is less likely to be a quirk of a few unusual transactions.
| Rank | Outcode | Area | Annual price change | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CW2 | England | 14.8% | 424 |
| 2 | NE3 | England | 11.5% | 493 |
| 3 | LA14 | England | 8.9% | 410 |
| 4 | BN2 | England | 8.0% | 742 |
| 5 | BB2 | England | 7.5% | 470 |
| 6 | WN2 | England | 6.7% | 410 |
| 7 | PR1 | England | 6.5% | 442 |
| 8 | BB5 | England | 6.4% | 527 |
| 9 | CF5 | Wales | 6.2% | 625 |
| 10 | RH10 | England | 6.0% | 549 |
| 11 | DN14 | England | 5.8% | 474 |
| 12 | ST6 | England | 5.7% | 469 |
| 13 | FY4 | England | 5.6% | 438 |
| 14 | GL2 | England | 5.3% | 605 |
| 15 | MK42 | England | 5.2% | 374 |
| 16 | DL14 | England | 5.0% | 365 |
| 17 | WA9 | England | 5.0% | 392 |
| 18 | FY5 | England | 5.0% | 573 |
| 19 | NG24 | England | 4.9% | 521 |
| 20 | CO10 | England | 4.9% | 525 |
Districts where sold prices fell
This ranking is built from the strongest risers, so no district in it shows a fall. Even the lowest entry, CO10, recorded a rise of 4.9%.
The data behind this article does not include a list of falling districts, so we name none here. Absence from the table means less than it might seem. A district missing from the list has not necessarily seen prices drop. It may have grown more slowly, or it may not have had enough qualifying sales in both years to pass the sample floor.
The same caution works in reverse. Where a median does fall, it can reflect a change in the homes that sold rather than a loss of value on any individual property. The next section explains why.
Why median growth can be distorted by the mix of homes sold
A median sold price is the middle sale in a year. It describes the homes that changed hands, not every home in the district. If the mix of what sells shifts from one year to the next, the median moves even when no single property has gained or lost value.
Take a general example. Suppose last year's sales in a district were mostly flats and smaller terraces, and this year's included more detached houses. The median would rise. Nothing about the underlying market has to change for that to happen, and the opposite shift would pull it down.
Excluding new build helps, because a large new estate coming to market can swing a district's figures on its own. The price band and the sample floor help too. None of these filters removes the mix effect entirely, and districts with fewer sales are more exposed to it.
So a figure such as 14.8% is the change in the typical sale price in that district. It does not mean every home there rose by that amount. Check the sales count in the table, and look at more than one year where you can.
How investors can use growth alongside yield
Growth measures how the typical sold price has moved. Yield measures rent relative to price. They answer different questions, and a district can look strong on one and ordinary on the other. In general terms, rising prices push yields down unless rents rise at the same pace.
This ranking shows what happened over the past year. It does not forecast the next one. A strong year can be followed by a flat one, and a paper gain on a valuation pays for neither a void month nor a new boiler. A fuller picture sets growth over several years, by property type where possible, against local rent evidence.
Treat the data here as a starting point for research rather than a verdict on any district. For more on how we analyse sold prices, rents and yields, see our guides. To see listings with yield data attached, you can browse investment properties.
