How to compare two areas before you move, using only the sold-price record

Most area comparisons are vibes with a budget attached. That is not a criticism, schools, friends and the feel of a high street should carry weight, but the money half of the decision has a public record, and reading it properly takes ten minutes. The rules that keep the comparison honest are the same ones that keep any statistic honest: same measure, same window, same kind of stock.

Step 1: compare per square metre, not per home

Headline prices compare the homes that happened to sell, and different areas sell different homes. BR1, Bromley shows a median sold price of £460,000 against £385,000 in E16, Canning Town. Per square metre they nearly swap: £5,500 against £5,830. Bromley sells houses, Canning Town sells flats, and only the division by floor area lets you see past that.

Step 2: put the two side by side, same window

The head-to-head page for any two districts puts both on identical measures over their stated windows: median £/m² with its matched-sale count, the middle 60% band, the by-type split and a ten-year sparkline each. The matched-sale counts matter more than they look: a median over 435 matched sales in BR1 and one over 319 in E16 are both solid; a median over 40 deserves softer conclusions, and thin areas say so on their pages.

Step 3: match the stock to your actual purchase

If you are buying a flat, compare the two areas’ leasehold figures; a house, freehold. Blended medians smuggle each area’s stock mix into the comparison, and the mix can dominate the result. The by-type table on each comparison does the same job at the detached/semi/terraced/flat level: comparing what a terraced metre costs in each area is usually the question a mover is actually asking. The by-type article measures how far the four types sit apart inside one district, and the regional guide is the place to start when the two areas are in different regions.

Step 4: read the decade, in real terms

Two areas at similar prices today can be on very different paths. LS6, Meanwood is up 5.8% a year in cash from Q4 2015 to Q1 2026, and up 2.3% a year after inflation. E14 has managed −0.8% a year in cash and −4.1% real, a decade that left Isle of Dogs flats down 34% in today’s money. Neither trend is a forecast, prices do not owe their past anything, but paying a full price in an area with a falling real trend is a different bet from paying it in a rising one, and you should at least know which bet you are placing.

Step 5: sanity-check what the money buys

Divide your budget by each area’s median £/m² to see space directly. £450,000 is about 82 m² at BR1’s median and 77 m² at E16’s; the same money in DE1, Derby is about 200 m². That last comparison is unfair in every way that matters to a Londoner, different jobs, different life, which is exactly why the arithmetic is worth doing: it makes the real trade-offs, commute against square metres against the streets you love, explicit rather than felt.

What does the worked pair look like side by side?

The five steps, run on the one pair this article keeps returning to. Every cell renders live from the same payloads the two district pages read, so the table is always this month’s comparison rather than the one that was true when the article was written:

Read down the columns and the decision stops being one number. One district is dearer per home, the other per metre; the growth rows say what each market has actually done over its own published window rather than what its reputation says; and the last row turns the whole thing back into floor you could stand on. A comparison that survives all six rows is a comparison you can defend to the person you are moving with.

Pick your two areas on the comparison page, every district pairs with every other, or start from the league tables if you are still choosing a shortlist. Figures: HM Land Registry sold prices matched to EPC floor areas, August 2026 dataset.