The Dorset average is £326,381, still 7.3% below its 2022 peak. Our read of 5,528 sales gives medians for 19 towns, from Portland to St Leonards.
Asking prices are what sellers hope for. What counts is what homes actually sell for, and every completed sale in England and Wales is recorded by HM Land Registry and published. This page reads those records for the Dorset Council area: the official average, why a single county-wide figure is close to useless here, and what the middle home actually sold for in Weymouth, Dorchester, Sherborne, Bridport, Blandford, Wimborne, Shaftesbury and twelve other places.
One thing to fix before the numbers. Dorset Council covers everything the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole conurbation does not, which is roughly two thirds of the historic county and around 190,000 homes. There is no dominant town in it. Weymouth is the biggest place and one of the cheapest; the villages on the Hampshire border are the dearest. A county average sits somewhere in the middle of that and describes almost nobody.
The headline figure
The average home in the Dorset Council area sold for £326,381 in May 2026, the most recent month published in the UK House Price Index. That is up 1.4% over the year.
The longer record is less cheerful. Dorset peaked at £352,127 in October 2022. Three and a half years later the average is £25,746, or 7.3%, below that peak in cash terms, and further below it once inflation is allowed for. Taking the same month each year shows a market that fell for three years and has only just turned:
| Month | Average price |
|---|---|
| May 2021 | £293,497 |
| May 2022 | £334,835 |
| May 2023 | £338,022 |
| May 2024 | £325,624 |
| May 2025 | £321,826 |
| May 2026 | £326,381 |
Against the wider country, Dorset is expensive and slightly slower. Over the same twelve months the South West rose 1.7% to £302,559 and England rose 2.3% to £292,095. Dorset managed 1.4%. So the county is still around £24,000 above the regional average and £34,000 above the England average, but it is no longer pulling away from either.
What it means for you
The recovery is uneven, and it splits almost exactly along property type. Over the year to May 2026, across the Dorset Council area:
- Detached houses: £517,547, up 2.0%.
- Semi-detached houses: £331,420, up 2.5%, the strongest of the four.
- Terraced houses: £264,999, up 1.8%.
- Flats and maisonettes: £168,315, down 1.9%, the only category still falling.
If you are buying a flat, particularly in Weymouth or Portland where most of Dorset’s flats are, you have more room than you have had in years. If you are selling a flat, the index says the market has not come back yet. If you are buying or selling a house, prices are up slightly on the year but still below 2022, so a 2022 valuation is not a realistic asking price.
For first-time buyers, the average first purchase in Dorset was £255,277 in May 2026, up 1.2%. A home mover paid £390,977. The £135,700 gap between those two is the size of the step from a first flat or terrace to a family house in this county.
What each town actually sells for
This is where the county-wide average stops being useful.
The table below is our own analysis of 5,528 residential sales that HM Land Registry records in the Dorset Council district and that completed between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026, taken from HM Land Registry Price Paid data. It shows the median, the middle sale, which one enormous transaction cannot distort. The Dorset median over that period was £340,000. The mean over the same sales was £387,027, and the £47,000 gap between the two is why we use the median here: a handful of country houses drags an average up and tells you nothing about what you will pay.
| Post town | Mainly | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ringwood | St Leonards and St Ives (BH24 2, Dorset side) | £643,750 | 80 |
| Lyme Regis | Lyme Regis and Uplyme fringe | £427,500 | 60 |
| Ferndown | Ferndown and West Parley | £400,000 | 449 |
| Verwood | Verwood and Three Legged Cross | £400,000 | 199 |
| Fordingbridge | Alderholt (SP6 3, Dorset side) | £400,000 | 45 |
| Wimborne | Wimborne Minster, Colehill, Corfe Mullen | £395,000 | 442 |
| Wareham | Wareham, Wool, Bere Regis | £380,000 | 233 |
| Swanage | Swanage and Purbeck coast | £368,000 | 189 |
| Bridport | Bridport, West Bay, Charmouth | £360,000 | 345 |
| Sherborne | Sherborne and Blackmore Vale villages | £350,000 | 257 |
| Beaminster | Beaminster and west Dorset villages | £348,750 | 100 |
| Blandford Forum | Blandford and the Stour valley | £345,000 | 369 |
| Dorchester | Dorchester, Poundbury, Charminster | £335,000 | 690 |
| Sturminster Newton | Sturminster Newton and the Vale | £325,000 | 181 |
| Poole | Lytchett Matravers and Upton (BH16, Dorset side) | £320,500 | 146 |
| Shaftesbury | Shaftesbury and north Dorset villages | £295,000 | 205 |
| Gillingham | Gillingham (Dorset) and Motcombe | £280,000 | 261 |
| Weymouth | Weymouth, Wyke Regis, Preston | £275,000 | 1,008 |
| Portland | Isle of Portland | £230,000 | 220 |
Three things fall out of that table.
The spread inside one council is £413,750. The middle home on the Hampshire border costs nearly three times the middle home on Portland. These are the same council tax bands, the same planning authority and the same bin rounds.
The biggest market is near the bottom. Weymouth alone accounted for 1,008 sales, 18% of everything sold in the district, and its median of £275,000 is the second lowest on the list. Add Portland and a fifth of Dorset’s housing market sits in its two cheapest places.
Three post towns on this list are not in the council area at all. Land Registry records addresses by post town, not by council. The Ringwood rows here are St Leonards and St Ives, the Fordingbridge rows are Alderholt, and the Poole rows are Lytchett Matravers and Upton, all of them Dorset Council parishes with a neighbour’s postal address. Ringwood, Fordingbridge and Poole themselves are not in this data.
Compare like for like and the map redraws itself
Ranking towns by their overall median partly ranks what kind of buildings they contain. Portland sells terraced houses; Ferndown sells detached ones. Take one property type at a time and some places move a long way.
| Post town | Detached | Semi-detached | Terraced | Flat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swanage | £590,000 | £362,000 | £339,525 | £250,000 |
| Sherborne | £553,750 | £315,000 | £275,000 | £165,000 |
| Wimborne | £515,000 | £375,000 | £320,000 | £197,500 |
| Wareham | £515,000 | £325,000 | £317,500 | £172,000 |
| Bridport | £501,250 | £345,000 | £285,000 | £170,500 |
| Dorchester | £500,000 | £345,000 | £300,000 | £184,000 |
| Ferndown | £480,000 | £343,500 | £310,000 | £195,000 |
| Verwood | £470,000 | £370,000 | £275,000 | £189,000 |
| Sturminster Newton | £460,000 | £277,250 | £249,750 | £129,500 |
| Blandford Forum | £450,000 | £345,000 | £260,000 | £132,000 |
| Shaftesbury | £435,000 | £290,000 | £227,500 | £150,000 |
| Weymouth | £425,000 | £315,000 | £247,500 | £165,500 |
| Gillingham | £385,000 | £260,000 | £222,500 | £110,000 |
| Portland | £320,000 | £236,500 | £230,000 | £125,500 |
Sherborne is the surprise. Tenth on the overall list, second on detached houses at £553,750, because most of what sells in Sherborne is a terrace or a flat and most of what sells in Ferndown is a detached bungalow. Swanage tops the detached column at £590,000 and has by far the dearest flats in the county at £250,000, which is £140,000 more than a flat in Gillingham. And Portland barely varies: £320,000 for a detached house, £230,000 for a terrace, so the choice of street matters less there than almost anywhere else in Dorset.
Across the whole district the four property types came out at £475,000 detached (2,061 sales), £330,000 semi-detached (1,078), £270,000 terraced (1,359) and £172,500 flat (801).
A note on the data
These are sales that had completed and been registered by early August 2026. Registration lags completion, so the most recent weeks in the window are under-counted, which is why we use a full twelve months rather than a quarter. The figures exclude commercial and other non-residential transactions.
You will also see that our median of £340,000 sits above the UK House Price Index average of £326,381. They are not the same measurement. The index is mix-adjusted, smoothed and revised, and is designed to track change over time. Our figure is the plain middle of one year of actual Dorset sales. Use the index for the direction of travel and the median for what a home in your town costs.
To check one specific address rather than an area, every completed sale is public and free to search on the HM Land Registry Price Paid service.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average house price in Dorset?
The official average for the Dorset Council area was £326,381 in May 2026, up 1.4% over the year, according to the UK House Price Index. Our own read of Land Registry sales puts the median at £340,000 over the twelve months to June 2026. Both exclude Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, which are a separate council with their own index.
Are Dorset house prices going up or down in 2026?
Up slightly, after three years down. The average rose 1.4% in the year to May 2026 but is still 7.3% below the October 2022 peak of £352,127. Flats are the exception and are still falling, down 1.9% over the year.
Where is the cheapest place to buy in Dorset?
Portland, at a median of £230,000 across 220 sales in the year to June 2026. Weymouth is next at £275,000, then Gillingham at £280,000 and Shaftesbury at £295,000.
Where is the most expensive place to buy in Dorset?
The St Leonards and St Ives area on the Hampshire border, which Land Registry files under a Ringwood postal address, at a median of £643,750. Among the towns proper, Lyme Regis leads at £427,500.
How much is a detached house in Dorset?
The median detached house in the district sold for £475,000 over the twelve months to June 2026. That ranges from £320,000 on Portland to £590,000 in Swanage.
Why is Sherborne cheaper than Ferndown in the table?
Because the two towns sell different buildings. Compare detached houses only and Sherborne is £553,750 against Ferndown’s £480,000. The overall median partly measures housing stock, not desirability.
Sources
- UK House Price Index, Dorset (ONS and HM Land Registry) for the council-wide average, property-type and buyer-type figures.
- UK House Price Index data, monthly series for Dorset for the October 2022 peak and the year-by-year table.
- UK House Price Index data, South West and England for the regional and national comparison.
- HM Land Registry Price Paid data for our own analysis of 5,528 residential sales in the Dorset Council district, July 2025 to June 2026.
- HM Land Registry Price Paid search to check an individual address.
Next: what the commute actually costs from each corner of the county, on our Dorset train times to London page, and what is being built and where, on Dorset planning news.
Figures are provisional and revised as more sales complete. Always confirm the latest numbers against the linked HM Land Registry and ONS sources before making a decision.
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