Southbourne
House prices, flood zones and new building. Land Registry sales to August 2026; figures last changed 20 October 2026.
Southbourne homes sold for a median of £405,000 between September 2025 and August 2026. That covers 70 sales recorded by HM Land Registry.
- Median sold price
- £405,000
- September 2025 – August 2026
- Homes sold
- 70
- 129 in the 12 months before
- Flood zone 3
- 9 of 215
- postcodes; 8 more in zone 2
- Chichester district index
- −1.4%
- year to July 2026
Sales from July and August 2026 are still being registered with Land Registry, so the latest counts will rise.
What do homes in Southbourne sell for?
Southbourne is a village on the A259 between Emsworth and Chichester. Its parish also takes in Prinsted, Hermitage and Thorney Island, the Army base out in the harbour.
The table below uses three years of sales, so each type of home has enough of them to mean something. Types with fewer than five sales are left out.
| Detached | £540,000 | 87 |
| Semi-detached | £378,000 | 111 |
| Terraced | £346,000 | 68 |
| Flat | £205,000 | 26 |
Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data. Download these figures (CSV).
What locals say about Southbourne
From lifelong locals who have lived on this stretch of coast for over 60 years. Where a point can be checked against sales or a published source, the figures or the link follow it.
- Prinsted, the old hamlet down by the harbour, feels like a different place from the main village. Locals see it as the more upmarket end, and buyers want to be there. Median sale prices between September 2023 and August 2026: south of the A259, towards the harbour £395,000 (179 sales, 28% detached); north of it £378,000 (113 sales, 32% detached). Since 1995, Land Registry has recorded sales of 1,387 different homes south of the A259, towards the harbour, and 650 north of it.
- Thorney Island, the Army base out in the harbour, makes no real difference to life in the village, locals say.
- The village has its own secondary school, Bourne Community College, and locals count it as one of Southbourne's strengths. Ofsted reports: Bourne Community College
- It is one of the easier villages here to live in without a car: there is a station, and buses run along the A259.
- Sewage in the harbour has been a daily talking point in Southbourne and the other waterside villages for about twelve years.
Are Southbourne house prices going up or down?
The median rose about 4% on the year before, up from £390,000. The steadier guide is the official index for Chichester district, which adjusts for the kind of homes sold: it fell 1.4% in the year to July 2026.
Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data · UK House Price Index.
Is Southbourne an expensive place to live?
About average for the area. Detached houses made up 30% of its sales between September 2023 and August 2026, at a median of £540,000. On the government's deprivation index its five neighbourhoods sit between deciles 5 and 10, where 10 is the least deprived tenth of England. That index measures deprivation, not wealth, so it supports the picture rather than proving it.
Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data · English Indices of Deprivation 2025.
Does Southbourne flood?
From rivers and the sea, parts of it can. Nine of Southbourne's 215 postcodes have their centre point inside Environment Agency flood zone 3, the highest band, and eight more sit in zone 2. These zones cover rivers and the sea only and ignore flood defences. Rain is a separate risk: on the Environment Agency's surface-water map, 78 of the 215 postcodes (36%) have high or medium risk within 25 metres of their centre point. Groundwater isn't mapped in either, and a postcode is not a house: check an exact address on GOV.UK.
Source: Environment Agency Flood Map for Planning · Check an address for flood risk · What the flood zones leave out.
Will Southbourne flood more in future?
Yes, noticeably more, on the Environment Agency's climate change scenario. Its long-term flood maps, unlike the flood zones above, count flood defences. From rivers and the sea, ten of Southbourne's 215 postcodes have their centre point at high or medium risk today, and 17 under the scenario, which runs to the 2050s with sea level rise to 2065; at high risk alone, seven today and 17 then. From heavy rain, 78 have high or medium risk within 25 metres today, and 93 under the scenario. High risk means at least a 1 in 30 chance of flooding in any year, and medium means between 1 in 100 and 1 in 30.
Source: Environment Agency long-term flood risk maps, today and with climate change.
Is the coast at Southbourne eroding?
Not where homes are, on current plans. The shoreline plan for the 0.9 km of coast within 500 metres of Southbourne's homes is to hold the line, keeping the existing defences, through to 2105. None of its postcodes has its centre point in land the Environment Agency's erosion map expects to be lost by 2105, if that plan is carried out and with its higher central allowance for climate change.
Source: Environment Agency National Coastal Erosion Risk Map 2024.
How often does sewage spill near Southbourne?
The eight monitored storm overflows within 1.5 km of Southbourne's homes spilled 63 times in 2025, for 602 hours in all, on the water companies' returns to the Environment Agency. The busiest was Thornham wastewater works, which empties into Chichester Harbour via Little Deep: 37 spills and 361 hours across its three outlets. In 2024, the monitored overflows within 1.5 km spilled 116 times, for 1,213 hours. The Environment Agency put much of the fall across England down to an unusually dry 2025 after a particularly wet 2024. A storm overflow lets diluted sewage out into a river or the sea when heavy rain overloads the sewers. The counts use the Agency's method, in which the first 12 hours of a spill count as one and each 24 hours after that as another.
Source: Environment Agency storm overflow annual returns (Event Duration Monitoring) · Environment Agency: fewer and shorter storm overflow spills in 2025.
How energy efficient are homes in Southbourne?
Better than the area as a whole, on their energy performance certificates. Of the 2,325 homes in Southbourne with a certificate on the government register, 58% are rated C or better, against 50% across the Chichester council area; the most common rating is D. Mains gas heats 91% of them, and electricity 8%. 45 have a heat pump. Only 5% have no mains gas connection. 9% have solar panels, and 31 have solar water heating. A certificate is only made when a home is sold, let or built, so homes that rarely change hands are missing, and an old one shows a home as it was then. Each home's latest certificate is used: issued between 2008 and 2026, half of them since 2019.
Source: Energy Performance of Buildings Register (GOV.UK Get energy performance of buildings data).
How many homes sell in Southbourne each year?
HM Land Registry recorded 70 open-market sales in Southbourne between September 2025 and August 2026, against 129 in the 12 months before. Two of them were new builds.
Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data.
Sales year by year
| 2021 | £395,000 | 180 |
| 2022 | £410,000 | 95 |
| 2023 | £385,000 | 71 |
| 2024 | £366,000 | 116 |
| 2025 | £395,000 | 124 |
| 2026, January to August | £418,000 | 30 |
Figures cover 215 postcodes in Southbourne and only Land Registry's standard-price sales: repossessions, sales to companies and other non-standard transfers are left out. How these figures are made.