The average Test Valley home cost £372,348 in June, £732 less than a year earlier. Winchester rose 4.6% and England 1.8%. Detached homes did the pulling back.

The average home in Test Valley sold for £372,348 in June 2026, which is £732 less than a year earlier. That is a fall of 0.2%.

Next door in Winchester, the same measure rose 4.6%. The New Forest rose 1.2%, Hampshire as a whole 1.4% and England 1.8%. Basingstoke and Deane, on Andover’s other side, fell further than Test Valley did, by 1.3%.

These are figures from the UK House Price Index, which HM Land Registry builds from completed sales. One thing to hold on to before reading any of it: UKHPI is a mean average, not a median. It is pulled upward by expensive sales, and in a borough with as many large detached houses as this one that matters. The middle Andover home is a long way below the number above, at £280,000 over the year to June.

How Test Valley compares with its neighbours

Annual change in average house price, June 2026 Bar chart of the annual change in average house price to June 2026. Winchester is highest at plus 4.6 per cent, then England at plus 1.8, Hampshire at plus 1.4 and New Forest at plus 1.2. Test Valley is minus 0.2 per cent and Basingstoke and Deane is minus 1.3 per cent. Prices fell in Test Valley while Winchester rose 4.6% Annual change in average house price, year to June 2026. UKHPI is a mean average. 0% Winchester +4.6% England +1.8% Hampshire +1.4% New Forest +1.2% Test Valley -0.2% Basingstoke and Deane -1.3% Source: HM Land Registry UK House Price Index, June 2026. Graphic by Andover News
Winchester and Test Valley share a boundary and went in opposite directions over the year. Chart by Andover News.

In cash, the gap is wider than the percentages suggest, because Winchester starts from a higher base. The average Winchester home reached £471,136 in June. A Test Valley buyer is looking at roughly £99,000 less for the average property, and that difference has grown over the past year rather than shrunk.

What is rising and what is falling

The borough average hides two different markets. Split by property type, for June 2026:

  • Detached: £607,233, down 1.3% on the year.
  • Semi-detached: £361,322, up 1.0%.
  • Terraced: £285,907, up 0.9%.
  • Flats and maisonettes: £172,549, down 1.7%.

So the cheaper end of the market rose and the expensive end fell. Detached homes cost £245,911 more than a semi here, which is why a 1.3% fall among them outweighs 1% rises in the two types most people actually buy, and drags the headline average below zero.

Flats have been the weakest part of this market for well over a year. The annual fall was 5.1% in December 2025 and 4.7% in March 2026. At 1.7% it is now the smallest fall in that run, so the decline is slowing rather than reversing.

The number for first-time buyers

The average first-time buyer in Test Valley paid £286,239 in June, against £285,626 a year earlier. That is a rise of £613, or 0.2%, over twelve months.

Set against Winchester, where the first-time buyer average went from £334,043 to £351,331 in the same year, a rise of £17,288.

Nothing much has happened since Christmas

The clearest thing in the data is not a fall. It is a flatline. Since December the Test Valley average has sat in a band of less than £4,700:

  • December 2025: £370,220
  • January 2026: £371,316
  • February 2026: £371,567
  • March 2026: £371,451
  • April 2026: £374,906
  • May 2026: £370,631
  • June 2026: £372,348

That is a market moving sideways, month after month, in a borough where the council has lost its five-year housing land supply and speculative applications are arriving on fields it did not choose. Our Andover planning page sets out how that happened.

What it means for you

If you are selling, the year has given you nothing. A price set from a 2025 valuation is not conservative, it is current, and if the property is detached it may now be optimistic.

If you are buying, the flatline is the point rather than the fall. Waiting another six months for the market to come to you has not worked for anyone who tried it since December.

If you are a first-time buyer, Test Valley has effectively stood still while Winchester ran away. That is a real advantage on this side of the boundary, and it is bigger in Andover itself than the borough figure shows, because the borough average is carried by Romsey, Stockbridge and the villages.

One caution worth keeping. UKHPI revises published months. Figures for a month can change when the next release lands, so a number quoted in the spring will not always match the same month read today.

Sources