What £300,000 buys, in square metres, across England & Wales

Prices are abstract; floors are not. Divide any budget by an area’s median price per square metre and you get the honest version of “what can I afford there”: space, in units you can pace out. Here is £300,000, a first-time buyer’s budget in much of the country, converted into square metres at each region’s median. The table recomputes from the live dataset, so it is always the current month’s answer:

The endpoints put it plainly: at the North East median of £2,020/m², £300,000 is about 149 m², a large four-bed house. At the London median of £6,570/m² it is about 46 m², a one-bed flat. Same money, 3.3 times the floor.

How is each figure computed?

There is no model behind the table, only a division. Each region’s median price per square metre is the middle value of price divided by floor area across that region’s matched sales, the sold prices for which an EPC records a floor area, over the last 12 months. The budget divided by that rate gives the floor area, rounded to the whole square metre; the rate itself is published to three significant figures, because EPC floor areas are recorded to the whole metre and a more precise-looking rate would claim accuracy the sample does not have. Apart from the budget itself, nothing in the table is typed in: every figure re-renders from the dataset each month, which is why it cannot quietly go stale the way a screenshot of it would.

What do the regional figures hide?

The district spread inside a region is wider than the spread between regions. In the August 2026 data, £300,000 bought about 85 m² at M1’s median in central Manchester but around 125 m² a few stops out where medians ran nearer £2,400/m². In London the same exercise is starker: 46 m² at the regional median, but W8’s £15,000/m² made it 20 m², a studio with ambitions, while outer districts still cleared 60. The regional figure is a starting point; the decision happens at district level, which is why every district page leads with its own current median.

Why is the space gap wider than the price gap?

Comparing median sold prices, London (£520,000) is about 3.0 times the North East (£171,500). Per square metre the gap is 3.3 times, and the difference is not rounding: expensive areas also sell smaller homes, so the price gap understates the space gap. Headline prices are the gentlest possible way to describe what London costs, which may be why they are the number everyone quotes.

What should you check before relying on the division?

Four things, in the order they change the answer. First, do it at district grain, not regional: the paragraph above shows one region containing both a studio and a family house at the same budget. Second, match the tenure to your purchase, because freehold and leasehold stock trade at different rates and a blended median splits the difference of a split you are on one side of. Third, read the matched-sale count printed beside the median on the district page: it is that figure’s own denominator, and a median over a few dozen sales deserves softer conclusions than one over several hundred. Fourth, look at the middle 60% band around the median, because a budget that clears the median in a tight market may not clear it in a spread-out one.

One caution in both directions: these are medians over each area’s mix of homes, so they say what space typically costs, not what any particular home is worth, and a budget buys different kinds of space in different markets. 149 m² in the North East is a house; 46 m² in London is a flat with service charges attached. The tenure article covers that half of the story. Figures: HM Land Registry sold prices matched to EPC floor areas, 12 months to August 2026, rebuilt monthly.