Price per square foot (12 inches by 12 inches, about the size of a floor tile) is a useful tool for savvy house hunters wanting to see how much a property is worth, and it is particularly good for pitting one property against another.
It is also useful for choosing an area to live in – the price per square foot in one borough can differ vastly from another nearby, meaning you could afford a far bigger house by looking a few streets away.
A review of more than 116,000 UK properties showed Londoners are paying more than three times the national average of £291 per sq ft for a home in the capital.
But even within London there is a huge variation in average pricing. While the city-wide price is £876 per sq ft, in Westminster, where Buckingham Palace is just one of the vast, historic homes, the average price per square foot is £2,485. That is higher than the average UK monthly take-home pay – for one floor tile’s worth of space.
Unsurprisingly, the borough was the most expensive in the country according to the report by Pay Less for Storage. Average house prices in Westminster were £7.73 million, although with floor space at such premium prices, even tiny flats in the area come with hefty price tags.
This is above the borough average of £2,018 per sq ft, although Knightsbridge is among the most premium addresses in the area.
Camden, which stretches from Bloomsbury in the south, to Hampstead in the north, is the third most expensive borough when it comes to price per square foot with buyers paying £1,337 on average.
At the other end of the scale, homebuyers in Havering pay £379 per sq ft. While still expensive compared to other parts of the UK, this makes it the cheapest borough in the capital.
Havering is known to be one of London’s greenest boroughs, thanks to its parks and open spaces, and homes cost £669,715 on average. Croydon and Bexley in outer south London were the next cheapest boroughs with prices of £421 and £477 per square foot respectively.
Price per square foot across the UK
By comparison, in Scotland buyers pay £220 and it’s £226 for those in the North East. Buyers in Aberdeen in Scotland pay £125 per square foot, about the cost of a pair of fashionable trainers.
Northern cities like Liverpool offer exceptional value at just £200 per square foot for an average 2,998 square foot home. Southern cities, in contrast, occupy most of the top spots: St Albans (£538 per square foot), Brighton and Hove (£510), Cambridge (£484) and Oxford (£444) all command premiums above £400 per square foot.
But wherever you’re buying in the UK, the bigger the property, the less you pay per square foot. The best value homes are seven-bedroom properties at £258 per square foot and six-bedroom properties at £266.
Stripping out London, one-bedroom properties cost £377 per square foot – a 30 per cent premium over the national average of £291, and two-bedroom homes aren’t much better at £344.
This means that, while larger family homes are more expensive, they offer better value than the smaller flats that first-time buyers purchase to get on the ladder.
How much does renting cost per square foot?
For renters, the price per square foot can also be a useful tool. The top three boroughs remained the same but switched around slightly.
Kensington & Chelsea was the priciest, with each square foot costing £5.59 per month. This was followed by Westminster at £5.17 and Camden at £4.24.
The three cheapest boroughs for renting were Enfield in north London, which offered the best value at £1.81 per square foot per month, followed by Bromley at £2 and Redbridge at £2.05.
“Space is the real currency in today’s housing market. We’re not just buying bricks and mortar – we’re buying room to live, grow and breathe.
“This study shows just how unequally that space is distributed across the country,” said Matt Wallace from Pay Less for Storage.
“The gap is so vast it fundamentally reshapes what your budget can actually buy. For anyone weighing up where to buy, the trade-off isn’t just about location anymore – it’s about how much physical room you actually get to live in.”