Why is Property So Expensive to Buy in England?
Kensington Palace, Emily Ward
In recent years, there is an increasing backlash against the ‘powers that be’ that always seem to price property many times more than a person’s salary, so that they have to take out a huge mortgage to ‘get on the property ladder’.
Not realising the huge amount of interest they are paying banks over several years, just to ‘own somewhere’ at or near retirement.
In Sweden, JAK Bank does things differently. Staff are still paid. But with this non-profit bank, you pay interest over several years (which is used to fund other mortgages). Then when you own your home, you get all the interest back too – what a great idea. Why is that not done here?!!!!
American self-builder Rob Roy who once wrote a book on mortgage-free homes (key: you have to know how to build one!), and was almost aghast that so many young couples profusely thanked the bank manager, who was going to saddle them with massive debt and stress for decades to come.
Ecology Building Society offers slightly cheaper mortgages for people who build green homes (or who do up old ones) but overall property prices are so high, many people are choosing to rent or buy tiny homes.
Where are England’s cheapest-to-buy properties?
Probably in any not-so-posh area of your town! Nationwide, surprisingly it’s in the north east (County Durham, which is actually a beautiful county).
Other lower-cost areas are Hartlepool, Grimsby, Bradford, Ashley in Northumberland, and parts of Lancashire (Burnley and Blackpool).
Where are England’s most expensive properties?
Sandbanks is apparently the fourth most expensive place to live in the world (John Lennon bought a bungalow here for his Aunt Mimi in 1965). It used to be wild sand dunes, before turning into a mecca for shorefront homes.
There have been recent problems after a wooden fence was put up, which blocks off parts of the sandy beaches that run from some of the homes ‘back gardens’. Locals are saying ‘nobody owns the sand’ as they are having to walk different routes, sometimes with their dogs.
Back in Sandbanks, one resident (almost 80 years old) was walking her dog at night near the sand, then the security lights went on, CCTV started to film her, and a voice boomed out telling her to ‘go away’.
The best-known residents of Sandbanks for many years were Harry Redknapp and his wife, though they no longer live here (he is building a new mansion that will be more private, after becoming bothered by tourists).
The cheapest home on Right Move at Sandbanks is a 2-bedroom flat for £425,000. The most expensive property was almost £6 million (5 bedrooms and bathrooms, a pool, sauna, lawn and guest suite).
American writer Zoe Strimpel is mystified by the high prices in Sandbanks:
Sandbanks has none of what I would look for in a seaside home: no wildness, no seclusion, no sense of exposure to the full roar of the elements. Its naturalness has been manicured out of it, in accordance with the architectural and landscaping tastes of the football and entertainment elite.
Other places where it’s expensive to buy are obviously London and Surrey, but also Oxford, Cambridge, Salcombe (Devon) which is full of empty second-home properties and many commuter towns in southeast England (plus Brighton a little further away).
London properties (sky-high prices)
Some of England’s most expensive properties are in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea (ironically in the same borough where the council did not properly oversee cladding on Grenfell Tower Estate, the fire killing many people and animals).
Some of the prices are just silly: a penthouse in Hyde Park costs £175 million (over 2 floors, it doesn’t even have a garden though you can ‘view’ Hyde Park from the window). A 2-bedroom flat in Mayfair costs £100 million (which overlooks Green Park).
In 2026, England’s most expensive home was a 40-bedroom mansion in Regent’s Park, known as ‘London’s White House’, with its own boating lake. It was owned by a Saudi family but recently sold on behalf of an American investor.
One well-known luxury property developer in London is Nick Candy, who developed the One Hyde Park complex (with prices around £10 million for a ‘prestigious postcode’). Now a treasurer and donor to Reform UK (which will send our native wildlife extinct with their anti-rewilding and anti-climate change action policies), he is better known for being the ex-husband of Aussie pop singer Holly Valance.
