The Best and Worst Places to Sell a House in England and Wales

Looking to sell your home? Where you sell can make a huge difference to your experience of the property market. 

While sellers in some parts of the country are benefiting from rising house prices, affordable local markets and relatively quick sales, others face slower conditions and house prices that are becoming increasingly out of reach for local earners.

To find where sellers are currently in the strongest position, we analysed 48 major towns and cities across England and Wales, looking at four factors: housing affordability compared to earnings, time on the market, number of property sales and annual house price growth.

Each location received a score from 0 to 100 for each factor, with the four scores combined to produce an overall seller score.

The results reveal a clear geographical divide. Preston takes the top spot overall, followed closely by Liverpool, while Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester and Sunderland complete the top five. At the other end of the ranking, Oxford finishes last, alongside Cambridge and Brighton.

Here, we’ve summarised our findings. Keep reading for all the details, or use the table of contents to dive into the areas you’re most interested in.

The best places to sell a house in England and Wales

So, where are the strongest sellers’ markets? Our research found that Preston is currently the best place to sell a home of the locations analysed, narrowly beating Liverpool to first place.

Northern locations dominate the top of the ranking, taking up eight of the ten highest-scoring places.

Rank	City/Town	Overall score
1	Preston	71.48
2	Liverpool	71.04
3	Newcastle upon Tyne	67.33
4	Manchester	62.72
5	Sunderland	62.46
6	Birmingham	59.33
7	Middlesbrough	58.28
8	Blackpool	57.41
9	Wigan	55.53
10	Stoke-on-Trent	52.62

Preston is the best place to sell a home

Preston takes first place in our index with an overall score of 71.48 out of 100.

Its biggest advantage is recent house price growth. The average house price in Preston increased from £167,000 to £188,000 over the last year – an increase of 12.4% and the strongest growth of any location in our analysis.

However, despite strong market growth, Preston remains relatively affordable. An average home costs around 6.26 times the area’s median annual salary of £30,038, putting Preston tenth for affordability across the locations analysed.

The North West market is also relatively fast-moving. Homes take an average of 57 days from being listed to securing a buyer, according to Rightmove regional data.

Ultimately, Preston doesn’t stand out because of one measure alone, but because it combines rapid recent price growth with relatively affordable property, healthy sales activity and a fast-moving regional market.

 

Liverpool is one of the strongest all-round housing markets

Liverpool follows extremely closely in second place, scoring 71.04.

While Preston took the top spot, boosted by its exceptional house price growth, Liverpool is one of the best all-rounders, performing strongly across all four measures.

Average house prices in Liverpool increased by 7.2% over the last year, from £173,000 to £185,000. The city also recorded 964 property sales in 2025 – the fifth-highest total in our analysis.

Liverpool performs particularly well for affordability. With an average house price of £185,000 and median salary of £30,947, homes cost just under six times local annual earnings, making Liverpool the seventh-most affordable location analysed.

This is particularly noticeable when compared with nearby Manchester. Median salaries are actually slightly higher in Liverpool than Manchester, at £30,947 compared with £30,067, yet the average Manchester home costs £251,000 – that’s £66,000 more than in Liverpool.

 

Newcastle leads a strong North East property market

Newcastle upon Tyne ranks third overall, but it isn’t the only North East location towards the top of the table. Sunderland ranks fifth and Middlesbrough seventh, meaning three North East locations appear in the national top ten.

One factor helping all three is the speed of the regional market. Rightmove data puts the average time required to secure a buyer in the North East at 52 days – the fastest of any region in the analysis.

Newcastle also saw average house prices increase by 6.7% over the year, from £196,000 to £209,000.

Affordability is another major strength across the entire region. Middlesbrough is the most affordable location in the entire study, with an average home costing £138,000 against median annual earnings of £30,253 – equivalent to just 4.56 years of the local median salary.

Sunderland ranks third for affordability, with its £143,000 average house price equivalent to 5.11 times median earnings.

 

Manchester has the busiest property market

Manchester ranks fourth overall but takes first place on one key measure: sales activity.

There were 1,252 property sales recorded in Manchester during 2025, the highest number of any location analysed. Birmingham follows with 1,235, while Bristol recorded 1,221.

While it ranks strongly for its active market, Manchester’s overall position is held back by weaker affordability and more modest recent price growth. Average prices increased by 2.9%, from £244,000 to £251,000, while the average home now costs 8.35 times the city’s median annual salary.

This creates an interesting contrast with Liverpool. Manchester has the most active market in our analysis, but Liverpool’s combination of lower house prices, stronger recent price growth and greater affordability puts it higher in the overall seller ranking.

 

The worst places to sell a house in England and Wales

The other end of our index looks very different. All ten of the lowest-scoring locations are in southern or eastern England, with Oxford ranking last overall.

Rank	Location	Overall score
48	Oxford	4.33
47	Cambridge	9.71
46	Brighton	10.24
45	Exeter	12.11
44	Bournemouth	12.41
43	Watford	16.80
42	Slough	18.04
41	Portsmouth	19.45
40	Milton Keynes	21.42
39	Luton	21.80

 

Oxford ranks as the toughest market for sellers

Oxford finishes at the bottom of our index with an overall score of just 4.33.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, affordability is its biggest weakness. The average Oxford home costs £467,000, while the median annual salary is £36,517. That means the average property costs approximately 12.79 times local annual earnings – the highest ratio of any location analysed.

The scale of that affordability gap becomes particularly clear when Oxford is compared to a northern town like Middlesbrough. Median annual earnings in Oxford are around 21% higher than in Middlesbrough, yet its average house price is around 238% higher. A Middlesbrough home costs around 4.56 times the median local salary, compared with almost 13 times in Oxford.

Oxford also recorded only 195 property sales in the sales-volume data and sits within the South East, where homes took an average of 65 days to secure a buyer.

 

Cambridge and Brighton are almost equally unaffordable

Cambridge and Brighton join Oxford at the bottom of the overall index and are also among the least affordable locations analysed.

Cambridge has the highest average house price in our study at £471,000, compared with a median salary of £38,711. This gives it a house-price-to-salary ratio of 12.17.

Brighton’s average house price is lower at £408,000, but median earnings are also considerably lower at £33,506. As a result, its affordability ratio is 12.18 – almost identical to Cambridge.

Both locations have also experienced relatively weak recent price performance. Average prices fell 1.2% in Cambridge, while Brighton recorded growth of just 0.3%.

 

 

The North–South housing divide

One of the clearest patterns to emerge from the research is the divide between northern and southern housing markets.

Eight of the ten highest-scoring places are in the North of England, with Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent the only exceptions. At the other end, the bottom ten is made up entirely of locations in southern and eastern England.

There isn’t one single factor causing this divide – it’s a combination of all four metrics. Northern locations tend to score well because of lower house prices relative to earnings, stronger recent price growth and faster regional selling times.

The most affordable housing markets are concentrated in the North

When diving into affordability alone, the results again show a clear geographical divide. Middlesbrough is the most affordable location analysed, followed by Blackpool, Sunderland and Stoke-on-Trent.

Rank	Location	Average house price	Median salary	Price-to-salary ratio
1	Middlesbrough	£138,000	£30,253	4.56
2	Blackpool	£135,000	£27,979	4.83
3	Sunderland	£143,000	£27,989	5.11
4	Stoke-on-Trent	£149,000	£29,041	5.13
5	Doncaster	£171,000	£31,119	5.50
6	Barnsley	£176,000	£31,359	5.61
7	Liverpool	£185,000	£30,947	5.98
8	Blackburn	£166,000	£27,502	6.04
9	Wigan	£196,000	£31,615	6.20
10	Preston	£188,000	£30,038	6.26

At the opposite end of the rankings are Oxford, Brighton and Cambridge, where average house prices are more than 12 times median annual earnings.

Comparing two towns – one southern, one northern – illustrates just how significant geography can be. Blackpool and Luton, for example, have very similar median annual salaries: £27,979 in Blackpool and £28,741 in Luton, a difference of just £762.

Yet the average home costs £135,000 in Blackpool and £290,000 in Luton. That’s a £155,000 difference in average property prices between two locations where median earnings differ by less than £1,000 a year.

 

 

Where are house prices rising fastest?

House prices increased in the vast majority of locations analysed, but the strength of that growth varies considerably.

Preston comfortably leads the table, with prices rising 12.4% over the year.

Rank	Location	Previous average price	Current average price	Annual change
1	Preston	£167,000	£188,000	+12.4%
2	Wolverhampton	£200,000	£217,000	+8.2%
3=	Blackpool	£126,000	£135,000	+7.2%
3=	Liverpool	£173,000	£185,000	+7.2%
5	Newcastle upon Tyne	£196,000	£209,000	+6.7%
6	Wigan	£184,000	£196,000	+6.6%
7	Warrington	£244,000	£259,000	+6.5%
8=	Barnsley	£166,000	£176,000	+6.0%
8=	Bradford	£174,000	£185,000	+6.0%
10	Leeds	£236,000	£249,000	+5.9%

Only five of the 48 locations recorded a fall in average prices: Oxford, Exeter, Bournemouth, Cambridge and Ipswich.

Exeter experienced the largest decline, falling 1.7% from £286,000 to £281,000. Bournemouth fell 1.6%, Cambridge 1.2%, Ipswich 1.1%, and Oxford 0.9%.

Notably, none of the northern locations in the analysis recorded an annual fall in average house prices.

 

Where are the most homes being sold?

Price growth tells us how values are changing, but transaction volumes give another indication of how active a housing market is.

Manchester recorded the greatest number of property sales across 2025, closely followed by Birmingham and Bristol.

Rank	Location	Properties sold
1	Manchester	1,252
2	Birmingham	1,235
3	Bristol	1,221
4	Nottingham	1,135
5	Liverpool	964
6	Leeds	857
7	Sheffield	839
8	Southampton	627
9	Preston	613
10	Leicester	609

Where are homes selling fastest?

There is also a clear regional difference in how long properties take to secure a buyer.

Rightmove’s regional market data shows that properties in the North East take an average of 52 days from first being listed to being sold subject to contract, the fastest period among the regions included in our analysis.

The North West follows at 57 days, ahead of the West Midlands at 59 days and Yorkshire and the Humber at 62.

Region	Average time to secure a buyer
North East	52 days
North West	57 days
West Midlands	59 days
Yorkshire and the Humber	62 days
East of England	64 days
South East	65 days
East Midlands	65 days
South West	66 days
Wales	66 days

This regional measure helps explain the strong performance of Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough in the overall index, with all three benefiting from the North East’s comparatively fast selling time.

 

 

What does the research mean for sellers?

The results show that a high house price doesn’t necessarily make somewhere a strong market for sellers.

The locations towards the top of our index tend to combine several favourable conditions. Homes remain relatively affordable to local buyers, values are growing, properties are securing buyers relatively quickly, and there is enough sales activity to indicate a strong local market.

But national and regional trends should always be viewed alongside the circumstances of an individual property.

Two homes in the same town can experience very different levels of demand depending on their condition, property type, exact location and asking price. Looking at recent comparable sales and pricing realistically is still important, even in a strong market.

Methodology

Good Move analysed 48 major towns and cities across England and Wales to identify where current housing-market conditions are most favourable to sellers.

Locations were compared across four factors:

• • Affordability: average house price compared with median annual salary.
  • Time to secure a buyer: average number of days between a property first being listed and securing a buyer, based on Rightmove regional data.
  • Sales volume: number of property transactions recorded during 2025.
  • House price growth: percentage change in average house prices over the latest annual period analysed.

Each metric was normalised onto a scale from 0 to 100, with a higher score representing a more favourable result for sellers within the locations analysed.

For affordability, a lower house-price-to-salary ratio received a higher score. For time on market, a shorter selling period received a higher score. Higher sales volumes and stronger house-price growth received higher scores.

The four measures were equally weighted, with their scores averaged to produce each location’s final index score. Scores are relative to the 48 locations included in the analysis, so a score of 100 represents the strongest result within this dataset for that particular measure.

The analysis focuses on 48 major towns and cities in England and Wales for which comparable data was available across all four measures.

London was excluded because consistent city-wide data could not be obtained across the datasets used. Scotland and Northern Ireland were also excluded due to differences in the available housing and earnings data, which prevented a consistent like-for-like comparison.

House price data was sourced from official UK house price statistics, earnings data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), sales-volume data from government property transaction records and time-on-market data from Rightmove.

For each measure, we used the most recent available data at the time of analysis. Where a full calendar year was required, such as for sales volumes, we used 2025 data.