House prices in 'BS8 3', Clifton

This article reveals price per square metre data and various charts to help you understand current housing market in 'BS8 3' (Clifton) - statistics were last calculated on 16 October 2024.

Defining 'BS8 3'

This analysis is limited to properties whose postcode starts with "BS8 3", this is also called the postcode sector. There are no official postcode sector names so I've just labelled it BS8 3, Clifton. 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 BS8 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 June 2024, 18, Sixty Acres Close, Clifton, BS8 3UH sold for £830,000. Given the internal area of 183 square metres recorded on the EPC, the price per sqm is £830,000 ÷ 183 sqm = £4,535.

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 BS8 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 'BS8 3' vs 'BS8'

The chart above is called a histogram, it helps you see the distribution of house price per sqm in BS8 3 To make this chart we put all the sales data into a series of £ per sqm 'buckets' (e.g. £5,250 to £5,500, £5,500 to £5,750, £5,750 to £6,000 etc...) we then count the number of sales with within in each bucket and plot the results. The histogram is based on 176 sales that took place in BS8 3, Clifton 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 BS8 3, Clifton. Notably, only 25% of properties that sold recently were valued at more than £6,490 sqm. For anything to be valued more than this means it has to be more desireable than the clear majority of BS8 3 homes.


Box plot of £ per sqm for BS8 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. Clifton. The chart above shows a boxplot for 'BS8 3' as well as the 'BS8' 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 'BS8 3' is £5,710.
  • 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 176 transactions in BS8 3, Clifton half were sold for between £4,930 and £6,490 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; 176 for BS8 3, Clifton.
  • Property price map for Clifton

    Have a look at the interactive price map I created for myself. Use it to explore 'BS8 3' house prices all the way down to individual property plots.

    Property price heatmap for Clifton
    House price map for Clifton

    Clifton 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 BS8 3 (Clifton) compared with the wider postcode district of BS8. You can extrapolate from this based on your own views on future interest rates, inflation and other factors.


    House price index for BS8 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 'BS8 3' property prices over the last 20 years. The index is calculated from the average price paid per sqm for property in BS8 3 and is set to 100 in 2004. I'm comparing the trends for BS8 3,Clifton with the wider postcode district of BS8 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 Bristol, City of 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 BS8 3
    BS8 3 sector BS8 district
    Nominal Real Nominal Real
    20 yr per annum 4.2% 1.5% 3.6% 1.0%
    20 yr total 126.8% 34.3% 104.3% 21.0%
    10 yr per annum 5.0% 2.2% 4.4% 1.5%
    10 yr total 63.5% 24.2% 53.3% 16.4%
    5 yr per annum 3.6% -0.4% 3.3% -0.8%
    5 yr total 19.5% -2.2% 17.4% -3.9%
    1 yr per annum 4.4% 0.2% 2.4% -1.7%
    1 yr total 4.4% 0.2% 2.4% -1.7%

    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, BS8 3 sector have seen a 1.5% annual change when adjusted for inflation. This translates to a total change of 34.3% in real terms.
    • Over the past 5 years, BS8 district have seen a -0.8% annual change when adjusted for inflation. This translates to a total change of -3.9% in real terms.

    Most recent BS8 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
    Bridge Road, Clifton, BS8 3P 100 sqm £5,466 18
    Pembroke Road, Clifton, BS8 3E 106 sqm £5,368 18
    Pembroke Road, Clifton, BS8 3D 60 sqm £5,225 16
    Sixty Acres Close, Clifton, BS8 3U 152 sqm £4,460 12
    Clifton Park, Clifton, BS8 3B 97 sqm £5,686 11
    Church Road, Clifton, BS8 3P 139 sqm £4,906 10
    Clevedon Road, Clifton, BS8 3U 179 sqm £3,898 10
    North Road, Clifton, BS8 3P 189 sqm £4,910 9

    Search for your street here.

    Nearby geographies

    The table below shows how 'BS8 3' compares to the other postcode sectors in BS8.

    Sector Lower quartile Median Upper quartile Sales in last 2yr
    BS9 2 Bristol £3,820 sqm £4,570 sqm £5,090 sqm 138
    BS9 1 Bristol £4,270 sqm £5,150 sqm £6,040 sqm 170
    BS8 4 Bristol £4,610 sqm £5,460 sqm £6,460 sqm 276
    BS8 3 Clifton £4,930 sqm £5,710 sqm £6,490 sqm 176
    BS8 2 Clifton £4,630 sqm £5,430 sqm £6,160 sqm 190
    BS8 1 Clifton £4,390 sqm £5,240 sqm £6,060 sqm 104
    BS48 3 Backwell £4,020 sqm £4,400 sqm £5,210 sqm 103
    BS48 1 Nailsea £3,800 sqm £4,520 sqm £5,050 sqm 120
    BS41 9 Long Ashton £3,970 sqm £4,590 sqm £5,290 sqm 112
    BS3 2 Bristol £3,920 sqm £4,510 sqm £5,070 sqm 180

    Raw data

    Our analysis of BS8 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
    18, Sixty Acres Close, Clifton £830,000
    Jun-2024
    183 4,535
    14 Leigh Woods House, Church Rd, Clifton £480,000
    Jun-2024
    106 4,528
    Flat 4 Pembroke Gate, Pembroke Rd, Clifton £625,000
    Jun-2024
    95 6,578

    See the entire list of all sales in BS8 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.