To think there is something off about this?

Is it in a previously up and coming area that has seen significant transport investments or become very attractive to Londoners leaving London but still commutable to London? (Our house somewhat fits that bill and the price of housing has skyrocketed to figures well beyond what anyone would have paid for a house even 8 years ago). 2021 absolutely transformed our property market with housing selling well over asking prices and asking prices almost double what they were 2 years before. Those same people who paid well well over asking but have actually found that our town is "technically commutable" but in reality it's at least 15 and hour days if you are counting the commute due to train times are really upset that they can't even get a valuation for half the price of what they paid for their properties in 2021.

There are parts of London/ SE and what are now commuter towns which used to be cheap but with the arrival of cross rail/ high speed lines into London are now very expensive. Especially since lots of people moved out of London during COVID.

If it is within catchment of decent schools then that will push prices up further in some parts of the country.

It is ultimately worth what someone is willing to pay and just because a house is valued at a certain price doesn't mean someone will pay it.

My hous doubled in price between 1999 and 2005. The house I bought after that doubled again in 17years.

15x increase seems insane. Zoopla sold price website is your friend here, what did they REALLY buy it for, and what it now sells for can be interesting.

The only one I can see that sold in 2020 for £220k is a Plot, with planning permission for a house. The only pictures are a field, and plans for a small house. I can’t see any past sold prices for the mansion.

Huge increases are the norm in many parts but 300k to 4m is still not the norm.

Was 300k the average price at the time or did they get it very cheap?

There’s no way the house was anything like it is now if it sold for £90k in 2006. Either it was derelict and has had loads of money spent on it or that £90k transfer wasn’t arms length for full value.

2006?!??? This is plain wrong.

It literally tells you when the house was built in the description. And it wasn’t in the past 6 years.

In a desirable area of a large ish city, I did buy a semi in 2004. Sold in 2023 for 200000 more. I’d say a 300000 would have had a similar uplift - in the area I bought a 300000 house at the time would be a large, detached and at least 4 bed. They now sell for 600000 max

I have some friends who benefitted massively from property prices increasing in their city, though not to this extent. They got lucky and bought their first house at just the right time.

I can’t answer you about tax but plenty are super knowledgeable on here so might help.

A nice area in a dodgy-ish northern city.
It's only worth £105 now. I bought it for £80 just over 10 years ago. 10 years before that it sold for £8! Between the £8 and £80 nothing changed, just the market.

Well a house is only worth however much someone is willing to pay.

maybe he got a good deal initially or maybe he’s just overpriced it now. You did say it’s been on market for a year.

have you checked online that he definitely payed £300,000 for it originally ?

But if you were going to buy another 2 up 2 down you'd have needed all of the money you received, as presumably all the other similar properties had increased in a similar way.

If you'd have been taxed on that growth then you wouldn't have been necessarily able to buy an identical property two streets over - which makes no sense at all.

I boughgt at £575k in 2000 and sold at £850k in 2002. Last year the same house sold for £2.25m.

There was no house on it in 2020, it was just the plot that was sold for £220,000.

Yes, this. My first house (classic 2-up, 2-down terrace) increased in value enormously. At least some of my profit should have been taxed. I didn't lift a finger to 'earn' it, I was simply very lucky. We all need better public services and we've got to pay tax to get them. Better to start taxing unearned house profits than to have wage-earners struggling with an increasing tax burden imo. I'm not surprised the OP mentions jealousy: too much is down to luck, and it feels unfair.

Bought mine 25 years ago - it is worth 10x what I paid then. I’ve done work but not extended (beyond knocking through the kitchen into the outdoor loo and adding French doors onto that back wall).

I bet it’s Winchester!

So in this case, the £220k may not pertain to the property you are seeing advertised - it may relate to a lodge, cottage, barn conversion on the property that was sectioned off. It comes up in the details because the address at the time of the sale would have been linked to the estate.

I’ve see this before where large estates are parcelled off and bits of it are sold on an ad hoc basis.

This seems odd. Massive increases happened a bit earlier than that… obviously some areas have gone up hugely but that increase during that period seems, well,… odd.