Feb 07, 2023 by HM

House prices in St Albans (AL3 5)

This article reveals price per square metre data and various charts to help you understand current housing market in St Albans (AL3 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. 8, Grange Street, St Albans, sold for £890,000 on Sep-2023. Given the internal area of 103 square metres, the price per sqm is £8,640.

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. £7,600-£8,000, £8,000-£8,400, £8,400-£8,800 etc...) we then count the number of sales with within in each bucket and plot the results. The chart is based on 189 sales in St Albans (AL3 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 (AL3 5). Of the 189 transactions, half were sold for between £6,170 and £8,080 per square metre. Notably, only 25% of properties that sold recently were valued at more than £8,080m². 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 'AL3 5' is £7,240. The table below shows how 'AL3 5' compares to neighbouring postcode sectors.

Postcode sector	Lower quartile	Middle quartile	Upper quartile
AL3 6 St Albans	£5,430m2	£5,980m2	£6,690m2
AL3 4 Kings Park	£6,170m2	£7,380m2	£8,910m2
AL3 7 Redbourn	£4,890m2	£5,640m2	£6,630m2
AL3 8 Markyate	£4,480m2	£5,050m2	£5,730m2
AL3 5 St Albans	£6,170m2	£7,240m2	£8,080m2

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 AL3 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 AL3 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
Beech Road, St Albans, AL3 5A	95m2	£5,986	27
Cannon Street, St Albans, AL3 5J	92m2	£7,290	25
Folly Lane, St Albans, AL3 5J	88m2	£7,404	21
Kimberley Road, St Albans, AL3 5P	84m2	£8,419	19
Oster Street, St Albans, AL3 5J	70m2	£7,526	19
Dalton Street, St Albans, AL3 5Q	76m2	£7,829	19
Carlisle Avenue, St Albans, AL3 5L	89m2	£6,860	18
Grange Street, St Albans, AL3 5N	69m2	£8,368	17

Search for your street here.

New build activity

Street	Avg size	Avg £/m2	New build sales
Maryland Place, St Albans, AL3 5F	140m2	£5,734	18
Neville Close, St Albans, AL3 5F	79m2	£5,886	13

Maryland Place, St Albans, AL3 5F has seen 18 new build sales in the last 4 years (average price £810,930). These new build homes typically have an internal area of 140 m2, with an average price of £5,734 m2. This £sqm average is £-1506 below the average for AL3 5. New builds typically command a £ per sqm premium. In the case of Maryland Place 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
8, Grange St, St Albans	£890,000 Sep-2023	103	8,640
56a, Batchwood Drive, St Albans	£370,000 Sep-2023	63	5,873
24, Kimberley Rd, St Albans	£697,500 Sep-2023	89	7,837

See the entire list of all sales in St Albans (AL3 5) here.