LiveWhere First-Time Buyer Index: method

See the latest edition

Method version 1.3 (21 October 2026). The first public edition is the August 2026 edition; see "Changes to method". Replaces the earlier draft, which is kept in archive/METHOD-DRAFT.md.

LiveWhere's figures (monthly costs, components and changes) are published under CC BY 4.0. Source data remains under its own terms; see Licences.

What the index measures

The LiveWhere First-Time Buyer Index is the monthly cost of owning a home for someone buying their first home now: a typical first-time buyer home, bought this month with a 10% deposit and a repayment mortgage, in each local authority in England and Wales. It does not describe the costs of people who already own their home. It adds four regular costs:

1. a repayment mortgage on the average first-time buyer price from the official UK House Price Index,
2. energy for a home using the local average amount of electricity and gas,
3. Band D council tax,
4. the local water and sewerage bill.

For the latest month only, it also shows the upfront cost of buying that home: a 10% deposit plus stamp duty (England) or Land Transaction Tax (Wales) for a first-time buyer.

The index describes costs for a first-time buyer. It is not advice on buying, renting or moving.

Coverage

The index covers every local authority in England and Wales that the UK House Price Index publishes: 317 authorities (295 in England, 22 in Wales), on current boundaries.

• The unitary authorities created in 2021 and 2023 are included: North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire, Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness, North Yorkshire and Somerset. The 24 former districts they replaced are not.
• The Isles of Scilly are not included, because UK HPI does not publish a figure for them.
• Scotland and Northern Ireland are not covered.

The reference month

Every edition has one reference month, M. This is the UK House Price Index month, and the edition is named after it (for example, the "July 2026 edition"), whatever date it is published. Every input comes from M:

Input	Value used for month M
House price	UK HPI average price for M
Mortgage rate	Bank of England average quoted rate for M
Energy prices	The Ofgem price cap in force during M: that period's regional unit rates and standing charges, with the VAT that applied in M
Council tax	Band D for the financial year (April to March) containing M
Water	Average bills for the charging year (April to March) containing M
Energy use	DESNZ 2024 averages, the same in every month (see below)

Headline and secondary series

• Headline: the cost at UK HPI's first-time buyer average price.

  UK HPI identifies first-time buyers from mortgage data: UK Finance's Regulated Mortgage Survey, which HM Land Registry describes as "detailed transaction-level data on mortgage completions", "provides the necessary data to allow the new HPI to be produced according to whether the buyer is a first time buyer or an existing owner". The average is mix-adjusted, not a simple average of sale prices: because "the composition and type of property sold can differ vastly between periods", "hedonic regression and mix-adjustment is used to account for the change in composition". Source: HM Land Registry, About the UK House Price Index, sections 2.4 and 3 (page updated 23 July 2026, read 21 October 2026).

• Secondary: the same calculation at UK HPI's average price for all homes. It is published alongside the headline in every file.

Everything except the price, and therefore the mortgage and upfront cost, is the same in both series.

Sources

Input	Source
House prices and sales volumes	UK House Price Index (HM Land Registry and ONS): FTBPrice (headline), AveragePrice (secondary), SalesVolume
Mortgage rate	Bank of England series IUMB482: monthly interest rate of UK monetary financial institutions (excluding the central bank), sterling, 2-year (90% loan to value) fixed-rate mortgage to households, not seasonally adjusted
Electricity use	DESNZ subnational electricity consumption statistics, 2024: mean kWh per domestic meter (standard and Economy 7 meters together)
Gas use	DESNZ subnational gas consumption statistics, 2024: mean kWh per domestic meter, weather corrected
Homes off the gas grid	DESNZ subnational estimates of properties not connected to the gas network, 2024
Number of dwellings (for weighting averages)	Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties, at 31 March 2026 (table CTSOP1.0, all properties in the Council Tax valuation lists)
Energy prices	Ofgem energy price cap: regional unit rates and daily standing charges, Direct Debit, single-rate electricity, for every cap period from January 2024
Energy region	Ofgem's postcode district to region lookup, applied to the ONS Postcode Directory
Council tax, England	MHCLG, area Band D council tax, including county, police, fire, combined authority and parish precepts, by billing authority
Council tax, Wales	Welsh Government, average Band D including police and community council precepts, by authority
Water supply and sewerage companies	Ofwat's digitised water supply and sewerage service areas (version 1_5, April 2024), with Census 2021 households by small area (ONS) and the ONS Postcode Directory
Water and sewerage bills	Discover Water average household bills by company (figures from Water UK), water and sewerage separately, for each charging year
Stamp duty and Land Transaction Tax	LiveWhere's stamp duty calculator rules (shared/stamp-duty.js, the same rules the stamp duty calculator and property reports use; tested by scripts/test-stamp-duty.mjs)

The data files list the source and period for every input on every row.

How each part is worked out

Mortgage

• Deposit: 10% of the price P.
• Loan, L: 90% of P.
• Annual rate, R: the Bank of England's average quoted rate for a 2-year fixed-rate mortgage at 90% loan to value, for month M. The same rate is used everywhere.
• Monthly rate r = R / 12. Term n = 300 months (25 years). Repayment, capital and interest.
• Monthly payment = L x r / (1 - (1 + r)^-n).

Check: a £200,000 loan at 5.00% over 25 years gives £1,169.18 a month.

Energy

Monthly energy = [(electricity kWh x electricity unit rate) + (365 x electricity daily standing charge) + (gas kWh x gas unit rate) + (365 x gas daily standing charge)] / 12

• Use: DESNZ's mean domestic consumption per meter for the local authority, for 2024. Gas is weather corrected, which DESNZ provides so that places and years can be compared without the effect of a colder or warmer year. The 2024 figures are used for every month of the series. Changes in the energy cost over time therefore come only from changes in prices, not from changes in how much energy homes use.
• Prices: Ofgem's price cap for the authority's region, for the cap period in force during M, paying by Direct Debit, single-rate electricity. The rates include the VAT that applied: 5% on gas throughout, and 5% on electricity until 30 September 2026. Ofgem publishes no VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
• Region: Great Britain has 14 Ofgem regions. They follow electricity network areas, not council or government region boundaries. Each local authority takes the region covering most of its residential postcodes, from Ofgem's own postcode lookup. Where an authority spans two regions, the split is recorded.
• The figure assumes a home on mains gas. The share of homes in each area that are not on the gas grid is shown next to it.

Council tax

Monthly council tax = Band D for the financial year containing M / 12.

• England: MHCLG's area Band D figure, which includes county, police, fire, combined authority (or Greater London Authority) and parish precepts, averaged across the billing authority.
• Wales: the Welsh Government's average Band D including police and community council precepts.

Band D is the band used to compare councils. A typical home in an area may be in a different band.

Water

Monthly water = (average water bill of the company supplying water + average sewerage bill of the company providing sewerage) / 12, for the charging year containing M.

• Water supply and sewerage are often provided by different companies, for example where a water-only company supplies water.
• Where an authority is split between companies, the split is recorded.
• Each local authority takes the supply company and the sewerage company that serve most of its households. Households are counted from Census 2021, placed in Ofwat's company areas by postcode.
• Where a company bills parts of its area separately (for example Affinity Water's three regions, or the Bristol Water and Bournemouth Water areas of South West Water), the bill for that part is used. Small new-development areas served by other operators are counted with the surrounding company.
• The bills are company-wide (or billed-area) averages for households, not a bill for a particular home or meter. No separate average is published for Anglian Water's Hartlepool area or Severn Trent Water's Chester area, so the company average is used there.

Total

Monthly total = mortgage + energy + council tax + water.

Upfront cost (latest month only)

Upfront = deposit + purchase tax on the price for a first-time buyer, under the rules in force in M, using LiveWhere's stamp duty calculator:

• England (rules from 1 April 2025): a first-time buyer pays nothing up to £300,000 and 5% on the part from £300,001 to £500,000. Above £500,000 there is no first-time buyer relief at all, and the standard rates (0% to £125,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% to £925,000, 10% to £1.5 million, 12% above) apply to the whole price. Before 1 April 2025 the limits were £425,000 and £625,000.
• Wales: Land Transaction Tax has no first-time buyer relief, so the standard main residence rates apply: 0% to £225,000, 6% to £400,000, 7.5% to £750,000, 10% to £1.5 million, 12% above.

Correction, 21 October 2026: until this date the calculator withdrew English first-time buyer relief above £625,000 (the pre-April 2025 limit) instead of £500,000, which understated the tax for first-time buyer prices from £500,001 to £625,000. The August 2026 preview was rebuilt with the correct limit before publication.

The upfront cost is not part of the monthly total and is not calculated for the back series. Legal fees, surveys, mortgage fees and moving costs are not included.

Back series and changes

Every edition recalculates the full monthly series from January 2024 to M, using the same method and the inputs that applied in each month.

• Month on month: month M against the month before, for the total and for each part.
• Year on year: month M against the same month a year earlier, for the total and for each part, from January 2025.

Changes are worked out from unrounded figures. The change in a total can be split into the parts that drove it: house price, mortgage rate, energy, council tax and water. The mortgage change is shared between price and rate by averaging the two possible orders of calculation, so the parts add up exactly to the total change.

Areas, rankings and the headline rule

Averages are given for England, Wales, England and Wales, and the nine English regions. The mortgage uses UK HPI's own published average price for the area (which matches gov.uk). Energy, council tax and water are averages of all the area's local authorities, not only eligible ones, weighted by number of dwellings (Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties, 31 March 2026). The averages therefore do not change when an authority moves in or out of headline eligibility.

Headline rule. A local authority is "headline eligible" in month M only if both of these are true:

1. it averaged 50 or more sales a month over the latest 12 months for which UK HPI publishes sales volumes (sales volumes are published about two months behind prices, and the months used are recorded);
2. its first-time buyer average price changed by 5% or less, up or down, from the previous month.

The rule looks only at local sales and the local price. National changes in the mortgage rate, the energy cap, council tax or water bills never make an area ineligible. Eligibility is judged on the headline (first-time buyer) series only.

Areas that are not eligible stay in every table and download, with a flag and the reason. They never appear in a "most expensive", "least expensive", "biggest riser" or "biggest faller" list, or in the summary file's lists.

"Fewer sales than usual" (information only). For each area, UK HPI sales in the latest 12 months with published sales figures are compared with sales in the 12 months before that. The same is done for the area's country (England or Wales). An area is flagged when its change is more than 10 percentage points below its country's change: for example, when sales fell by 25% in an area but by 10% across England. Using 12-month periods, and comparing with the country, means short national swings (such as the rush of sales before the stamp duty change on 1 April 2025) and provisional recent sales figures, which are usually revised up later, do not trigger it on their own. The flag does not affect headline eligibility: flagged areas stay in every list, including the biggest risers and fallers, with the flag shown so a note can be added. The area's sales figures, its change, its country's change and the gap are published with each area.

Price changes are not published. The index publishes house price levels, as UK HPI gives them, and changes in monthly costs. It does not publish its own percentage changes in house prices, because those can differ from the figures HM Land Registry publishes on gov.uk. For price changes, see the UK HPI release.

Rounding

Money is rounded to the nearest £1 for display only. The data files keep full precision.

Revisions policy

• UK HPI revises its figures for recent months, usually the previous 12, with each monthly release. Other inputs are revised less often: the Bank of England occasionally revises its rates, and DESNZ revises its consumption figures each December.
• Every run uses the latest published data and recalculates the whole monthly series from January 2024. The series download and the chart always show the latest figures for every month, so earlier months there can differ from what an earlier edition showed.
• Editions are frozen once published. Each edition has a status:
  • test: an internal run, never shown on the site;
  • preview: being checked before release;
  • published: released, with its publication date. A published edition's figures and files are never changed by later runs. Each published edition keeps its own page and downloads, as first published.
• An older edition's page says that its figures are as first published, that some may have been revised since, and links to the latest edition.
• Corrections. A published edition is changed only to correct an error, not because source data was revised. A correction is dated and described on that edition's page.
• Each edition's validation report compares its series with the previous edition. It lists every local authority and month where the headline total moved by more than 1%, with the input that caused it.

Limitations

• Low sales volume. Where few homes sell, UK HPI's average price can move sharply from month to month. This is why the headline rule exists.
• Mains gas assumed. In some areas most homes are not on the gas grid (Ceredigion: 75% in 2024) and heat with electricity, oil or LPG, so their costs can be quite different.
• Energy use from 2024. DESNZ's mean is per meter, not per household, and includes some small businesses on domestic meters. Economy 7 meters are included in the electricity mean but priced at the single-rate tariff.
• One mortgage rate everywhere. The rate is a national average quoted rate for new 2-year fixed mortgages at 90% loan to value. Actual rates vary by lender, borrower and date. The payment is calculated at that rate for the full 25 years.
• Energy regions and water areas do not follow council boundaries. Each authority takes the region or company serving most of its homes.
• Not included: buildings insurance, maintenance, service charges, ground rent, broadband and other household bills.

Changes to method

Version	Date	Change
1.1	21 October 2026	The month-on-month part of the headline rule now looks at the first-time buyer price (more than 5% either way), not the total, so national moves in the mortgage rate, energy, council tax or water cannot make an area ineligible. A "price divergence" check (first-time buyer against all-homes price change over the year, more than 8 percentage points apart) was tested and removed the same day: at local authority level UK HPI's first-time buyer and all-homes prices move together (the largest gap in the July 2026 edition was 0.73 points), so it could never trigger. An information-only "Fewer sales than usual" flag was added instead. It was first defined as a fall of more than 40% on the year; the same day it was changed to a change more than 10 points below the country's, because the 40% version was triggered in 103 areas, mainly by the March 2025 stamp duty rush. Averages weighted by VOA dwelling counts (31 March 2026), taken directly instead of through DESNZ's 2024 property counts (which come from the same VOA statistics). The index no longer publishes its own house price percentage changes. July 2026 edition rebuilt.
1.3	21 October 2026	"Fewer sales than usual" now compares the latest 12 months of sales with the 12 months before, for the area and its country. The 3-month windows used until then were tested and replaced because they swung with national events: the March 2025 stamp duty rush, and the different months each release covered, moved the country's change and the flagged list from month to month. Threshold (10 percentage points below the country) and information-only status unchanged. No change to the monthly cost calculation.
1.2	21 October 2026	Edition statuses (test, preview, published). Published editions are frozen, and corrections are dated and shown on the edition. The July 2026 run was kept as an internal test run; the August 2026 edition is the first public edition. No change to the calculation.
1.1 (licence note)	21 October 2026	No change to the calculation. Licence statement added. Discover Water's annual bill figures removed from the downloads (index.json and index.csv); the calculated monthly water cost is unchanged.
1.0	21 October 2026	First version. One reference month per edition; first-time buyer price as the headline, all homes as a secondary series; full monthly series from January 2024; headline rule; index-only energy region and water company mappings (water supply and sewerage priced separately).

Flag definitions

Fewer sales than usual

Information only, does not affect eligibility. The area's UK HPI sales in the latest 12 months with sales figures, compared with the 12 months before, changed by more than 10 percentage points less than sales in its country (England or Wales) over the same periods. Using 12-month periods, and comparing with the country, means short national swings, such as the rush of sales before the stamp duty change on 1 April 2025, and provisional recent sales figures do not trigger it.