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 list recomputes from the live dataset, so it is always the current month’s answer:

• North East: 150 m² at £2,000/m²
• Wales: 120 m² at £2,510/m²
• Yorkshire and The Humber: 118 m² at £2,540/m²
• North West: 114 m² at £2,640/m²
• East Midlands: 107 m² at £2,800/m²
• West Midlands: 100 m² at £3,000/m²
• South West: 84 m² at £3,560/m²
• East of England: 76 m² at £3,960/m²
• South East: 69 m² at £4,370/m²
• London: 46 m² at £6,590/m²

The endpoints put it plainly: at the North East median of £2,000/m², £300,000 is about 150 m², a large four-bed house. At the London median of £6,590/m² it is about 46 m², a one-bed flat. Same money, 3.3 times the floor.

Regions hide most of the story

The district spread inside a region is wider than the spread between regions. In the June 2026 data, £300,000 bought about 83 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 £15,400/m² made it 19 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 the space gap beats the price gap

Comparing median sold prices, London (£525,000) is about 3.1 times the North East (£170,000). 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.

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, 150 m² in the North East is a house, 46 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 June 2026, rebuilt monthly.