House sales by local authority - some observations

 

Summary

This analysis looks at sales of dwellings in relation to owner-occupied dwellings as a share of all occupied dwellings.  

 

Methodology

Two sets of data were used, number of dwellings and tenure and sales of dwellings. Sales data over a five-year period – year ending March 2019 to 2023 was averaged. Dwelling numbers from the 2021 census was used to provide the dwelling data. Data from lower tier authorities – districts was amalgamated to create county level data, as was sub-county unitary data for example the two new authorities in Cumbria.

 

Analysis

There was a positive correlation between the share of owner occupied properties as a % of all occupied properties and sales level of 0.81. This is expected as the owner-occupied sector is where most sales occur. There is a spatial pattern to the data.  Rural areas had the highest figures for the ratio of sales to occupied dwellings while urban areas particularly London boroughs had the lowest share. The link to levels of owner-occupier dwellings is apparent. The top ten have an average of 71.0%, the bottom ten have an average of 28.8%. 

 

Area	All occ dwell	OO as % of occ dwell	2nd homes %	Ratio sales to all dwell
North Somerset	94648	71.6	0.6	3.9
North Yorkshire	274381	68.6	1.8	3.9
Warwickshire	253,262	68.2	0.4	3.7
West Sussex	375,216	68.5	0.8	3.7
East Riding of Yorkshire	152066	73.1	7.2	3.7
Isle of Wight	64775	67.6	4.0	3.7
Dorset	343,103	66.6	1.5	3.7
Rutland	16691	70.9	0.6	3.7
South Gloucestershire	118101	72.4	0.2	3.7
Devon	530,170	65.5	1.8	3.6

 

 

The Isles of Scilly is an outlier here.

 

Area	All occ dwell	OO as % of occ dwell	2nd homes %	Ratio sales to all dwell
Isles of Scilly	939	44.5	10.6	1.4
Brent	118612	38.4	0.2	1.4
Newham	115511	30.8	0.3	1.7
Westminster	94816	27.4	4.6	1.7
Camden	92758	29.7	1.1	1.7
Kensington and Chelsea	66884	31.7	8.0	1.7
Islington	96496	26.7	0.6	1.8
Hounslow	102961	45.7	0.3	1.9
Haringey	105091	37.2	0.2	1.9
Barking and Dagenham	73902	42.4	0.1	1.9

 

 

 

Sources

ONS, (January 2023), Table TS054 – Tenure, Census 2021

 

ONS, (March 2023). All dwellings, Census 2021

 

ONS, (May 2023), Number of dwellings by housing characteristics in England and Wales, 2021 compared with 2011, Census 2021.

 

ONS, (October 2023), Number of vacant and second homes, England and Wales: Census 2021.

 

ONS (25th September 2024) Number of residential property sales for administrative geographies, Table 2a - Number of residential property sales by local authority, year ending December 1995 to year ending March 2024.