The North Wales Property Market Update July 2026 | Denbighshire, Flintshire and Conwy
July was the month North Wales stopped chasing volume and started converting quality. Fewer deal - better deals
There were 363 sales agreed across the three counties, down 10.4 per cent on the 405 recorded last July and 5.5 per cent below the six year average of 384. That will read as a disappointing headline to anyone who only looks at the first number, and it is worth saying plainly that this region did not buck the national trend the way some parts of England did.
Across the UK, sales agreed in July fell by around 9 per cent year on year, with Zoopla recording the weakest month of activity anywhere in 2026. North Wales moved almost exactly in step with the country.
What happened underneath that number, though, is a great deal more encouraging. Values firmed, withdrawals collapsed, fall throughs fell to their joint lowest level in the entire record and the market needed fewer price corrections than at any point in three years. Fewer transactions, but a far higher proportion of them holding together and completing at strong values.
That is not a bad trade, and for anyone selling this autumn it changes the calculation considerably.
The line that has never crossed before
Here is the number that should stop you.
Homes coming to market in July were asking an average of £256 per square foot. Homes going under offer were being agreed at £258 per square foot.
Agreed values came in above asking values. In six years of this data, that has never happened. In 2022 the gap ran to 4.5 per cent in the sellers' favour, in 2024 and 2025 it sat at a steady 1.2 per cent, and even in the tightest years the achieved rate stayed below the launch rate. July 2026 is the first month where buyers, on average, paid a higher rate per square foot than sellers were collectively asking.
Agreed values per square foot reached £258, up 7.1 per cent on last July's £241 and 2 per cent on June. Set against the ONS finding that Welsh house prices rose 4.2 per cent in the year to May, among the strongest growth anywhere in the UK, that 7.1 per cent tells you the right properties in these three counties are not just holding their value. They are being competed for.
Buyers went smaller, and paid more for it
The crossover has an explanation, and it sits in the size of what people bought.
Divide the average agreed price of £254,880 by the achieved rate of £258 per square foot and the typical July sale works out at roughly 988 square feet. The typical home coming to market in the same month worked out at about 1,053 square feet, and last July's average sale was closer to 1,049 square feet.
Buyers bought smaller in July, and smaller homes always carry a higher rate per foot. That is arithmetic rather than sentiment, but the reason behind it matters. With the average two year fixed mortgage rate having climbed from 4.83 per cent in late February to 5.62 per cent by the end of July, and roughly £125 a month added to a typical buyer's repayments since January, the household that was looking at a four bedroom detached in the spring is looking at a well presented three bedroom semi by midsummer. The appetite has not gone anywhere. The budget has been trimmed.
It also explains why the average agreed price barely moved, rising just 0.8 per cent year on year to £254,880 while the rate per square foot jumped 7.1 per cent. Same money, less house.
Sellers have read the room
New instructions arrived in July at an average asking price of £269,611. That is up 5.6 per cent on last July, but down 4.5 per cent on June's £282,304, and the rate per square foot on new listings fell from £267 to £256 across the same month.
Since the implied size of homes coming to market barely changed between June and July, this is a genuine moderation in what sellers are asking rather than a shift in the type of property being launched. Vendors in these three counties trimmed their expectations by roughly four per cent in a single month, which sits neatly alongside the 1 per cent national fall in asking prices Rightmove recorded across July.
That discipline shows up everywhere else in the data. There were 279 price changes in July, down 13.4 per cent on last July and 8.2 per cent on June, though still running about 10 per cent above the six year average of 254. Rightmove's national work this year found that close to three quarters of homes that sold and completed did so without ever needing a reduction, which is the clearest argument going for launching at a sensible number in the first place.
The quality numbers are the best in years
Two figures deserve more attention than they will get.
Withdrawals fell to 118, down 31.8 per cent on last July's 173, down a full third on June's 177 and 24 per cent below the six year average. That is the lowest July withdrawal figure since 2022. A year ago, more than four homes were pulled from the market for every ten that went under offer. This July that ratio dropped to roughly three in ten.
Fall throughs came in at 97, down 17.1 per cent on last July and level with the lowest figure in the entire six year record. As a share of agreed sales that is roughly 27 per cent, an improvement on last summer's 29 per cent and a long way better than the chain chaos of 2022, when 140 sales collapsed in a single July.
Put those together and the picture is of a market where fewer people are starting the process, but far more of them are finishing it. For sellers who have been watching neighbours list, reduce, withdraw and relist over the past two years, that is the meaningful shift.
Supply is finally coming down
There were 2,303 homes available across the three counties at the end of July, down 9.7 per cent on last July's 2,549 and almost 15 per cent below the 2,697 that clogged the market in July 2024. Stock is still about 9 per cent above the six year average of 2,106, so choice remains generous, but the direction has reversed.
New instructions ran at 467, which is almost exactly the six year average of 468 and within a couple of properties of last July, though up 7.4 per cent on June. Supply is arriving at an entirely normal rate. The reduction in stock is coming from the withdrawal column rather than from a shortage of sellers.
The practical measure, months of available supply, sits at about 6.3 months, effectively unchanged from last July and from 2024. Stock and sales have fallen together, which keeps the balance where it was. Nobody should be describing this as a tight market. It is a balanced one, and it is a good deal healthier than it was two summers ago.
Three counties, three different markets
The averages hide considerable variation, because this region contains at least three distinct property markets.
Flintshire behaves like a commuter belt, and the numbers there will be driven by employment as much as by lifestyle. Airbus at Broughton, Toyota and the wider Deeside Industrial Park, and the Iceland headquarters give the county an employment base that has very little to do with tourism, while Chester sits half an hour away and Liverpool and the Wirral are comfortably reachable. Buckley, Connah's Quay, Hawarden, Ewloe and Mold serve buyers who need a job and a commute far more than they need a sea view, and that market tends to be steadier through the summer than the coastal one.
Denbighshire splits in two. The Vale of Clwyd, running through Ruthin, Denbigh and St Asaph, offers period stock, market town character and the Clwydian Range on the doorstep, and it draws a buyer who has usually chosen the area deliberately. The coastal strip through Rhyl, Prestatyn and Dyserth works differently again, with more compact stock, more first time buyer activity and more exposure to the holiday and second home question.
Conwy carries the premium, and it carries the most complicated demand picture. Llandudno, Deganwy, Rhos on Sea and Conwy town itself sell a version of coastal living that people will travel a long way for, with the Great Orme, the Victorian promenade and Bodnant Garden all doing their part, while inland the Conwy Valley through Llanrwst, Trefriw and Betws y Coed puts Eryri on the doorstep. The A55 and the North Wales coast railway line, with direct services through to Chester, Crewe and London, are what make all of it work.
The lifestyle case across the region is genuinely strong, and it is worth remembering when the transaction count dips. Offa's Dyke, Moel Famau, Loggerheads, the Llangollen canal and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, the beaches from Prestatyn round to Llanfairfechan, and the adventure tourism that has grown up around Eryri all pull buyers who are choosing a way of life rather than simply a house.
One factor sits behind the coastal figures in particular. Welsh council tax premiums on second homes and the higher rates of Land Transaction Tax on additional properties have reshaped the holiday home market across Conwy and coastal Denbighshire over the past few years. Some of the softening in transaction volume in those areas reflects investors and second home buyers stepping back rather than any weakness in owner occupier demand. It is worth knowing which of those two markets your property actually sits in before you price it.
If you are selling this autumn
The evidence is genuinely on your side, provided you price properly.
Agreed values per square foot are up 7.1 per cent year on year and have, for the first time in this record, overtaken asking values. Withdrawals are down almost a third. Fall throughs are at their joint lowest in six years. Stock is down nearly 10 per cent. Every one of those numbers points the same way for a well presented home at a fair price.
The warning is in the volume. With 363 sales agreed against 467 new instructions, roughly three homes went under offer for every four that launched, which is a step down from last July. There are fewer buyers in the market than there were, so the ones who are active have choice and they are using it. Two hundred and seventy nine price changes in a single month is the evidence.
If your home sits near the £225,000 Land Transaction Tax threshold, think carefully about where you position it, because that boundary shapes buyer behaviour in this region more than most.
If you are buying
You are buying into a market with 2,303 homes available and a seller base that has just trimmed asking prices by four and a half per cent in a month. That is a favourable combination.
Two things are worth knowing. First, values at the smaller end are firm and rising, so if you are buying a compact home you are competing in the strongest part of this market. Second, the negotiating room has shifted towards larger properties, where the buyer pool has thinned as borrowing costs bit. If you can stretch to space, the discount is more likely to be waiting there.
And with 97 fall throughs in July, some perfectly good properties came back to market through no fault of their own. Those are always worth a second look.
The autumn ahead
The next few months turn on mortgage pricing and on the Autumn Budget, with a new Prime Minister in place and the usual speculation about property taxation building through September. Regional markets always pause a little in front of one.
North Wales goes into that period in reasonable shape. Volume is down, and there is no point pretending otherwise, but the market that remains is more disciplined, more durable and better priced than it has been for several years. Values are rising faster here than across England, stock is falling, and sellers are finally launching at numbers buyers recognise.
Fewer deals, better deals. That is a market you can work with.