A typical home in Paddington sells for about £810,000, and for that money the buyer gets a flat. A house is in another bracket altogether, with terraces fetching millions. Nearly every sale is of a flat, so the headline figure is really a flat price. Prices have come down hard over the past year, though from a height that leaves most incomes some way short.
The Land Registry recorded 275 sales in the year to May 2026, at a median of £810,000. Flats made up 244 of them, with a median of £742,500. The 27 terraced houses sold for a median of £2,500,000, and only four semi-detached houses changed hands, at a median of £3,875,000. So in Paddington the word "house" means a stucco terrace and a seven-figure budget, and almost everyone else is buying a floor of one.
The house price index average for the area fell by more than 22% in the twelve months to May 2026, to about £836,000, and the average flat dropped by about 23%. Those are published past changes for the index area. They make a softer market than the area has been used to, and a seller still quoting what the flat upstairs fetched a couple of years ago will have a conversation with the surveyor that goes nowhere.
Band G is the most common council tax band, and only about 9% of homes sit in bands A or B. Westminster sets a band D bill of about £1,050 a year, which is low for London, so the council tax is the one cost in Paddington that comes in below expectations.
Renting is no escape route. Westminster's typical private rent runs to about £3,150 a month as of April 2026, an average for the whole borough, Mayfair included, and down 3.6% on a year earlier. By size, the borough averages about £2,500 for a one-bedroom home, £3,250 for two, £3,830 for three and £5,360 for four or more. These are means from the Office for National Statistics' rent index, and no figure is published for studios or single rooms. The station is one of the things the rent is paying for.
The Office for National Statistics models average gross household income in Paddington at about £78,000 for the financial year to March 2023, before tax and some years out of date. Set against a typical sale of £810,000, that is a stretch for anyone without a large deposit or a second salary. A well-paid household here can comfortably rent a flat and still not get near a mortgage on one.
Of the sales that could be matched to an energy certificate, which was 24% of them, the median price was about £13,600 per square metre, and the typical floor area behind that figure was 110 square metres. The flats in the old terraces get their space from ceiling height, which buyers pay for too, even though the sale is priced on floor area.
The 2021 Census shows how small most homes are. About 40% have one bedroom, 35% have two, 17% have three and 9% have four or more. Ask for the remaining lease length and the service charge history on any flat here, since in a district that is nearly all flats those two figures can matter as much as the price.
Paddington is expensive. The only bargains are relative ones, a flat at last year's price minus the recent drop, and anyone who wants a house will need a terrace budget.