Feb 07, 2023 by HM

House prices in St Albans (AL1 5)

This article reveals price per square metre data and various charts to help you understand current housing market in St Albans (AL1 5).

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Price per square metre

Knowing the average house price in St Albans 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

E.g. Flat 4 Mistral Court, Bakers Close, St Albans, sold for £300,000 on Aug-2023. Given the internal area of 50 square metres, the price per sqm is £6,000.

England & Wales have been officially metric for many decades. However house price per square foot is sometimes prefered by those of sufficiently advanced age. They may want to convert metres on this page to square feet.

The chart below is called a histogram, it helps you see the distribution of this house price per sqm data. To make this chart we put the sales data into a series of £ per sqm 'buckets' (e.g. £6,600-£7,000, £7,000-£7,400, £7,400-£7,800 etc...) we then count the number of sales with within in each bucket and plot the results. The chart is based on 246 sales in St Albans (AL1 5) that took place in the last two years.

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.

That said, the spread of prices will give you a feel of the typical range to expect in St Albans (AL1 5). Of the 246 transactions, half were sold for between £5,550 and £7,410 per square metre. Notably, only 25% of properties that sold recently were valued at more than £7,410m². For anything to be valued more than this means it has to be more desireable than the clear majority of homes.

For the average, we calculate the 'median' or middle price. The median price per square metre in 'AL1 5' is £6,550. The table below shows how 'AL1 5' compares to neighbouring postcode sectors.

Postcode sector	Lower quartile	Middle quartile	Upper quartile
AL1 3 St Albans	£5,390m2	£6,260m2	£7,350m2
AL1 2 St Albans	£5,560m2	£6,460m2	£7,390m2
AL1 1 St Albans	£5,760m2	£6,870m2	£8,310m2
AL1 4 St Albans	£6,600m2	£7,770m2	£8,700m2
AL1 5 St Albans	£5,550m2	£6,550m2	£7,410m2

Will St Albans house prices drop in 2024?

I cannot tell the future and don't believe anyone who says they can. I can however plot price trends - I have done this in the scatter plot below for AL1 5 (St Albans). From this one could infer a range of reasonable possible future price falls or rises. In the chart below, the red dashed line is the house price trend for AL1 5 and the blue dots are the individual property sales that inform this trend.

Disclaimer: The data provided throughout this website about St Albans and any other area, is not financial advice. Any information provided does not and cannot ever take in to account the particular financial situation, objectives or property needs of either you or anyone reading this information. Furthermore, I cannot guarantee the accuracy of any data shown. This information is based on sold prices and internal area data provided by Land Registry and other third parties - I do not verify the accuracy of the St Albans data or any other data I am given.

Price map for St Albans

I've just finished coding the map I link to below. I find it useful and I am sure it will help you in exploring St Albans. You can zoom in all the way to individual properties and then all the way back out to see the whole country. The colours show the current estimated property values. I will explain more about the methodology and create a key next week.

House price heatmap for St Albans

Street level data

Street	Avg size	Avg £/m2	Recent sales
Dexter Close, St Albans, AL1 5W	65m2	£4,945	24
Drakes Drive, St Albans, AL1 5A	81m2	£5,309	21
Castle Road, St Albans, AL1 5D	84m2	£6,789	19
Park View Close, St Albans, AL1 5T	60m2	£4,918	18
Cavendish Road, St Albans, AL1 5E	74m2	£7,121	18
Burleigh Road, St Albans, AL1 5D	70m2	£5,994	14
Hedley Road, St Albans, AL1 5J	78m2	£6,931	13
Camp Road, St Albans, AL1 5N	96m2	£6,208	12

Search for your street here.

New build activity

Street	Avg size	Avg £/m2	New build sales
Hansell Gardens, St Albans, AL1 5G	62m2	£6,257	27
Camp Road, St Albans, AL1 5F	50m2	£6,629	9

Hansell Gardens, St Albans, AL1 5G has seen 27 new build sales in the last 4 years (average price £396,710). These new build homes typically have an internal area of 62 m2, with an average price of £6,257 m2. This £sqm average is £-293 below the average for AL1 5. New builds typically command a £ per sqm premium. In the case of Hansell Gardens the premium seems not to exist. Without more info we can only speculate why this may be. Perhaps it may be greater density and smaller gardens, but this is just a guess.

Raw data

Our analysis of St Albans 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	m2	£/m2
Flat 4 Mistral Court, Bakers Close, St Albans	£300,000 Aug-2023	50	6,000
28a, Hedley Rd, St Albans	£725,000 Aug-2023	89	8,146
112, Cell Barnes Lane, St Albans	£490,500 Aug-2023	69	7,108

See the entire list of all sales in St Albans (AL1 5) here.