The 28 towns where flats fell while the houses next door rose

Research by ValuQ: we analysed Land Registry UK House Price Index data for 46 English local-authority areas, comparing the average price of a flat against detached, semi-detached and terraced houses in each, over the year to April 2026.

This is the latest in ValuQ Property Watch, where we read the week's housing data for what it actually means for your own home.

The headline this week is that house prices are still rising. The quieter story underneath it is that one type of home is being left behind. Flats are not keeping up, and in a long list of towns they are going backwards in cash terms while the houses around them move forward.

What did ValuQ find?

A flat or maisonette is a home that shares a building with others, usually held on a lease. Year-on-year change means the difference between the average price in April 2026 and the same month a year earlier. On that measure, flats fell in 28 of the 46 towns we looked at, even though houses rose in most of them.

The split is not subtle. In some towns a flat owner and a house owner on the same street saw their homes move in opposite directions in the same twelve months.

Which towns saw flats fall while houses rose?

These are the 15 towns with the widest gap between how a flat moved and how a semi-detached house moved over the year to April 2026. A minus sign means the average price fell. The list runs to 28 towns in total.

Where did flat owners lose the most money?

In percentage terms the falls look small. In pounds, on a London or South East flat, they are not. These are the average cash falls for a flat over the year to April 2026 in the towns where houses still rose.

Why are flats falling while houses rise?

Three forces are pulling in the same direction. Buyers have wanted space since the pandemic, so houses with gardens are in demand and flats are not. First-time buyers, who once started in a flat, are stretching straight to a small house where they can. And the leasehold market that most flats sit in carries its own friction: service charges, ground rent and cladding or building-safety questions that make some flats slower to sell and easier to haggle down.

None of that is new on its own. What this week's data shows is the three pressures landing together, hard enough to push flats below where they were a year ago in most of the towns we checked.

What does the national picture say?

The town-level falls sit inside a national gap that the headline average hides. The UK House Price Index, published on 17 June 2026, shows every house type rising in the year to April while flats barely moved.

Zoopla's June update, published on 23 June 2026, put the gap even wider on its own index, with semis up 2.5% over the year while flats fell 1.3%, which it called the widest split in years. Our town-by-town cut shows where that average actually bites: in 28 places a flat did not just lag a house, it lost money.

How we did this

ValuQ analysed the Land Registry UK House Price Index average price for flats, terraced, semi-detached and detached homes in 46 English local-authority areas, comparing April 2026 with April 2025. We ranked towns by the gap between the flat change and the semi-detached change, and separately by the cash fall in the average flat. These are average prices for each property type, not the price of any single home, so an individual flat may have done better or worse. The underlying data is public and dated; the figures here are ValuQ's own cut of it.

For years a flat was the safe first rung on the ladder. Our data shows that rung has stopped moving while the rest of the ladder pulls away. If you own one, the worst move is to guess. Find out what it is worth today, then decide from facts rather than fear. Evren Ergin, founder of ValuQ.

What it means if you own a flat

A falling average is not a verdict on your specific home, and it is not a reason to rush. It is a reason to act from real numbers.

1. Find out what your flat is actually worth now, from more than one local agent, before you assume the headline applies to you.
2. If you are trading up, remember the gap to a house has widened in most towns, so the sooner you understand both numbers, the better you can time the move.
3. If you are not moving, you do not crystallise a paper fall by staying put. Flats have led recoveries before.
4. If you do sell, judge a buyer by what they have committed, not what they say, and do not take your home off the market until they have put their own money down.

What it means if you are buying

If you are buying a flat, this is the strongest negotiating position flat buyers have had in years, because demand is soft and sellers know it. If you are buying a house, expect more competition, because that is where the demand has gone.

ValuQ gives UK homeowners free, side-by-side property valuations from competing local estate agents, so you can see what your home is worth from more than one expert before you decide anything.