Feb 07, 2023 by HM

House prices in St Albans (AL3 6)

This article reveals price per square metre data and various charts to help you understand current housing market in St Albans (AL3 6).


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. 10, Old Harpenden Road, St Albans, sold for £835,000 on Aug-2023. Given the internal area of 91 square metres, the price per sqm is £9,175.

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. £8,500-£9,000, £9,000-£9,500, £9,500-£10,000 etc...) we then count the number of sales with within in each bucket and plot the results. The chart is based on 59 sales in St Albans (AL3 6) that took place in the last two years.

Distribution of £ per sqm for St Albans (AL3 6)
Distribution of £ per sqm house prices in St Albans

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 6). Of the 59 transactions, half were sold for between £5,430 and £6,690 per square metre. Notably, only 25% of properties that sold recently were valued at more than £6,690m2. 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 6' is £5,980. The table below shows how 'AL3 6' 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 6 (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 6 and the blue dots are the individual property sales that inform this trend.

Price per square metre in St Albans (AL3 6) over time
House price trends for St Albans

Hover on any blue dot to see details of specific sales

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.

Property price heatmap for St Albans
House price heatmap for St Albans

Street level data

Street Avg size Avg £/m2 Recent sales
Green Lane, St Albans, AL3 6E 106m2 £6,292 14
Soothouse Spring, St Albans, AL3 6N 50m2 £5,098 14
Harpenden Road, St Albans, AL3 6B 158m2 £6,563 13
Cavan Drive, St Albans, AL3 6H 91m2 £5,637 9
Partridge Road, St Albans, AL3 6H 96m2 £6,322 8
High Oaks, St Albans, AL3 6D 98m2 £5,753 8
Ellis Fields, St Albans, AL3 6B 216m2 £5,904 8
Melbourne Close, St Albans, AL3 6L 79m2 £5,933 6

Search for your street here.

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
10, Old Harpenden Rd, St Albans £835,000
Aug-2023
91 9,175
8, Birchmead Close, St Albans £507,000
Jul-2023
71 7,140
42, Flint Way, St Albans £590,000
Jul-2023
94 6,276

See the entire list of all sales in St Albans (AL3 6) here.

About

HouseMetric is a hobby, created out of a desire to see data and analysis not present on any free to use website. It is still a work in progress and I'll add more stuff in the near future.