North Wales Market Report August

Denbighshire, Flintshire and Conwy, August 2026

There is a pattern in the August figures for these three counties that will surprise anyone who assumes a quieter market must be a weaker one. Fewer homes changed hands last month than in any August since these records began. At the same time, both the prices being asked and the prices being agreed reached their highest levels in the entire six year run. Those two facts sit side by side, and understanding why is the key to everything that follows.

The short version is that this market has stopped expanding and started tightening. Supply is falling, sellers are withdrawing far less often, chains are breaking far less often, and the homes that do trade are trading at stronger values. It is a smaller market than it was, but it is a considerably healthier one.

Supply has finally turned

For four years the story across Denbighshire, Flintshire and Conwy was relentless growth in choice. Available homes climbed from 1,213 in August 2021 to 1,621 in 2022, then to 2,439 in 2023 and a peak of 2,659 in 2024. That long build up put buyers firmly in charge and pushed sellers into competing on price.

August 2026 marks the second consecutive year of retreat. There were 2,307 homes available, down 6.8 per cent on last August's 2,475 and down again on July's 2,323. Stock remains 8.9 per cent above the six year average of 2,119, and it is still very nearly double where it stood in 2021, so nobody should mistake this for scarcity. But the direction has changed, and direction is what shapes negotiations.

New instructions tell a slightly different story. There were 428 new listings in August, up 8.1 per cent on last August's 396, though 4 per cent below the six year average of 446 and 9.9 per cent down on July's 475. Sellers are still coming forward across the region, particularly in the Flintshire commuter belt where movement tends to be job driven rather than lifestyle driven, but not in the volumes seen in 2022 and 2023, when more than 500 homes a month were arriving in the height of summer.

Fewer buyers, but better ones

Just 345 sales were agreed in August, the lowest August total in the six year series. That is down 6 per cent on last year's 367, 7 per cent below the six year average of 371, and 4.7 per cent lower than July. Compare it with the 388 agreed in August 2021, when stock stood at barely half today's level, and the change in market temperature becomes obvious. Back then almost a third of everything available found a buyer in a single month. Today that figure is around 15 per cent.

Yet the buyers who are active are behaving with unusual conviction, and the evidence for that is emphatic. Only 85 sales fell through in August, the lowest figure of any month in this run, down 15 per cent on last August and 19 per cent below the six year average of 105. In August 2023 the equivalent number was 130. Chains across these three counties are holding together better than they have at any point since the data begins.

Withdrawals point the same way. Just 126 homes were taken off the market, down a striking 25.4 per cent on last August's 169 and 18.2 per cent below the average of 154. When 222 properties were withdrawn in August 2024, it told you that a large number of sellers had tested the market and given up. That is simply not happening now.

Price reductions have eased too, with 248 recorded against 277 last August and 279 in July, although they remain 6 per cent above the six year average of 234. Repricing is still part of the landscape here, but it is trending in the right direction rather than the wrong one.

The prices tell the real story

Both pricing measures hit record levels in August, and they did so together, which matters.

The average asking price across available homes reached £280,892, up 7.9 per cent on last August's £260,415 and 3.5 per cent above July. Homes that found buyers were asking £268,352 on average, up 9.9 per cent year on year and 5.7 per cent on July. Measured by space rather than headline price, available stock stood at £257 per square foot against £243 a year ago, while agreed sales achieved £253 per square foot compared with £243 last August.

Two observations are worth drawing out. First, agreed prices have risen faster than asking prices over the year, up 9.9 per cent against 7.9 per cent, which is the signature of a market where buyers are competing for the better homes rather than picking over the leftovers. Second, the gap between what sellers are asking across the whole pool and what buyers are actually agreeing has narrowed to roughly £12,500, a little over four per cent. That is a remarkably tight relationship. It suggests pricing across the region has become considerably more realistic than it was during the stock heavy years, and that vendors and agents have adjusted to the conditions rather than fighting them.

The one softer note is that agreed sales came in at £253 per square foot against £257 in July, a slip of 1.6 per cent. With volumes this low in a holiday month, that is more likely to reflect which homes happened to sell than any shift in underlying values, but it is worth watching through the autumn.

Three counties, three different markets

Regional averages always conceal more than they reveal, and nowhere more so than here, where three genuinely distinct property markets sit under one heading.

Flintshire behaves like a Cheshire overspill market, and that is its great strength. Mold, Hawarden, Buckley and the villages along the Dee estuary offer family housing at a fraction of Chester prices, with the A55 and A494 putting the city within half an hour and Manchester Airport comfortably reachable. Employment here is real and substantial, from Airbus at Broughton to the manufacturing base across Deeside Industrial Park, which gives the market a floor that purely rural areas lack. When national conditions soften, cross border demand from buyers priced out of Cheshire tends to keep Flintshire moving.

Conwy is a lifestyle market and a coastal one. Llandudno with its Victorian promenade and the Great Orme, Deganwy and Rhos on Sea for the sea views, Conwy town within its walls, and inland the Conwy valley running up towards Betws y Coed and the edge of Eryri. Demand here comes from downsizers, retirees and those relocating for the setting rather than for work, and it is the most sensitive of the three to sentiment and to the wider economy. It is also the part of the region most reshaped by Welsh policy, which we come to shortly.

Denbighshire is genuinely two markets in one county. The coastal strip through Rhyl and Prestatyn sits at the affordable end, with strong first time buyer and investor interest and a longer running regeneration story. Inland, the market towns of the Vale of Clwyd tell a different tale entirely, with Ruthin, Denbigh, St Asaph and Llangollen offering period housing, good comprehensives with strong Welsh medium provision, and the Clwydian Range on the doorstep for anyone who values Moel Famau and the Offa's Dyke path more than a sea view. Those inland market towns have been among the more resilient parts of the region.

The Welsh dimension

Anyone analysing this market without reference to devolved policy is missing half the picture. Land Transaction Tax replaced stamp duty in Wales, with the main residential threshold sitting at £225,000, which means the average agreed sale here at £268,352 now falls into charge on the portion above that line. Buyers moving from England often arrive expecting a different set of rules and need to plan accordingly.

More significantly for Conwy and coastal Denbighshire, higher rates on additional properties were increased again in late 2024, and Welsh councils have had the power since April 2023 to apply council tax premiums on second homes and long term empty properties of up to 300 per cent. Combined with the letting threshold that determines whether a holiday property is treated as a business, this has substantially reduced the flow of speculative second home and holiday let purchasers into the region.

That policy shift explains a good deal of what the data shows. Fewer transactions, yes, because a whole category of discretionary buyer has stepped back. But firmer prices and far fewer fall throughs, because the buyers who remain are largely people who intend to live in these homes. A market of committed residential purchasers is a slower market than one fuelled by investors, but it is a more durable one, and the record low fall through figure is the proof.

The national backdrop

Wales as a whole has been outperforming quietly. Official figures put the average Welsh house price at around £213,000 in June 2026, up 1.8 per cent over the year, having run above four per cent earlier in the spring. The average asking price across these three counties sits well above that Welsh figure, which reflects the Chester commuter belt and the coastal premium rather than any distortion in the data.

Nationally the mood is more cautious. Rightmove recorded the largest August fall in new seller asking prices for eight years, with homes for sale at a twelve year high, while Nationwide put annual growth at 1.6 per cent. The Bank of England base rate stands at 3.75 per cent, but expectations of further cuts have unwound and average five year fixed rates have climbed to around 4.8 per cent, trimming buying power by close to nine per cent since January. The Chancellor's Budget in October is adding a layer of hesitancy on top, as pre Budget periods invariably do.

Against that backdrop, a North Wales market posting record agreed prices, the fewest fall throughs on record and a quarter fewer withdrawals than last year is performing well.

If you are selling

The conditions are better than they have been for some time, provided you understand what has changed. The buyers currently active are fewer in number but far more likely to complete, and they are paying record values for homes that suit them. Withdrawals and fall throughs at these levels mean the process itself is smoother than it has been in years.

What has not changed is the importance of the launch price. With 2,307 homes available across the region, and reductions still running above the six year average, a property priced ahead of the evidence will sit while more realistic competitors move. The narrow gap between asking and agreed prices across the region shows that most sellers have already grasped this. Those who have not are the ones still contributing to the reduction figures.

Autumn tends to be productive here, with buyers returning from holidays and cross border movers keen to settle before the winter. With new listings running below the six year average, anyone launching in September faces less competition than in previous years.

If you are buying

You still have real choice, particularly across Conwy's coastal towns and the Denbighshire coast, where the withdrawal of second home demand has left a broader field than in previous cycles. Sellers who launched in spring have had a long summer to reconsider.

Two cautions, though. Supply is falling rather than rising, and agreed prices are climbing rather than easing, so the leverage buyers enjoyed in 2024 is diminishing. And if you are moving from England, build Land Transaction Tax into your budget from the outset rather than discovering it late, particularly at the £225,000 threshold and above.

For anyone buying in Flintshire, the Chester price differential remains the single strongest argument in the region. For anyone buying in Conwy or the Vale of Clwyd, the argument is simply the place itself, and that has never depended on the market cycle.

The short version

August was the quietest August on record here for transaction volumes and the strongest on record for prices. Supply is retreating, withdrawals have fallen by a quarter, and fewer sales fell apart than in any month in six years. This is not a busy market, but it is a functioning and improving one, and the gap between asking prices and agreed prices has narrowed to a level that suggests both sides have finally settled on what these homes are worth.