Get all the data you need about the real estate market in Edinburgh
SUMMARY
A house in Edinburgh currently costs about £425,000 on average, with roughly £400,000–£500,000 covering much of the city's normal family-house market.
The city's widely quoted £300,000-ish averages are misleading for house buyers because Edinburgh has a large flat market. Recent house-specific data sits more than £100,000 above the broad city benchmark.
There is also a clear price ladder within houses. Terraces are around £404,000, semi-detached homes roughly £427,000, while detached properties are closer to £570,000–£579,000.
Bedroom count only gets us so far. Recent three-bedroom benchmarks range from about £311,000 in South Queensferry to almost £483,000 in Joppa, showing how quickly location overtakes size as the main price driver.
A sub-£300,000 house budget has not disappeared, but it now pushes buyers towards smaller terraces, outer neighbourhoods or properties needing work. Liberton, Craigmillar, Gilmerton and similar areas are much more realistic hunting grounds than central Edinburgh.
At the other end, prime Edinburgh effectively operates as a separate house market. Terraces in Morningside, Bruntsfield and Stockbridge can reach roughly £900,000 to more than £1 million even though each neighbourhood's overall property average looks far lower because flats dominate local sales.
The advertised price is another trap. Nearly nine in ten Edinburgh properties are marketed as “offers over,” so the Home Report valuation and recent comparable sales are generally more useful than the number at the top of the listing.
Competition is still present, but it is no longer indiscriminate. Houses are selling at about 103% of Home Report valuation while fewer than one-quarter of Edinburgh sales are reaching a closing date, suggesting buyers still pay up for good stock without every property turning into a bidding war.
House prices have also turned positive again, with the latest ESPC figure up 3.6% year on year after several weaker periods. Because these are rolling averages, some of the apparent rebound will come from the mix of homes sold, but constrained supply is still supporting prices.
The purchase price is only part of the affordability problem. A £425,000 house brings roughly £15,850 of standard LBTT, potentially another £34,000 of ADS for an additional dwelling, and a mortgage payment around £1,960 a month with a 25% deposit under the assumptions used here.
Local incomes make the gap fairly stark: the average house is about ten times one Edinburgh full-time resident's median annual pay. In practice, buying a mainstream family house increasingly assumes two solid incomes, substantial savings or equity from an existing home.
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How much does a house actually cost in Edinburgh now?
A house in Edinburgh currently costs about £425,000 on average, and that is the number we would use before the much lower £300,000-ish figures often quoted for the city as a whole.
The latest ESPC market report puts the average Edinburgh house at £426,578, up 3.6% year on year. Flats averaged £275,555 over the same period, which pulled the average across all Edinburgh properties down to £317,070.
Registers of Scotland gives an even lower citywide figure of roughly £303,000 through the UK House Price Index. That figure is useful for tracking Edinburgh as a whole, but someone specifically looking for a house can easily underestimate the required budget if they use it.
Rightmove and Zoopla tell much the same story when we separate property types. Rightmove's latest 12-month data puts Edinburgh terraces at £403,516 and detached houses at £570,150. Zoopla has terraces at £404,462, semi-detached houses at £427,481 and detached properties at £578,783.
The different datasets do not line up perfectly because they cover different time periods and use different samples. Still, they converge on one useful range: roughly £400,000–£450,000 for a typical Edinburgh house, with detached homes much closer to £575,000.
| Edinburgh benchmark | Current price | What it measures | How useful is it for a house buyer? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registers of Scotland / UK HPI | ~£303,000 | All residential property | Too broad on its own |
| ESPC all properties | £317,070 | Houses and flats | Useful city benchmark |
| Rightmove terraces | £403,516 | Terraced houses | Strong house benchmark |
| Zoopla semi-detached | £427,481 | Semi-detached houses | Strong family-house benchmark |
| ESPC houses | £426,578 | Houses only | Best current headline |
| Zoopla detached | £578,783 | Detached houses | Larger-house benchmark |
Why are Edinburgh houses so much more expensive than flats?
Edinburgh houses currently cost about 50% more than flats on average, and the premium gets much larger once we reach detached homes.
ESPC's latest figures put houses at £426,578 against £275,555 for flats. That is a difference of just over £151,000, or roughly 55%.
The same gap appears in the longer 12-month transaction data. Zoopla has Edinburgh flats at £293,167, terraces at £404,462, semi-detached houses at £427,481 and detached homes at £578,783. Rightmove puts flats at £294,652, terraces at £403,516 and detached homes at £570,150.
That jump reflects more than an extra bedroom. Houses usually bring private outdoor space, their own front door, more family-sized layouts and, in many neighbourhoods, access to highly sought-after school catchments. Edinburgh also simply has far fewer houses than flats in many central districts.
For someone moving from a flat into a family house, the price jump can therefore feel much steeper than the general Edinburgh property market suggests.
| Property type | Recent average sold price | Approximate premium over a flat |
|---|---|---|
| Flat | £293,000–£295,000 | — |
| Terraced house | ~£404,000 | ~38% |
| Semi-detached house | ~£427,000 | ~46% |
| Detached house | £570,000–£579,000 | ~96% |
Get fresh and reliable data on the Edinburgh property market
Some streets are marketed at a number nobody pays and others go thirty percent past it, and the pattern is not random. Where asking prices sit furthest from what places actually close and resell at.
What does a normal three-bedroom house cost in Edinburgh?
A normal three-bedroom house in Edinburgh now usually needs a budget somewhere around £350,000–£500,000, with the neighbourhood doing much of the work.
Recent ESPC area data gives us several good comparisons. Three-bedroom houses averaged £395,974 in Corstorphine and £399,875 in Portobello. Nearby Joppa was already at £483,000. South Queensferry, still within the City of Edinburgh council area but farther from the centre, averaged £310,746.
That is a spread of more than £170,000 for the same broad bedroom count.
Around £300,000 can still work on the outer edges of Edinburgh. Around £400,000 is much closer to the normal family-house market in established areas such as Corstorphine and Portobello. Once we approach £500,000, the buyer gets access to more desirable streets, larger plots or stronger locations.
The bedroom count alone becomes less useful at the top end. A three-bedroom period house in a prime school catchment can cost more than a four-bedroom home several miles away.
| Area | Recent 3-bedroom house average | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|
| South Queensferry | £310,746 | Lower-cost Edinburgh option |
| Corstorphine | £395,974 | Mainstream family market |
| Portobello | £399,875 | Mainstream-to-premium |
| Joppa | £483,000 | Premium coastal market |
Can you still buy a house in Edinburgh for under £300,000?
Yes, houses below £300,000 still exist in Edinburgh today, but buyers have to be selective about the area and usually accept a smaller terrace, an outer location or a property needing some work.
Liberton remains one of the clearer examples. Recent Rightmove sold-price data puts terraced houses there at roughly £268,000.
There are also sub-£300,000 sales around Greendykes, Craigmillar, Gilmerton, Newcraighall, Magdalene and parts of the west and south-west. Recent Registers of Scotland-backed transaction data includes a terraced home in Newcraighall at £194,000, another in Broomhall at £250,000 and a terrace in South Gyle at £265,000.
So £300,000 has not disappeared as a house budget. It simply covers a much narrower part of Edinburgh than it used to.
Buyers with that ceiling also get much more choice just outside the city. Musselburgh, Dalkeith, Bonnyrigg and Penicuik can offer family houses at prices that would buy mainly flats in Edinburgh's more central neighbourhoods.
Everything a foreign buyer should know before buying in Edinburgh
The pack also covers what a shared roof will cost you, and when an offer becomes binding.
What kind of Edinburgh house can £350,000 or £400,000 buy now?
A £350,000–£400,000 budget still buys a proper house across a meaningful part of Edinburgh, but £400,000 now feels much closer to the city's mainstream family-house price than £350,000.
Liberton remains comfortably within reach. Its recent terraced average sits around £268,000, leaving room in a £350,000 budget for a better street, more space or a semi-detached property.
Craigentinny is closer to the limit, with terraced homes recently averaging around £355,000. Corstorphine terraces have been around £360,000, while ESPC's three-bedroom house average there is almost £396,000.
Portobello changes the calculation. Three-bedroom houses have averaged close to £400,000, while Rightmove's broader terraced-house figure is about £493,000. £400,000 can still get a buyer into the house market there, although it will not buy the typical terrace.
The contrast becomes extreme in Edinburgh's more expensive south-side neighbourhoods. Recent Rightmove data puts terraces at more than £700,000 across the EH10 postcode as a whole, which includes Morningside and Bruntsfield.
| Area | Recent house benchmark | How £400k compares |
|---|---|---|
| Liberton | Terraces ~£268k | Strong budget |
| Craigentinny | Terraces ~£355k | Above local terrace average |
| Corstorphine | 3-bed houses ~£396k | Around market level |
| Portobello | 3-bed houses ~£400k | Around entry/mainstream level |
| EH10 | Terraces ~£736k | Well below typical terrace price |
How expensive are houses in Morningside, Bruntsfield and Stockbridge now?
Houses in Morningside, Bruntsfield and Stockbridge can easily cost £800,000 to more than £1 million today, even though the overall property averages for these areas look much lower.
Flats dominate transactions in all three neighbourhoods, which makes the general area average a poor guide for someone looking for a house.
Recent Rightmove data has terraced homes in Morningside at around £932,000 and in Bruntsfield just above £1 million. Stockbridge terraces have averaged more than £1.2 million, although transactions are relatively scarce and individual high-value sales can move the average substantially.
Newington has the same pattern. The overall property average is around £405,000, yet terraces have averaged roughly £831,000 and semi-detached homes around £747,000.
The wider EH10 postcode provides a useful reality check because it contains much more data than individual premium neighbourhoods. Terraces there have averaged about £736,000 over the past year and detached homes around £713,000.
Someone with £500,000 can therefore buy a substantial house in several parts of Edinburgh while still being well short of the normal house market in Morningside or Bruntsfield.
The areas and property types in Edinburgh that are most overpriced
Some streets are marketed at a number nobody pays and others go thirty percent past it, and the pattern is not random. Where asking prices sit furthest from what places actually close and resell at.
Does “offers over £350,000” mean an Edinburgh house will cost £350,000?
Usually no. An Edinburgh house advertised as “offers over £350,000” can sell noticeably higher, so buyers should pay more attention to the Home Report valuation and recent comparable sales.
The latest ESPC figures show that 89.8% of Edinburgh properties were marketed using “offers over.” Houses eventually sold for an average 103.1% of Home Report valuation.
Imagine a property listed “offers over £350,000” with a Home Report valuation of £400,000. The £350,000 headline tells us very little about the likely final price. If it sold at the current Edinburgh house average of 103.1% of valuation, the transaction would land at roughly £412,400.
This is an easy way for buyers unfamiliar with Scotland to misread Edinburgh prices. The advertised number can function more as a way to generate interest than as a close estimate of what the seller expects to accept.
For budgeting, we would start with the Home Report value, then look at what comparable houses nearby have actually sold for.
How much above Home Report value are Edinburgh house buyers paying now?
Edinburgh houses are currently selling about 3% above Home Report valuation on average, which is competitive but far less extreme than the city's hottest bidding periods.
ESPC's latest market report puts houses at 103.1% of Home Report value. Across all Edinburgh property types, buyers paid 102.6%.
At £300,000, a 3.1% premium is £9,300. At £400,000, it becomes £12,400. At £500,000, it reaches £15,500. Buyers therefore still need a meaningful cash buffer even when the percentage looks small.
Competition also appears a little calmer beneath the headline number. Only 22.8% of Edinburgh sales went to a closing date in the latest ESPC period, down from 24.6% a year earlier. Sales volumes fell 5.2% as well.
Good houses still clear Home Report value, but buyers are not being dragged into closing-date bidding on every decent property. The wider market looks much more measured.
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Are Edinburgh house prices rising again now?
Yes, Edinburgh house prices are rising again on the latest numbers, although the current increase looks modest rather than like another housing boom.
ESPC recorded an average house price of £426,578 in its latest three-month period, 3.6% higher than a year earlier. One month earlier, the corresponding house figure was £414,458 and still 0.1% below the previous year.
Go farther back and the shift becomes clearer. Houses averaged £387,673 during February to April, when the annual change was -2.7%. The next period came in at £390,532 and -1.4%, followed by £414,458 and -0.1%, then £426,578 and +3.6%.
We should be careful with the apparent £39,000 jump from the first period to the latest one because these are rolling averages and the mix of houses sold changes each month. A few more expensive detached or prime properties can move the average sharply.
The annual direction has nevertheless improved across several consecutive reports. At the same time, Edinburgh sales are down 5.2% and new listings are down 1.5%. Tight supply is supporting prices even though transaction activity remains fairly subdued.
| ESPC period | Average Edinburgh house price | Annual change |
|---|---|---|
| February–April | £387,673 | -2.7% |
| March–May | £390,532 | -1.4% |
| May–July | £414,458 | -0.1% |
| June–August | £426,578 | +3.6% |
How much more does a good school catchment add to an Edinburgh house?
A strong Edinburgh school catchment can add tens of thousands of pounds to a family house, and recent data suggests the premium is still very real.
ESPC recently compared three-bedroom homes inside the catchments of Edinburgh's ten highest-ranked state secondary schools. Their average selling price was at least £413,000, around £47,000 above the corresponding citywide three-bedroom average.
That implies a premium of roughly 13%.
The effect is visible in specific catchments as well. ESPC found average property prices rising by 3.47% in the Craigmount catchment and 3.76% around James Gillespie's between the start of 2025 and mid-2026. Homes in the Boroughmuir High School catchment were also achieving around 103% of Home Report value.
The private-school VAT change had prompted speculation that Edinburgh families would rush into top state-school catchments. ESPC's more recent research found no citywide stampede. Demand has instead stayed concentrated in already desirable catchments.
For a family-house buyer, this helps explain why two homes with similar size and condition can differ by £50,000 or more even when they are relatively close geographically.
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How much tax and upfront cash do you need for a £425,000 Edinburgh house?
A £425,000 Edinburgh house currently means about £15,850 of standard LBTT, and a buyer using a 25% deposit needs roughly £122,000 before legal and moving costs.
Revenue Scotland currently charges no LBTT on the first £145,000, 2% between £145,000 and £250,000, 5% between £250,000 and £325,000 and 10% between £325,000 and £750,000. The rate rises to 12% above £750,000.
On £425,000, that produces a standard LBTT bill of £15,850.
A 25% deposit adds £106,250, bringing the main upfront requirement to £122,100. A first-time buyer saves £600 through the higher £175,000 nil-rate threshold, so the tax falls to £15,250.
Second homes and investment properties are considerably more expensive. Revenue Scotland currently charges an 8% Additional Dwelling Supplement where it applies. On £425,000, that means another £34,000 on top of the normal LBTT bill.
There is another Edinburgh-specific cash issue when buyers bid above Home Report valuation. Mortgage lenders generally base loan-to-value on the lower of the purchase price or valuation. If a £400,000-valued house sells for £415,000, the extra £15,000 may have to come directly from the buyer rather than being absorbed into the normal mortgage.
| Purchase price | Standard LBTT | First-time buyer LBTT | 8% ADS if applicable |
|---|---|---|---|
| £300,000 | £4,600 | £4,000 | £24,000 |
| £400,000 | £13,350 | £12,750 | £32,000 |
| £425,000 | £15,850 | £15,250 | £34,000 |
| £600,000 | £33,350 | £32,750 | £48,000 |
| £900,000 | £66,350 | £65,750 | £72,000 |
What does the mortgage on an average Edinburgh house cost each month?
Financing the current average Edinburgh house with a 25% deposit works out at roughly £1,960 a month on a 25-year mortgage at today's typical 75% LTV fixed rate.
Moneyfacts currently puts the average two-year fixed mortgage rate at 5.48% for borrowers at 75% loan-to-value. The equivalent average is 5.64% at 85% LTV and 6.09% at 95% LTV, so buyers with smaller deposits are still paying noticeably more.
Using ESPC's £426,578 average Edinburgh house price, a 25% deposit leaves a mortgage of about £319,900. At 5.48% over 25 years, the monthly repayment comes to roughly £1,960.
A £400,000 house works out at about £1,840 a month under the same assumptions. At £500,000, the payment rises to roughly £2,300. A £570,000 house, close to Edinburgh's current detached-house average, comes out near £2,620.
Those payments help explain why affordability still feels tight even though Edinburgh has avoided another explosive rise in prices. Mortgage rates remain several percentage points above the ultra-cheap borrowing available earlier in the decade.
| House price | 25% deposit | Mortgage | Approx. monthly payment at 5.48% |
|---|---|---|---|
| £300,000 | £75,000 | £225,000 | ~£1,380 |
| £400,000 | £100,000 | £300,000 | ~£1,840 |
| £426,578 | £106,645 | £319,934 | ~£1,960 |
| £500,000 | £125,000 | £375,000 | ~£2,300 |
| £570,000 | £142,500 | £427,500 | ~£2,620 |
What the Home Report tells you, and what it quietly leaves out
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Are Edinburgh houses expensive compared with local salaries?
Yes, Edinburgh houses are very expensive compared with local salaries: the current average house costs about ten times one full-time resident's median annual pay.
The latest local earnings data available through ONS and Nomis puts median gross weekly pay for a full-time Edinburgh resident at £819.80. Annualised, that is roughly £42,600.
ESPC's £426,578 average house price is almost exactly ten times that amount.
Even Edinburgh's much lower £317,070 all-property average equals roughly 7.4 years of one median full-time salary before tax. A couple both earning the local median would bring in around £85,000 gross between them, putting the average house at roughly five times combined annual earnings.
Edinburgh wages are high by Scottish standards, which helps support the market. They still do not make a £400,000-plus family house easy to finance, particularly once the buyer needs a substantial deposit, LBTT and potentially several thousand pounds above Home Report value.
For one median earner, buying the average Edinburgh house without significant existing equity is extremely difficult. The mainstream house market increasingly assumes either two decent incomes, accumulated housing equity or substantial savings.
So how much should you budget for an Edinburgh house today?
We would currently budget around £425,000 for a typical Edinburgh house, about £300,000–£350,000 for the cheaper end of the market, £400,000–£500,000 for a conventional family house in many established neighbourhoods, and £750,000 or more once prime Edinburgh enters the search.
The clearest mistake is using the city's roughly £300,000 official all-property average as a normal house budget. Edinburgh has a huge flat market, and those lower-priced transactions pull the headline figure down. House-specific data from ESPC, Rightmove and Zoopla consistently points closer to £400,000–£430,000 before we even reach detached homes.
Location then changes the answer quickly. Around £270,000 can still buy a typical terrace in Liberton. About £350,000 gets close to the terrace market in Craigentinny and Corstorphine. Roughly £400,000 is around the current three-bedroom benchmark in Corstorphine and Portobello. Prime south-side terraces can cost more than twice as much.
Buyers also need some room above the obvious price. Edinburgh houses are achieving about 103% of Home Report valuation, while LBTT on a £425,000 purchase is £15,850 and a 75% LTV mortgage at current average fixed rates costs close to £2,000 a month.
For a simple answer to “How much does a house cost in Edinburgh now?”, £425,000 is the best central figure we have. Below £350,000 is still possible but increasingly location-sensitive. Around £400,000–£500,000 covers much of the normal family-house market. In Edinburgh's most desirable neighbourhoods, £800,000 to more than £1 million is entirely normal for a house.
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OUR METHODOLOGY
We approached this as a pricing problem rather than a search for one headline Edinburgh average. The analysis separates houses from flats, then looks at house type, bedroom count, location, buying mechanics, recent price direction and affordability before arriving at a usable budget range.
We prioritised completed-sale and house-specific data wherever possible. The official UK House Price Index is useful for tracking Edinburgh as a whole, but its all-property average includes the city's large flat market, so we treated it as context rather than as the main answer for somebody specifically trying to buy a house.
ESPC is the main source for current Edinburgh-specific market detail, including house and flat selling prices, Home Report attainment, sales volumes, new listings and closing-date activity. We compared successive ESPC reporting periods when looking at price momentum rather than relying on the latest rolling average alone.
Rightmove and Zoopla were used as cross-checks for property-type and neighbourhood prices. We did not expect their figures to match ESPC exactly because the datasets cover different samples and reporting periods; the useful test was whether they produced a similar broad price range for terraces, semi-detached houses and detached homes.
Location was assessed in layers. Citywide figures were compared with family-house areas such as Corstorphine and Portobello, cheaper markets such as Liberton and South Queensferry, and premium areas including Morningside, Bruntsfield and Stockbridge. Individual recent transactions were used only to test whether certain budget levels still exist in practice, not as substitutes for broader averages.
We treated the Scottish buying process separately because an “offers over” figure, a Home Report valuation and a final selling price are not interchangeable. Home Report attainment and closing-date data were therefore used to judge how much competition buyers are actually facing and how much extra cash may be required above valuation.
Taxes and affordability were calculated independently from the house-price datasets. Current LBTT and Additional Dwelling Supplement rules come from Revenue Scotland; mortgage examples use the stated deposit, loan-to-value, term and Moneyfacts rate assumptions; and the salary comparison uses official Edinburgh earnings data from Nomis and ONS.
Key sources used for this analysis include ESPC's August 2026 House Price Report, ESPC's July 2026 House Price Report, ESPC's May 2026 House Price Report, ESPC's April 2026 House Price Report, the UK House Price Index for Scotland, Rightmove's Edinburgh sold-price data, Zoopla's Edinburgh sold-price data, mygov.scot's Home Report guidance, Revenue Scotland's residential LBTT guidance, Revenue Scotland's Additional Dwelling Supplement guidance, Moneyfacts' fixed-rate mortgage comparison, and the Nomis / ONS City of Edinburgh Labour Market Profile.
Everything a foreign buyer should know before buying in Edinburgh
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