Average House Prices

One of the reasons thousands of people migrate to the West Midlands from London is the higher affordability. Here, your dream home costs so much less.

Your money goes a lot further in the West Midlands when compared to the South East and many other parts of the UK. Or to put it another way, the price of an average home here is 60% cheaper than in London, and rents are far less too (up to 50% lower in many cases).

We have enviable city homes perfect for urbanites, and hundreds of rural villages and market towns for those who want to live closer to nature. Lower-priced properties mean living your best life in our cities and countryside, much more affordably than in other UK regions.

An abundance of locations and lifestyles

Enjoying more cost-effective living doesn’t mean compromise, and the West Midlands offers you an incredible amount of choice when it comes to different lifestyle options.

We have every kind of home – from Victorian terraces to Edwardian townhouses, contemporary flats to falling-down follies, smart modular homes to modern maisonettes, and spacious suburban semis to city-centre skyscrapers – in every kind of location and neighbourhood.

We have also got a dizzying array of shopping, entertainment, eating, drinking and cultural options to enjoy, along with hundreds of sporting and leisure activities to experience.

And that’s all on top of the expanses of glorious English countryside, rivers, lakes and parkland we have threaded throughout the whole region.

Average house prices in the West Midlands

As mentioned, the West Midlands is a very affordable place to live. Our three main cities all rank well in terms of low house prices. But how affordable is a home in the West Midlands?

The average house price in London in the 12 months to January 2022, according to Zoopla, was £704,138. Across Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, the average price was £240,207, just over a third of the London price.

The average house prices across the UK and the West Midlands* are:

UK average: £329,291
London: £704,138
Birmingham: £235,681
Coventry: £247,108
Wolverhampton: £237,832

London offsets the higher prices somewhat by having higher average salaries. While London has an average salary of £39,500, the three cities of the West Midlands average above £31,000.

However, this doesn’t paint the full picture. By looking at an affordability ratio (the ratio of the average resident’s salary to the average house price) the prices in the West Midlands’ cities are strikingly better. The lower the ratio, the more affordable the average house.

The affordability ratio for houses across the UK and the West Midlands* are:

UK average: 10.5
London: 18.8
Birmingham: 8.1
Coventry: 8.0
Wolverhampton: 8.6

*Source: Zoopla online, Average price paid in the 12 months to January 2022

Renting in the West Midlands

With such a young population (over 31% of us are under 25!) renting is a popular option across our three cities. Luckily, our prices here also excel.

According to the Valuation Office Agency, the average household rental price for all property types, per month, in London was £1,450 from April 2021–March 2022. In comparison, the data reports that the cost in the West Midlands was just £695 per month.

Moving to the West Midlands

With these great property prices, great ways to maximise your money, and a huge variety of things to see and do in the West Midlands, it is no wonder that Birmingham has more internal migrants than any other regional city, with over 46,000 moving to the city in 2020.

So, whether you are moving for work, looking for better education for your family, or simply after a change and a breath of fresh air, you can find your home in the West Midlands.