New-build properties generally sell for more. On average £65,000 more, according to Land Registry. But how does it vary across the country? 

To find out, we compared the price of new builds with the price of existing homes across England and Wales. To account for different build types, we used price per square foot data, rather than just sold prices.

How to use the heatmap:

• You can adjust the slider to see how it changes between Q1 and Q2 of 2020.

• You can also click the right arrow at the top to see how the data breaks down in 2019.

• You can find more information by hovering your mouse over your local authority (or tapping it if you are on mobile).

• You can browse around or type your local authority into the search box to see how new builds compare in your area.

View the heatmap fullscreen in a new window

Four quick takeaways and a caveat

First, the caveat – There isn't that much data for Q2 2020

Land Registry's data is always in flux, but with the pandemic, staff being furloughed, and lockdown generally making things harder, there is bound to be missing data for Q2 2020. 

We only recorded 226 sales of new builds, with 43 local authorities having only one new-build sale recorded for the entire quarter.

This is why there's missing data on the map. Also, such a low sample size might generate extreme results. The map will fill out more, and the numbers will change as we get more data.

But as things stand we were able to get the following insights:

1) Fewer sales have been recorded in 2020 (and it probably wasn't all due to the pandemic)

There have been fewer sales in 2020 compared to 2019.

In Q1 2019, almost 174,000 sales were recorded, but this drops by 14% to 150,000 in the same quarter of 2020. The drop is even steeper when we look at new builds – 19,000 new builds were sold in Q1 2019, falling 67% to just 6200 new builds in Q1 2020.

This isn't all due to the pandemic slowing down sales – Land Registry’s data is never fully complete (new updates still record sales from 1996, for instance) – and the pandemic might make records harder to process. 

2) Highest new-build premiums (by %)

In Q1 2020, the highest relative premiums – so the biggest percentage gap between new-build and existing properties – were in Portsmouth (+55.02%), Lambeth (+52.65%), Sunderland (+50.05%).

In Q2 2020 this changes to Plymouth (+201.04%), Middlesbrough (+93.08%), Dover (+80.95%) – such high numbers will surely come down as we get more data.

3) Highest new-build premiums (by £/sqft)

For Q1 of 2020, the largest absolute premiums – so actual £ value differences – were in London, with Lambeth, Camden, and Hammersmith all showing premiums of more than £360/sqft. 

For Q2 of 2020 this changes to Greenwich  (+£328/sqft), Hackney (+£289/sqft), and Dover (+£214.34).

4) Authorities to watch (biggest changes, biggest opportunities?)

Some local authorities have seen big jumps in their new-build premiums from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020 – County of Herefordshire (+£4.07/sqft to +£45.45/sqft), Bath and North East Somerset (+£5.27/sqft to £45.10/sqft), and West Berkshire (+£13.24/sqft to £76/63/sqft).

Overall the new-build premium is at 7.42% for England & Wales in Q1 2020, and 6.06% for Q2 (so far). We'll update you with the latest data when it's made available.