A home in the City of London costs about £620,000, and for that money you get a flat. There are hardly any houses. Nearly every sale is a flat in a block. Most of them have one or two bedrooms. Most of what you're paying for is the address, plus the lift up to your floor.
The Land Registry recorded 28 sales in the year to mid-May 2026, with a median of about £620,000, and every one of them was a flat. With no houses in the sample, there's no detached premium or terraced discount to compare, because the City's housing comes in one type. The council-tax valuation list confirms it: about 96% of dwellings are flats and 2% are terraced houses. The City is home to the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange, and it managed 28 home sales in a whole year, about as much trading as either of them sees in a quiet afternoon.
The official house price index for the City of London fell about 28% in the twelve months to May 2026, to an average of about £627,000, and the flat-only index fell by the same 28%. That's a big fall, not a rounding error. It also comes from a very thin market, where a few expensive flats being sold, or held back, can move the figure as much as a real change in demand. Either way, a seller quoting last year's price is quoting a number the index no longer supports.
Council tax band E is the most common band in the City, and only about one home in ten is in band A or B. The City of London Corporation charges about £1,330 a year for band D and about £2,659 for band H, the top band. That's a modest bill for a top-band home in the middle of London, partly because the Corporation has a whole financial district paying business rates next door.
The Office for National Statistics puts gross household income at about £80,000 before tax for the financial year to March 2023. That's a modelled figure averaged across the area, and it's three years old. Even at City salaries, a median flat at about £620,000 is a big stretch for one household. That goes a long way to explaining why so many residents rent and so few own.
At the 2021 census, about 46% of households had one bedroom, 39% had two, 11% had three and 4% had four or more. Buyers who need a fourth bedroom are shopping in a tiny slice of the smallest city in England by population. Since nearly every home is a flat, ask for the block's service-charge accounts alongside the asking price, because that annual bill is part of what the home really costs.
For a buyer, the City is an expensive place to own something small. Prices are high, almost everything is a one- or two-bedroom flat, and the index has just shown how quickly that price can give way.