Industry insider · April 2026 · 4 min read
The North East market in numbers.
By Oliver Whittaker
Half of the noise in property comes from people quoting national averages at a hyper-local market. The North East does not behave like the South East. South Tyneside does not behave like Northumberland. The number that matters is the one from the patch the property sits on. Here is what we track.
Time on market
The national average UK time on market sat around ten weeks through the first quarter of 2026. The Newcastle postcode average ran shorter, around seven to eight weeks for the £200k to £300k band, and longer in the £400k+ band where buyer supply thins.
The honest read on that gap: properties priced inside the first valuation band sell quicker than the average. The ones priced above sell at the average after the price has been adjusted down. The headline figure hides the price cuts that got the sale done.
Average price drop before sale
The Rightmove monthly price index has tracked an average discount of around three to four percent between asking and sold across the North East over the past twelve months. Our own completed-sale book runs closer to one and a half percent.
The gap is not us being better at negotiation. It is the opening valuation being honest. A property listed at the number a buyer will pay does not need a four percent cut to sell.
The national average is fine for a Sunday paper. It is not what your property is worth.
Offer-to-completion rate
The widely quoted national figure for sales falling through between accepted offer and completion sits at around one in three. Estate agents do not love publishing their own number on this. It is the single most useful question to ask any agent before instructing them.
We publish ours quarterly from the next quarter onward. A baseline matters less than the direction of travel. If you are choosing between agents and one will not share the figure, you have the answer.
What we will publish
A quarterly market read covering the WPG patches: Newcastle, Northumberland, South Tyneside, and the surrounding councils. Three numbers per area. Average sold price, average time on market, average gap between asking and sold. Plus a paragraph on what we are seeing on the ground that the data lags by six months.
The data sources are public. Land Registry, ONS, and the council planning portals. The paragraph at the bottom is where the patch knowledge sits.
Want the next quarterly read?
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