England · Research
Detached, semi, terraced, flat: what each type is and what it sells for
The four types the Land Registry records, defined plainly, and priced from the register itself across 762 English towns. Registered sales through 2026-09-30.
Soloren LeeProperty market research
The four types
HM Land Registry records one of four types on every sale, plus an 'other' bucket for anything that fits none of them. These are the definitions the register uses, which are also the ones estate agents use.
- Flat or maisonette£175,000
- One dwelling within a larger building, almost always leasehold. A maisonette is a flat over two floors, usually with its own front door to the street.
- Terraced£255,000
- A house in a row, sharing both side walls with its neighbours. The end house in the row is an end-terrace and tends to sell a little higher.
- Semi-detached£300,000
- One of a pair, sharing a single side wall. The default shape of English suburbia and the most common type in the register.
- Detached£445,000
- A house standing on its own plot, sharing no walls. Usually the largest type in a given town, and usually the dearest.
The national ladder
Taking each town's typical price for a type — its own median where the register publishes one tenure, a sales-weighted blend of the two where it publishes both — and then the median across towns, the ladder runs from £175,000 to £445,000. This is the part everyone already expects, and it is worth stating only so the next section can take it apart.
| Type | Median | Towns with a published figure |
|---|---|---|
| Flat or maisonette | £175,000 | 774 |
| Terraced | £255,000 | 879 |
| Semi-detached | £300,000 | 888 |
| Detached | £445,000 | 878 |
The order is near-universal. The gap is not.
In 762 towns the register publishes both a detached and a flat figure. Detached is dearer in all but 2 of them, so the ladder itself is about as reliable as anything in this data. The multiple is a different story: the median town puts detached at 2.81x the price of a flat, but the range runs from roughly parity to more than seven times.
The figures compare the recorded housing stock for each type. Floor area and condition are unavailable, and the transaction counts help identify the thinner comparisons.
Where the gap is widest
These are towns with a cheap flat market and an expensive detached one, typically former industrial towns where ex-local-authority flats sit beside large private houses. The type tells you a great deal about price here.
| Town | County | Detached | Flat | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Choppington | Northumberland | £262,500 | £35,000 | 7.50x |
| Brockenhurst | Hampshire | £1,020,000 | £171,250 | 5.96x |
| Washington | Tyne and Wear | £315,000 | £58,000 | 5.43x |
| Barrow-in-Furness | Westmorland and Furness | £321,250 | £69,975 | 4.59x |
| Batley | West Yorkshire | £320,000 | £70,000 | 4.57x |
| Bedlington | Northumberland | £285,000 | £62,750 | 4.54x |
| Henley-in-Arden | Warwickshire | £760,000 | £169,000 | 4.50x |
| North Ferriby | East Riding of Yorkshire | £432,475 | £99,000 | 4.37x |
Where the gap closes, and inverts
In Richmond and Padstow the detached figure is below the flat figure. The register supplies no floor area, condition or outlook with which to match those homes. Read each row as a comparison of the recorded housing stock in that town, with the sales counts beside it.
| Town | County | Detached | Flat | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Richmond | Greater London | £463,750 | £520,000 | 0.89x |
| Padstow | Cornwall | £712,500 | £767,500 | 0.93x |
| Watlington | Oxfordshire | £700,000 | £505,000 | 1.39x |
| Beccles | Suffolk | £365,000 | £231,950 | 1.57x |
| Canvey Island | Essex | £340,000 | £210,000 | 1.62x |
| Woodhall Spa | Lincolnshire | £385,000 | £217,950 | 1.77x |
| Broadstone | Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | £535,000 | £302,500 | 1.77x |
| Saltburn-by-the-Sea | Redcar and Cleveland | £275,000 | £153,750 | 1.79x |
What the register cannot say
There is no floor area in this data, so none of these figures is a price per square metre and a 'detached' house may be smaller than the flat down the road. There is no condition, no garden, no parking and no date of construction. Type is the only physical attribute the register carries, which is exactly why it is worth knowing how far it can and cannot be trusted.
Where to go next
Each town page carries its own breakdown by type and tenure, for example Manchester and Bristol. The tenure question — leasehold against freehold — is measured in its own article.
HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, standard sales only, through 2026-09-30. Every cell behind these figures has at least 30 registered sales.