House prices in West Suffolk

This article shows price per square metre data and various charts to help you understand the housing market in West Suffolk - stats were last calculated on 01 November 2024.

Defining 'West Suffolk'

This boundary is taken directly from the Office of National Statistics area called West Suffolk. It is shown in red on the map below.

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Price per square metre

Knowing the average house price in West Suffolk is not much use. However, knowing average price per square metre can be quite useful. Price per sqm allows some comparison between properties of different size. We define price per square metre as the sold price divided by the internal area of a property:

£ per sqm = price ÷ internal area

For example in September 2024, 16, Lysander Drive, West Suffolk, IP3 9TL sold for £240,000. Given the internal area of 77 square metres recorded on the EPC, the price per sqm is £240,000 ÷ 77 sqm = £3,116.

England & Wales have been officially metric since 1965. However house price per square foot is prefered by some estate agents and those of sufficiently advanced age ;-). It is a huge pain to code the automatic conversion for square meters to square feet for all the graphs and charts on West Suffolk and elsewhere. All the conditionals turn my tidy code for into spaghetti. I will get around to it at some point, but for now you can just divide everything by 10 in your head, move a decimal place and you'll be close enough. If you want to be more precise 1 sqm = 10.76391 sqft.

Distribution of £ per sqm for houses vs flats in West Suffolk

Tip: click on the legend labels to show/hide different property types.

The chart above is called a histogram, it helps you see the distribution of house price per sqm in West Suffolk To make this chart we put all the sales data into a series of £ per sqm 'buckets' (e.g. £3,350 to £3,500, £3,500 to £3,650, £3,650 to £3,800 etc...) we then count the number of sales with within in each bucket and plot the results. The histogram is based on 1,493 sales that took place in West Suffolk in the last 12 months.

Generate a custom histogram like the one above but based on your own criteria.

You can see the spread of prices above. This is because although internal area is a key factor in determining valuation, it is not the only factor. Many factors other than size affect desirability; these factors could be condition, aspect, garden size, negotiating power of the vendor etc.

The spread of prices will give you a feel of the typical range to expect in West Suffolk. Notably, only 25% of properties that sold recently were valued at more than £3,840 sqm. For anything to be valued more than this means it has to be more desireable than the clear majority of West Suffolk homes.

Box plot of £ per sqm for West Suffolk

Tip: click on the chart to see the values.

The chart above is called a boxplot (or a box-and-whisker plot). Box plots, like histograms, are used to graphically represent the distribution of data, showing the central tendency, spread of the distribution. In the context of £ per square metre property price distributions, box plots represent the variation in property prices within a geographic area e.g. West Suffolk. The chart above shows a boxplot for 'West Suffolk' broken down by property type (Flats, Semi-detached, Detached and Terraced). Almost everywhere houses command higher prices per square metre than flats, and detached houses most of all.

Median: The horizontal line inside the box represents the median (£ per square meter). This is the midpoint of the data, meaning 50% of the prices are below this value, and 50% are above. The middle price per square metre in 'West Suffolk' is £3,310.

Interquartile Range (IQR): The box spans from the 25th percentile (Q1) to the 75th percentile (Q3). This is the range where the middle 50% of the data lies, giving a good indication of the typical price spread. Of the 1,493 sales in West Suffolk half were sold for between £2,760 and £3,840 per square metre.

Whiskers: In our case, the whiskers extend from the 9th percentile (at the lower end) to the 91st percentile (at the upper end), This provides a slightly broader view of the distribution by including the middle 82% of records. The whiskers capture most of the variation but exclude extreme outliers caused by data errors in recording sold house prices or internal area.

'n=' is the number of property sales the box is based on.

Property price map for West Suffolk

Have a look at the interactive price map I created for myself. Use it to explore postcode area 'West Suffolk' house prices all the way down to individual property plots.

House price map for West Suffolk

Will West Suffolk house price go up in 2025?

I cannot tell the future and don't believe anyone who says they can. However we can plot price trends, I have done this in the chart below for houses and flats in West Suffolk. You can extrapolate from this based on your own views on future interest rates, inflation and other factors.

House price index for West Suffolk

Tip: click on the legend items to show/hide different lines

Download house price index as CSV (premium users only).

The chart above shows changes in 'West Suffolk' property prices over the last 20 years. The index is calculated from the average price paid per sqm for property in West Suffolk and is set to 100 in 2004. The chart compares trends for Flats vs Houses in West Suffolk. You can see how different they are. Keep this in mind when you see any price index that doesn't provide this breakdown.

The dashed lines show nominal house price changes, the solid lines show the same data adjusted for inflation. Economists call this the 'real' price change. You have to take inflation into account when comparing prices over time. It's calculated using the formula:

Real Rate of Return = (1 + Nominal Rate) ÷ (1 + Inflation Rate) – 1

In this formula, the nominal rate is the rate of change before any adjustments, and the inflation rate is taken from the Consumer Price Index. The real rate of return is a more accurate measure of change in value, because £1 today does not have the same buying power as £1 in the past. For example, if a savings account pays an interest rate of 3% per year and the inflation rate is 5% per year, the real rate of return is -2%. This means that the investment's value is shrinking by 2% each year.

Historic returns for West Suffolk

	Flats		Houses
	Nominal	Real	Nominal	Real
20 yr per annum	1.7%	-0.9%	3.2%	0.5%
20 yr total	40.5%	-16.8%	87.1%	10.8%
10 yr per annum	2.2%	-0.6%	3.7%	0.9%
10 yr total	24.4%	-5.5%	44.4%	9.6%
5 yr per annum	0.6%	-3.3%	2.8%	-1.2%
5 yr total	3.2%	-15.5%	14.9%	-6.0%
1 yr per annum	-1.8%	-5.8%	-1.8%	-5.7%
1 yr total	-1.8%	-5.8%	-1.8%	-5.7%

This table complements the house price index chart above, presenting the data in a more detailed format. It breaks down the information into 20-year, 10-year, 5-year, and 1-year periods, further categorized by property type. For each period, we display both a per annum rate of change and a total rate of change.

The total rate of change represents the overall change over the entire period. The formula for total return is:

Total return = (Index at end of period ÷ Index at start of period) - 1

The per annum rate of change is the annualized rate of change over the period. This is equivalent to the annual bank savings rate you would need to achieve the same total return over the given period. This annualized return is also known as the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). The formula for CAGR is:

CAGR = (1 + Total return) ^ (1 ÷ Number of years) - 1

Some specific examples:

Over the past 20 years, Houses have seen a 0.5% annual change when adjusted for inflation. This translates to a total change of 10.8% in real terms.
Over the past 5 years, Flats have seen a -3.3% annual change when adjusted for inflation. This translates to a total change of -15.5% in real terms.

Transaction volumes

Property transaction volumes in the UK follow a cyclical pattern. In addition to seasonal trends that occur annually, transaction volumes fluctuate with changes in house prices. When prices are rising, transactions typically increase, whereas falling prices tend to result in fewer sales, with only motivated sellers (e.g., due to death or divorce) entering the market. Exceptions to this trend often occur when changes to Stamp Duty drive a temporary surge in transactions.

Number of properties sold in West Suffolk

The chart above shows the number of properties sold each month in West Suffolk as reported by Land Registry. Key events highlighted include the Northern Rock bank run at the start of the 2007/8 Financial Crisis, the introduction of additional Stamp Duty on second homes in April 2016, the COVID-19 lockdowns and subsequent Stamp Duty holiday, and the 2023 interest rate rises. It's important to note that Land Registry reporting is lagged, particularly affecting new build sales, so treat the last year of sales volume data with caution. Based on historical reporting lags, I've provided a crude forecast of sales volumes for West Suffolk, shown in yellow.

Nearby geographies

The table below shows how 'West Suffolk' compares to the other Local Authorities nearby 'West Suffolk'.

Laua	Lower quartile	Median	Upper quartile	Sales in last 1yr
West Suffolk	£2,760 sqm	£3,310 sqm	£3,840 sqm	1,493
South Cambridgeshire	£3,690 sqm	£4,300 sqm	£4,950 sqm	1,265
Mid Suffolk	£2,840 sqm	£3,320 sqm	£3,780 sqm	945
King's Lynn and West Norfolk	£2,380 sqm	£2,900 sqm	£3,490 sqm	1,366
East Cambridgeshire	£3,090 sqm	£3,600 sqm	£4,150 sqm	678
Breckland	£2,440 sqm	£2,890 sqm	£3,300 sqm	1,314
Braintree	£3,270 sqm	£3,810 sqm	£4,400 sqm	1,330
Babergh	£3,060 sqm	£3,560 sqm	£4,070 sqm	768

Raw data

Our analysis of West Suffolk is derived from what is essentially a big table of sold prices from Land Registry with added property size information. Below are three rows from this table to give you an idea.

Address	Paid	sqm	£/sqm
16, Lysander Drive,	£240,000 Sep-2024	77	3,116
16, Bosmere Court,	£60,000 Sep-2024	45	1,333
Byways, Coldham Lane,	£220,000 Sep-2024	79	2,784

Search the entire list of all sales here.

About

I created HouseMetric because I wanted to see this data and analysis myself, I also wanted to teach myself to build a website. Please give me feedback or spread the word about it. I'm constantly tinkering and adding more stuff to it.