House prices in 'BL2 3', Bolton

This article reveals price per square metre data and various charts to help you understand current housing market in 'BL2 3' (Bolton) - statistics were last calculated on 16 October 2024.

Defining 'BL2 3'

This analysis is limited to properties whose postcode starts with "BL2 3", this is also called the postcode sector. There are no official postcode sector names so I've just labelled it BL2 3, Bolton. It is shown in red on the map below.

Want to change geography?

You can click on the map above to change to a neighbouring sector, or you can use the search form below.

Price per square metre

Knowing the average house price in BL2 3 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 August 2024, 443, Hough Fold Way, Bolton, BL2 3PY sold for £256,500. Given the internal area of 83 square metres recorded on the EPC, the price per sqm is £256,500 ÷ 83 sqm = £3,090.

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 BL2 3 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 'BL2 3' vs 'BL2'

The chart above is called a histogram, it helps you see the distribution of house price per sqm in BL2 3 To make this chart we put all the sales data into a series of £ per sqm 'buckets' (e.g. £2,350 to £2,500, £2,500 to £2,650, £2,650 to £2,800 etc...) we then count the number of sales with within in each bucket and plot the results. The histogram is based on 233 sales that took place in BL2 3, Bolton in the last 24 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 BL2 3, Bolton. Notably, only 25% of properties that sold recently were valued at more than £3,340 sqm. For anything to be valued more than this means it has to be more desireable than the clear majority of BL2 3 homes.

Box plot of £ per sqm for BL2 3

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. Bolton. The chart above shows a boxplot for 'BL2 3' as well as the 'BL2' postcode district.

  • 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 'BL2 3' is £2,810.
  • 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 233 transactions in BL2 3, Bolton half were sold for between £2,160 and £3,340 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 transactions the box plot is based on; 233 for BL2 3, Bolton.

    • Property price map for Bolton

    Have a look at the interactive price map I created for myself. Use it to explore 'BL2 3' house prices all the way down to individual property plots.

    Property price heatmap for Bolton
    House price map for Bolton

    Bolton house price forecasting

    I cannot tell what house prices will do in 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 BL2 3 (Bolton) compared with the wider postcode district of BL2. You can extrapolate from this based on your own views on future interest rates, inflation and other factors.

    House price index for BL2 3

    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 'BL2 3' property prices over the last 20 years. The index is calculated from the average price paid per sqm for property in BL2 3 and is set to 100 in 2004. I'm comparing the trends for BL2 3,Bolton with the wider postcode district of BL2 What is more interesting is to look at the difference between flats and houses, even those in the same area follow a very different trend, to get a robust enough sample size to see this we need to zoom out and look at house price trends for the entire Bolton local authority.

    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 BL2 3
    BL2 3 sector BL2 district
    Nominal Real Nominal Real
    20 yr per annum 3.6% 0.9% 4.1% 1.4%
    20 yr total 102.2% 19.8% 125.2% 33.4%
    10 yr per annum 5.0% 2.1% 5.3% 2.4%
    10 yr total 62.3% 23.2% 67.8% 27.4%
    5 yr per annum 6.2% 2.0% 6.9% 2.7%
    5 yr total 35.1% 10.6% 39.3% 14.0%
    1 yr per annum -2.0% -5.9% 6.4% 2.1%
    1 yr total -2.0% -5.9% 6.4% 2.1%

    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, BL2 district have seen a 1.4% annual change when adjusted for inflation. This translates to a total change of 33.4% in real terms.
    • Over the past 5 years, BL2 3 sector have seen a 2.0% annual change when adjusted for inflation. This translates to a total change of 10.6% in real terms.

    Most recent BL2 3 sales

    For the most recent sales activity, rather than a summarized average, it is better to see the underlying data. This is shown in the chart below, where blue dots represent individual sales, click on them to see details. If there is an obvious trend you should be able to spot it here amid the noise from outliers.

    Tip: hover over dots to see details

    Street level data

    Street Avg size Avg £sqm Recent sales
    Tonge Moor Road, Bolton, BL2 3B 83 sqm £1,601 30
    Turton Road, Bolton, BL2 3D 84 sqm £1,923 22
    Rigby Lane, Bolton, BL2 3E 118 sqm £2,136 17
    South Drive, Bolton, BL2 3N 82 sqm £2,786 15
    Longsight, Bolton, BL2 3H 90 sqm £2,179 13
    Belmont View, Bolton, BL2 3Q 81 sqm £3,212 13
    Dewhurst Road, Bolton, BL2 3N 81 sqm £3,324 13
    Longsight Lane, Bolton, BL2 3G 58 sqm £3,153 11

    Search for your street here.

    Nearby geographies

    The table below shows how 'BL2 3' compares to the other postcode sectors in BL2.

    Sector Lower quartile Median Upper quartile Sales in last 2yr
    BL7 9 Bromley Cross £2,300 sqm £2,860 sqm £3,430 sqm 328
    BL2 6 Bolton £1,540 sqm £2,010 sqm £2,670 sqm 256
    BL2 5 Bolton £1,610 sqm £2,140 sqm £2,800 sqm 164
    BL2 4 Bolton £2,640 sqm £2,950 sqm £3,480 sqm 110
    BL2 3 Bolton £2,160 sqm £2,810 sqm £3,340 sqm 233
    BL2 2 Bolton £1,310 sqm £1,640 sqm £2,040 sqm 205
    BL2 1 Bolton £1,520 sqm £1,890 sqm £2,410 sqm 67
    BL1 8 Bolton £1,490 sqm £1,900 sqm £2,650 sqm 234
    BL1 7 Bolton £1,900 sqm £2,450 sqm £3,020 sqm 234

    Raw data

    Our analysis of BL2 3 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
    443, Hough Fold Way, Bolton £256,500
    Aug-2024
    		 83 3,090
    5, Aire Drive, Bolton £375,000
    Aug-2024
    		 91 4,120
    54, Bradshaw Brow, Bolton £96,750
    Aug-2024
    		 77 1,256

    See the entire list of all sales in BL2 3 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.