What have been the top performing property types of the past decade?

Fresh research from Proportunity reveals how different property types performed over the past decade, based on price growth. 

The data, collected across England and Wales, shows that terraced houses have been the best performing housing type in the past 10 years, with terraced homes in London enjoying the highest house price growth during that time. 

The company, which provides Help to Buy-style equity loans, analysed the changing price per square metre of all properties sold in England and Wales since 2010, and found that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for each property type by region, and also at an England and Wales-wide level. 

Despite recent stagnation, Greater London was home to the highest performing property types in all but one category over the past decade. The capital’s flats, terraced and semi-detached houses all outperformed their counterparts in other regions, with growth of 4.93%, 5.07%, and 4.33% respectively. 

But owners of detached houses in the East of England saw only a marginally higher growth: 3.07% compared to 3.06% in London.

Across all of England and Wales, the top performing property type was terraced houses, with an average growth of 3.05%. Semi-detached houses had growth of 2.9% on average, with flats seeing growth of 2.35%. The slowest growing property type was detached houses, with annual growth rates of 2.33% since 2010.  

Flats in the North East performed the worst of any regional property type, with an average decrease in price of 0.5%. Flats in Yorkshire and The Humber, and the North West also lost value over the decade, with 0.12% and 0.04% decreases annually respectively. 

Vadim Toader, founder and CEO of Proportunity, said: “The 2010s were marked by the after-effects of the financial crisis, and then by Brexit uncertainty. 

“Despite these headwinds, we have largely seen growth across the board but the clear winner is terraced housing, or more specifically, terraced homes in London, with buyers likely attracted to their historic characteristics and charm, as well as their limited supply, compared to new builds. Yet, despite their popularity, they are out of reach for many first time buyers in the capital, with Help to Buy restricted to new-builds only, which are typically flats or semi-detached or detached houses."

Compound Annual Growth 

Price per square metre (£)

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