Dorset House Prices: Down £289 in a Year to £325,154

The average home in the Dorset Council area was worth £325,154 in July 2026. That is £289 less than in July 2025, according to the HM Land Registry UK House Price Index published on 16 September.

A £289 change on a £325,000 average is a rounding error: the market has gone nowhere in a year. But it is a sharp turn from the headline a month ago. The June index put Dorset up 1.4% on the year. The difference is the base month, not a crash: July 2025 was £5,000 higher than the weak June 2025 the previous figure was measured against. Two months of annual growth, in May and June, have given way to a flat July.

One housekeeping note. The Land Registry revises its recent months as more sales are registered, and June’s Dorset average has been revised down £685 since we reported it, from £325,410 to £324,725. The figures in this story are the current published series, and July’s will be revised in its turn.

Flats are doing the falling

Across the year to July, three of the four property types rose and one fell hard:

• Detached: £515,191, up 0.2%
• Semi-detached: £329,926, up 1.0%
• Terraced: £264,878, up 0.5%
• Flats: £167,282, down 2.9%

A Dorset flat has lost £4,980 in twelve months, from £172,262 to £167,282. That is the cheapest way into the county’s housing market getting cheaper, and it is the same pattern the index shows next door in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, where the whole market fell 1.9%.

A first-time buyer paid £254,490 on average in July, unchanged on the year to the nearest pound sterling: down £78. A home mover paid £389,505. The gap between the two, £135,015, is still roughly the price of a Dorset flat on top.

Where Dorset sits among 295 English areas

We ranked every English local authority in the full July 2026 index file by its annual change. Dorset’s -0.1% comes 211th of 295, down from 196th a month ago. Prices fell over the year in 85 of the 295 areas, and Dorset has now slipped, just, from the rising majority into the falling minority.

The neighbours tell the same story in both directions:

Every figure in the table comes from the same Land Registry file. The inland counties to the north are still rising; the coast is not. The whole South West average fell 0.2% to £302,298, making it a falling region in a rising country: England rose 1.1% to £293,479 and the UK rose 1.4% to £272,611.

Dorset’s average is still £31,675 above England’s, and the county remains the 126th most expensive of the 295 English areas. The October 2022 peak of £352,127 is £26,973 away, and the gap has not meaningfully closed in a year.

What it means for you

• Selling a house: the market is flat, not falling. Semis and terraces are the only types with a real annual rise, at 1.0% and 0.5%.
• Selling a flat: the average is down £4,980 in a year. Price against this year’s market, not against what a neighbouring flat made in 2024.
• Buying for the first time: the typical first-time buyer price has not moved in a year, at £254,490, while wages have. In affordability terms that is quiet progress.
• Reading other reports: the UKHPI figure is a mean average, not a median, so a handful of expensive coastal sales pulls it up. Most homes trade below it.

Town-by-town asking and sold prices, and how each part of the county compares, are on our Dorset house prices page.

Sources

• HM Land Registry UK House Price Index, Dorset, July 2026 for the Dorset averages, the annual and monthly changes and the by-type figures.
• UK House Price Index for July 2026, GOV.UK, published 16 September 2026.
• UK HPI full file, July 2026 for the ranking of all 295 English local authorities, the neighbours’ figures, the monthly series in the chart and the revised June figure.

The UK House Price Index is published two months in arrears and revised as more sales are registered. Figures in this story are as published on 16 September 2026.