Recent research from Plumbnation has found the most expensive location to buy property in the UK is not surprisingly Kensington & Chelsea in West London, where the average house price is over £1.4m with an average cost per square metre a whopping £28,500 plus.
Westminster (with house prices also averaging just over £1m) is second, the City of London (£806k), Camden (£800k) and Islington (£711k) all make the top five with the top ten locations in Britain all within or around the M25.
But these high price properties don’t interest bread and butter investors who like to get ‘more’ property for their money rather than ‘less’… And whilst you can purchase property in Chelsea for over 28k per sq metre with an average median floor space of a poxy 50 square metres available to those who are lucky enough to have the funds… In Blaenau Gwent, you can get a property that costs just £1,268 per square metre on average with regular floor space near double on that in central and West London.
Here we look at those locations, the best in the country where value for money tops the list for the best and biggest floor space you get for the least amount of cash.
Let’s start with the top three…
1. Blaenau Gwent, Wales
- Average house price: £121,739
- Median floor space: 96 square metres
- Average cost per square metre: £1,268
The area where buyers get the greatest value for money in terms of floor space is Blaenau Gwent, in Wales, where a square metre of property costs just £1,268 on average. The largely rural county borough covers a number of small towns such as Abertillery, Brynmawr, Ebbw Vale and Tredegar and is also partially covered by the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site.
2. Burnley, North West
- Average house price: £112,394
- Median floor space: 88 square metres
- Average cost per square metre: £1,277
The English area with the lowest cost per square metre is Burnley, in Lancashire, which is actually the cheapest place in the country when it comes to average house prices in general, at £112,394. Combined with an average property size of 88 square metres, this equals a cost per square foot of just £1,277, which is over 20 times lower than some parts of central London.
3. Hyndburn, North West
- Average house price: £122,510
- Median floor space: 95 square metres
- Average cost per square metre: £1,290
One of Burnley’s neighbouring areas takes third place (with another, Pendle, in fourth), with Hyndburn having slightly more expensive houses, but ones that are crucially bigger, with an average cost per square metre of £1,290. Hyndburn (named after the river that runs through it) is home to the town of Accrington and is located between Burnley and Blackburn.
|
Rank |
Local authority |
Average house price |
Median floor space (sq m) |
Average cost per square metre |
|
1 |
Blaenau Gwent |
£121,739 |
96 |
£1,268 |
|
2 |
Burnley |
£112,394 |
88 |
£1,277 |
|
3 |
Hyndburn |
£122,510 |
95 |
£1,290 |
|
4 |
Pendle |
£118,671 |
91 |
£1,304 |
|
5 |
County Durham |
£124,667 |
94 |
£1,326 |
|
6 |
Blackpool |
£127,286 |
90 |
£1,414 |
|
7 |
North East Lincolnshire |
£139,504 |
97 |
£1,438 |
|
8 |
Merthyr Tydfil |
£138,102 |
96 |
£1,439 |
|
9 |
Blackburn with Darwen |
£135,650 |
94 |
£1,443 |
|
10 |
Copeland |
£139,946 |
96 |
£1,458
|
This table shows whilst some of these locations are way off London prices, there is a lot to be said about getting more bricks and mortar for your pound notes, and whilst finding undervalued property isn’t restricted to these locations, it points out that when it comes to getting a bargain, size does matter when investing in property.
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Daniel Peacock