What share of flat sellers are losing money?

In 2025, 19.6% of flat resales in England & Wales completed below the price the seller had paid — against 3.6% of house resales. The gap between flats and houses has widened every year since 2022.

Where do flat sellers lose money most often?

Sunderland: 52.3% of its flat resales since 2023 completed at a nominal loss — the median resale there was actually below the purchase price (-1.9%). The pattern is strongest in northern cities and commuter towns, not just central London.

Why are flats underperforming houses?

Several forces stack: post-Grenfell cladding and remediation costs, rising service charges and ground-rent scrutiny, the pandemic-era shift in demand toward space, and a large supply of near-identical city-centre stock built in the 2000s and 2010s. The result shows up here as resales below the original purchase price.

Research · Updated July 2026

The flat crash, street by street

Every sale in this analysis is a real completion: the same flat, bought and later resold, with both prices on the public record. No index, no model — just what sellers actually got back.

In 2025, 19.6% of flat resales in England & Wales completed below the price the seller had paid — nearly 5× the rate for houses (3.6%). And the sharpest pain is not where the headlines look: in Sunderland, 52.3% of flat resales since 2023 lost money — the median resale was below the purchase price.

Resales completing at a nominal loss, flats vs houses

Year of saleFlatsHouses

201422.6%16.2%

201518.2%12.2%

201615.1%9.6%

201713.8%8%

201813.9%6.8%

201917%6.9%

202017.1%6.1%

202116.3%3.4%

202214.3%1.9%

202316.5%2.6%

202418.2%3.4%

202519.6%3.6%

The towns where flat sellers lose most often (sales since 2023)

#TownSold at a loss · Median gain

1Sunderland52.3%-1.9%

2Darlington47.8%+0%

3Fleet39.4%+3.9%

4Blackpool37.6%+6.9%

5Bradford36.3%+8.6%

6Preston35.8%+5.8%

7Hull33.7%+7.2%

8Gateshead33.5%+8.1%

9Stoke-On-Trent33.3%+6.9%

10Swansea33.3%+7.8%

11Halifax32.9%+10%

12Farnborough32.8%+8.2%

13Carlisle31.9%+5.3%

14Stratford-Upon-Avon31.9%+7.4%

15Chorley31.4%+6.7%

Towns need 300+ flat resales since 2023 to qualify. London is a single “town” in Land Registry naming and sits further down this table — the loss epidemic is worst in northern cities and southern commuter towns.

The streets where the most flat money has been lost (sales since 2023)

Streets need 15+ flat resales since 2023 to appear — these are large developments, not individual homes. The deepest losses cluster in retirement and shared-ownership schemes, where resale losses are systematic to the product; that is itself part of the story, and every street links to its sale-by-sale record so the pattern can be inspected.

Methodology & use

Built from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data repeat sales: the same property (matched on address) sold twice, at least 90 days apart, standard market sales only. “At a loss” means the resale completed below the earlier purchase price in nominal terms — before fees, improvements or inflation, all of which make the true position worse, not better. Figures recompute as sales register. Free to quote and republish with attribution to Housometer and a link; custom cuts (a town, a development, a lender patch) available same-day via contact.

Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (© Crown copyright), Open Government Licence v3.0. Analysis: Housometer, July 2026. See also how we work with data.

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