House prices in BR5 3 (St Mary Cray)

This article reveals price per square metre data and various charts to help you understand current housing market in 'BR5 3' (St Mary Cray, Orpington) - statistics were last calculated on 30 June 2024.

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Defining 'BR5 3'

This analysis is limited to properties whose postcode starts with "BR5 3", this is also called the postcode sector. It is shown in red on the map above. There are no official names for postcode sectors so I've just labelled it St Mary Cray.

You can click on the map labels to change to a neighbouring sector, or you can enter a different postcode sector (e.g. CM23 4) below.

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FYI, a postcode sector is the full postcode without the last two letters.

Price per square metre

Knowing the average house price in St Mary Cray 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. 33, Pleasance Road, St Mary Cray, Orpington, sold for £520,000 on May-2024. Given the internal area of 95 square metres, the price per sqm is £5,473.

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 ;-) They may want to convert square meters 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. £4,250-£4,500, £4,500-£4,750, £4,750-£5,000 etc...) we then count the number of sales with within in each bucket and plot the results. The chart is based on 176 sales in St Mary Cray (BR5 3) 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.

The spread of prices will give you a feel of the typical range to expect in St Mary Cray (BR5 3). Of the 176 transactions, half were sold for between £4,210 and £5,450 per square metre. The median, or 'middle', price per square metre in 'BR5 3' is £4,930. Notably, only 25% of properties that sold recently were valued at more than £5,450 sqm. For anything to be valued more than this means it has to be more desireable than the clear majority of homes.

Price map for St Mary Cray, Orpington

Do have a look at the interactive price map I created. I find it useful and I am sure it will help you in exploring Orpington. 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.

House price heatmap for St Mary Cray, Orpington

Comparison with neighbouring postcode sectors

The table below shows how 'BR5 3' compares to neighbouring postcode sectors.

Postcode sector	Lower quartile	Middle quartile	Upper quartile
BR5 3 St Mary Cray	£4,210 sqm	£4,930 sqm	£5,450 sqm
BR5 1 Petts Wood	£6,020 sqm	£6,770 sqm	£7,500 sqm
BR5 4 St Mary Cray	£4,430 sqm	£5,100 sqm	£5,620 sqm
BR5 2 St Mary Cray	£4,500 sqm	£5,030 sqm	£5,750 sqm

Will Orpington 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 chart below for BR5 3 (St Mary Cray) compared with both the wider area BR5 and inflation (CPIH from the Office of National Statistics). The dashed trend lines in the chart show the average over time.

Download time series data as CSV (paying users only).

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.

Data from Land Registry comes in gradually over time. I update it every month but it takes about 5 months for the majority of sales for Orpington to be recorded. Disclaimer: I do not verify and cannot guarantee the accuracy of any data shown. Outliers exist in the data, typically these are where the EPC registry records the internal area incorrectly, sometimes although very rarely the Land Registry price paid data can be wrong. The data provided throughout this website about Orpington 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.

Street level data

Street	Avg size	Avg £sqm	Recent sales
Star Lane, St Mary Cray, BR5 3L	69 sqm	£4,746	26
Doveney Close, St Mary Cray, BR5 3W	55 sqm	£4,878	23
Hearns Road, St Mary Cray, BR5 3N	80 sqm	£4,389	21
Sevenoaks Way, St Mary Cray, BR5 3A	95 sqm	£4,934	17
Barnfield Road, St Mary Cray, BR5 3L	70 sqm	£4,437	15
Ridge Place, St Mary Cray, BR5 3F	59 sqm	£4,732	14
Sandpiper Way, St Mary Cray, BR5 3N	53 sqm	£5,338	14
Chalk Pit Avenue, St Mary Cray, BR5 3J	75 sqm	£4,857	13

Search for your street here.

Raw data

Our analysis of St Mary Cray 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
33, Pleasance Rd, St Mary Cray, Orpington	£520,000 May-2024	95	5,473
70, Walsingham Rd, St Mary Cray, Orpington	£177,000 May-2024	45	3,933
49, Barnfield Rd, St Mary Cray, Orpington	£342,500 Apr-2024	95	3,605

See the entire list of all sales in St Mary Cray (BR5 3) here.