FOI reference: FOI-2024-1850

You asked

I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request data on the UK housing market, focusing on identifying opportunities for investment with high return on investment (ROI) and robust rental yields.

Please provide the following information:

  • Detailed statistics on the trends of capital appreciation for 2, 3, 4, and 5 bedroom residential properties over the past decade, with a regional breakdown

  • Historical and current data on average rental yields for these property types and sizes, also broken down by region or postcode

  • Any analyses or reports on the impact of economic and housing policies on property values and the rental market

  • Transaction volumes of residential properties, segmented by type and size, for the past ten years

  • Future projections for both property values and rental yields, if available

  • Access to this data is critical for making informed decisions on where to invest in the property market for optimal returns through both capital growth and rental income

We said

Thank you for your query. 

Capital appreciation

We publish capital stock consumption statistics for the UK. However, regional and bedroom category breakdowns are not held unfortunately. We have also published experimental regional gross fixed capital formation estimates by asset type, for the UK, covering 1997 to 2022.

Rental yields

Our monthly housing prices bulletin includes average private rent prices and indices, at region and local area levels, including breakdowns by property type and bedroom category.

Related to rental yields, we publish the net stock of dwellings in capital stocks and fixed capital consumption. Estimates for land underlying dwellings are available in Excel files downloadable from Figure 2 in this article.

Impact analysis on economic and housing policies

We produce official statistics that are used by other government departments to inform policy decisions. The policy-making government departments conduct their own analyses on the impact of policies. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities may be able to assist with this query. They can be contacted at FOI@levellingup.gov.uk.

Transaction volumes

The UK House Price Index uses residential transaction data to produce house price statistics, including estimates of transaction volumes by month and property type, extending back more than 10 years. Sales estimates are available on GOV.UK. Note that UK HPI has a 12-month revision period policy, which means that the sales volumes reported in the UK HPI estimates reflect the number of transactions that have been processed to date, not the total number of sales that took place in that period. As more data becomes available over time, UK HPI estimates are revised. 

We also publish Residential property sales for administrative geographies data, which uses HM Land Registry price paid data to provide transaction volume estimates. This data has a 10-year revision period policy, so sales volume estimates are revised for 10 years as more data becomes available. 

HMRC publish estimates of total transaction volumes for residential sales from stamp duty data. HMRC estimates are subject to a shorter revision period than the UK HPI and 'Residential property sales for administrative geographies' data, so HMRC transaction volume estimates are more complete for recent periods. You may wish to contact them to see what further breakdowns they could provide.

Future projections 

Unfortunately, we do not forecast statistics, so do not hold data on this.