Homes in the most expensive area of England and Wales cost 25 times as much as in the cheapest area, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) analysis of 2016 property prices.
One square metre of floor space – an area about the size of a red phone box – costs almost £19,439 in Kensington and Chelsea, while in Blaenau Gwent in the South Wales valleys, the same amount of space costs £777.
ONS also found that new flats in England and Wales have got 18% bigger in the last three years, while new houses have remained around the same size.
The average house sold in England and Wales in 2016 had a floor area of 104 metres squared – that’s about two-fifths the size of a tennis court, or 70 times smaller than the football pitch at Wembley.
Flats averaged 49 metres squared (excluding bathrooms, corridors, hallways and landings) – that’s just over four times bigger than a typical car-parking space.
Taking flats and houses together, the average size of properties sold in England and Wales in 2016 was 90 metres squared – a little smaller than the EU average, and much smaller than new homes in the United States.
However new properties are a lot bigger than existing ones: in 2016, the average new house sold was 13% bigger than the average existing house, while the average new flat was 17% bigger than the average existing flat.
In the last three years, new flats in England and Wales have increased in size by 8.5 metres squared. This could be because there is a higher proportion of maisonettes (flats with more than one storey, which tend to be larger too) in the housing market.
More information is available on the ONS website.
