Authors: Yangfanqi Liu, Helen X. H. Bao
Year: 2026
Status: Under Review
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Research line: Spatial analysis of real estate and finance
Abstract
Britain’s secularisation is usually documented through what people say about their beliefs. This paper asks whether it can also be read from what they pay. We study the price of two symbolic address attributes at opposite poles of the Christian tradition: the house number 13, long held to be cursed, and ecclesiastical street names such as Church Lane, which carry the blessing of sacred association. In roughly eight million matched Rightmove and HM Land Registry transactions across Great Britain between 2006 and 2025, both symbols are priced even under tight conditioning. Number 13 sells at a 0.23 per cent discount to its immediate neighbours, and an ecclesiastical address at a 0.72 per cent premium. Both effects, however, are disappearing. The discount reaches zero by the mid 2010s and the premium by the early 2020s. The early discount and premium alike are concentrated in the districts whose Christian share fell least between the 2001 and 2021 censuses, while the fastest-secularising districts appear to have completed the process before our window opens. The results read the housing market as an instrument of cultural observation. Surveys record what people profess and transactions record what they pay for. In Britain, the two records of religious decline agree.