The district average fell for a third month running to £294,810. Annual growth is down from 5.8% in March to 0.3%, and sales are the lowest since 2009.
The average West Suffolk home was worth £294,810 in July. A year earlier it was £294,063. That is a rise of £747, or 0.3%, over twelve months.
It is also the third monthly fall in a row. The district average is now £5,458 below its April high of £300,268, and the annual rate has come down in four steps:
- March 2026: +5.8%
- April: +5.0%
- May: +2.4%
- June: +1.4%
- July 2026: +0.3%
The figures are from the Land Registry’s UK House Price Index for July, published on 18 September. The next release, covering August, is due at 9.30am on Wednesday 21 October (HM Land Registry).
One caution before the numbers go any further. UKHPI reports a mean average, not a median. It is pulled up by the district’s expensive detached stock and does not describe a typical sale. It is useful for the direction of travel, which is what this piece is about.
What is rising, and what is falling
| Property type | July 2026 average | Change on the year |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | £449,433 | +0.1% |
| Semi-detached | £279,777 | +1.0% |
| Terraced | £229,882 | +0.7% |
| Flat or maisonette | £144,735 | -2.8% |
| First-time buyer | £245,272 | +0.5% |
Flats are the only type losing value, and they have been falling for months. At £144,735 the average West Suffolk flat is £16,582 below its November 2022 level of £161,317, a fall of 10.3% in under four years.
Detached houses have gone almost nowhere. The average moved from £449,032 to £449,433 over the year, a rise of £401.
The number nobody publishes: how few homes are changing hands
Prices are the half of this release that gets reported. The sales counts are the half that tells you what the market actually feels like, and they are worse than the prices.
765 homes sold in West Suffolk between January and May 2026. That is the lowest total for those five months since 2009, when 683 sold in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It is below the first Covid year, 2020, which managed 832.
May 2026 recorded 124 sales. In the 32 years the index covers, only one May has been lower: May 2020, at 111, the first full month of the pandemic lockdown.
Two honest caveats belong with that. First, recent sales counts are provisional and get revised up as registrations come in. We can measure that ourselves, because we published the same series in August: March 2026 then stood at 183 and now stands at 196, and April moved from 131 to 134. Second, the 2025 comparison is distorted by the stamp duty threshold change of 1 April 2025, which pulled completions forward: West Suffolk recorded 379 sales in March 2025 and 112 in April 2025.
Even allowing for both, 765 is a long way below the 828 of 2024 and the 881 of 2023, neither of which was a busy year.
Where that leaves the district against its neighbours
West Suffolk ranks 96th of the 295 English local authority districts for annual growth in July. That sounds middling. It is not quite: 85 of those districts fell outright, so West Suffolk sits in the lower third of the ones still rising.
| Area | July 2026 average | Change on the year |
|---|---|---|
| East Cambridgeshire | £346,413 | +5.8% |
| Mid Suffolk | £315,898 | +3.2% |
| Ipswich | £221,445 | +1.3% |
| Babergh | £330,523 | +0.7% |
| West Suffolk | £294,810 | +0.3% |
| Cambridge | £475,151 | 0.0% |
| England | £293,479 | +1.1% |
| East of England | £337,518 | +0.5% |
| Suffolk county | £280,742 | +0.5% |
East Cambridgeshire, which starts at Newmarket’s western edge, grew nearly twenty times faster than West Suffolk over the same year. Mid Suffolk, immediately to the east, grew ten times faster. That gap has held for several months now, and it is a better guide to the local market than the national headline.
A correction to our own figure
When we reported the June release in August, the district average stood at £296,879 and annual growth at 1.6%. The Land Registry has since revised June down to £296,253 and the annual rate to 1.4%. May was revised down too, from £298,805 to £297,710.
Revisions of a few hundred pounds are normal in this index for the two most recent months. We mention it because it changes the numbers we published, and because it points the same way as everything else here: the spring peak was a little lower than first reported.
What it means for you
- If you are selling, the market you are pricing into has been falling for three months, not rising. Asking prices set against the April figure of £300,268 are now about £5,450 above where the index sits.
- If you own a flat, this is the one to watch. Flats are down 2.8% on the year and 10.3% below their November 2022 level, while every other type is flat or slightly up.
- If you are buying, there are fewer competing buyers than at any point since 2009 on the sales figures, but also fewer homes completing. Both sides of the market are thin.
- If you are waiting for a rate to move the market, note the district is still £16,816 below its November 2022 peak of £311,626, almost four years on.
- The next figure lands on Wednesday 21 October, covering August.
Our running page on Bury St Edmunds house prices carries the street-level and postcode picture, and we publish this district summary every month. For what you pay on a property once you own it, see Bury St Edmunds council tax bands.
Sources
All figures are from HM Land Registry’s UK House Price Index, July 2026 release, published 18 September 2026: the West Suffolk district series and the full UK HPI data file, which carries every English district and every month back to 1995. Rankings and the January to May sales totals were calculated by The Bury St Edmunds Post from that file.
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