Bristol House Prices Up 4.2% Quarter-on-Quarter — But the Year-on-Year Picture Is Messier

Bristol's average house price hit £382,000 in the second quarter of 2026, according to figures compiled by local estate agents and Land Registry completions data — a 4.2% rise on the first quarter of this year and the sharpest three-month gain the city has recorded since Q4 2023. Compare that to the same period last year, though, and the story gets complicated. Q2 2025 saw prices sitting at £374,500, meaning the year-on-year increase is a more modest 2.0% — barely ahead of the current CPI rate and well below the double-digit surges Bristol buyers were navigating back in 2021 and 2022.

The gap between those two figures matters because it shows momentum returning after a flat 2025, when elevated mortgage rates following the Bank of England's successive base rate holds kept buyers on the sidelines. With the base rate now trimmed to 4.25%, enough confidence has returned to push completions up sharply since April. For anyone trying to buy or sell in Bristol right now, understanding which direction the market is actually moving — and why this quarter's bump may or may not last — is not a trivial question.

Where Prices Are Moving Fastest

Clifton remains the headline number. Average sale prices in Clifton Village itself crept past £620,000 in Q2, with several terraced Georgian properties on Caledonia Place and Pembroke Road selling above asking price for the first time since the spring of 2024. Redland and Cotham are showing similar energy, with semi-detached houses in those postcode areas averaging around £520,000 — up roughly 5.8% quarter-on-quarter, outpacing even the city-wide figure.

The bigger surprise is Bedminster. South Bristol's most talked-about regeneration zone posted a 6.1% quarterly rise, with two-bed terraces on Stackpool Road and the streets around North Street now routinely asking £310,000 to £330,000. The Bedminster Green regeneration programme, which broke ground on its second phase last autumn, is widely credited by local agents at Goodman & Lilley and Savills Bristol for pushing buyer interest into an area that felt peripheral as recently as three years ago. St Werburghs, meanwhile, has gone quieter — prices there are up just 1.1% quarter-on-quarter, largely because very little has actually come to market.

The Year-on-Year Caution

Strip out the quarterly bounce and the annual picture demands more nuance. Lawrence Hill and Easton — both the subject of Bristol City Council's Housing Delivery Programme targets for affordable units — saw year-on-year price growth of just 0.4% and 0.9% respectively, meaning sellers who bought in mid-2024 hoping for quick appreciation have largely been disappointed. First-time buyer activity in those postcodes is still suppressed by lenders' stricter income multiple caps introduced under the Financial Conduct Authority's 2025 mortgage affordability review.

Across the city, the number of agreed sales in Q2 2026 reached 2,840, according to data from Rightmove's Bristol regional dashboard — a 17% increase on Q2 2025 and the highest quarterly transaction count since early 2022. Average time to sell dropped to 34 days from 51 days in the same quarter last year. Both metrics suggest genuine demand, not just inflated asking prices.

For buyers, the practical read is this: the window before the late-summer school holiday slowdown — typically Bristol's quietest selling period between late July and early September — is short. Properties in BS6, BS8 and BS3 postcodes are moving in under three weeks at present. Anyone hoping the Q2 surge will reverse and hand them a cheaper entry point in autumn is taking a bet that most agents in the city consider unlikely given the constrained supply on Rightmove and OnTheMarket right now. Sellers, conversely, would do well to remember that the year-on-year growth rate is still only 2% — pricing aggression beyond what comparable sales support is still generating price reductions after four to six weeks on the market.