Every figure on this page comes from the public record: 139,945 sales registered with HM Land Registry in the AL postcode area (St Albans) since 1995, each one a completed purchase at a real price, plus current rental figures from the ONS. Nothing here is a valuation, an estimate or an asking price.
Sales data to May 2026. Rents: ONS, May 2026. Regenerated with every monthly data refresh.
AL is the postcode area centred on St Albans, taking in 10 districts. Figures this wide smooth over big local differences, so use the district reports below for anywhere specific.
Where AL sits
Click the map to open AL on the live map, with every sale plotted at its address. The average pricing view shades the whole country the same way.
£500,000median sold price, 2026
+4%five-year change (cash)
2,761sales in the last 12 months
4.6%gross rental yield (est.)
What a home in AL sells for
The 2026 median in AL is £500,000, from 791 registered sales; the mean, £584,300, sits well above it, the signature of a heavy top tail: a handful of expensive sales lifting the average.
For scale: the England and Wales median is £274,000, so AL trades 82% above the country as a whole.
The price of a typical AL home, 1995 to 2026
The median as recorded at the time, and each year restated in today's money (ONS CPIH), the sharper test of whether homes really got dearer. Hover for the year-by-year figures; click a legend entry to isolate a series.
Price at the timeIn today's money (CPIH)
See this chart as a table
Year
Median (cash)
Median (today's £)
Sales
2026
£500,000
£500,000
791
2025
£522,000
£522,000
3,671
2024
£525,000
£545,147
3,534
2023
£540,000
£579,471
3,276
2022
£525,000
£601,245
4,412
2021
£480,000
£593,548
5,491
2020
£466,000
£590,523
3,791
2019
£445,000
£569,666
3,963
2018
£440,000
£572,830
3,987
2017
£450,000
£599,421
4,064
2016
£425,000
£580,693
4,337
2015
£377,000
£520,260
4,636
2014
£350,000
£484,940
4,953
2013
£317,000
£445,479
4,281
2012
£310,000
£445,625
3,471
2011
£300,000
£442,308
3,584
2010
£309,500
£474,040
3,696
2009
£270,000
£423,891
3,225
2008
£270,000
£432,251
2,777
2007
£264,000
£437,359
5,679
2006
£250,000
£423,833
6,012
2005
£235,000
£408,438
5,114
2004
£237,000
£420,386
5,600
2003
£219,700
£395,288
5,150
2002
£194,000
£356,485
5,753
2001
£167,500
£314,490
5,390
2000
£150,000
£287,500
4,838
1999
£129,800
£252,643
5,840
1998
£112,900
£222,574
5,043
1997
£96,000
£192,279
5,041
1996
£87,500
£180,224
4,705
1995
£81,000
£171,969
3,840
In cash terms the typical AL home went from £81,000 in 1995 to £500,000 in 2026, roughly 6 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 191%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not just more expensive on paper. Measured in today's money the market peaked in 2022; the current median sits about 17% below that. Someone who bought at the 2022 peak has not yet seen that price back in real terms.
Year-on-year change in the AL median
Each bar is the change on the year before, in cash. The zero line is the boundary between rising and falling.
The strongest year on record here is 1998 (+17.6% on the year before); the weakest, 2026 (−4.2%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
Annualised returns
Period
Cash, per year
Real terms, per year
1 years (since 2025)
−4.2%
−4.2%
5 years (since 2021)
+0.8%
−3.4%
10 years (since 2016)
+1.6%
−1.5%
20 years (since 2006)
+3.5%
+0.8%
Compound annual growth of the median sold price; the real column deflates by ONS CPIH. Annualised figures smooth the cycle (the chart above shows the cycle), and past growth is a record, not a forecast.
Transaction volumes
How many homes change hands
Recorded sales per year. The dip after 2008 is the financial crisis; the last bar is still filling in as recent sales get registered.
The last five years, month by month
Monthly registrations. The sawtooth is seasonal; the register runs weeks behind completions at the right-hand edge.
AL recorded 2,761 sales in the last twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 5,442 sales a year before the financial crisis and 3,137 a year over the last five. Volume matters as much as price: when few homes change hands, the median gets jumpy and a single street can move the figure. The most recent year is always still filling in, because sales appear in the Land Registry weeks or months after completion.
What homes rent for around AL
AL falls under St Albans, the local authority covering most of the AL area (parts fall under Welwyn Hatfield, where rents differ), where the ONS puts the average private rent at £1,925 a month (May 2026 figures). A one-bed averages £1,266 a month here and a four-or-more-bed £2,897, so size does most of the work in setting the rent.
Average monthly rent by size, St Albans
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
Set against the £500,000 median sold price, £1,925 a month is £23,100 a year, a gross yield of 4.6%: gross, before letting costs, voids, maintenance and tax, so a ceiling rather than a promise. Rents are published at local-authority level, so nearby districts in the same authority share these figures.
Will AL prices rise from here?
Nobody can tell you that, and this page will not pretend to. What the record shows: the median is up 4% over five years in cash but down 16% after inflation. If you are weighing a purchase, read the volume chart alongside the price one, and remember that every figure here is a completed sale, lagged by the weeks it takes the Land Registry to register it.
Ladders and snakes: five-year risers and fallers
The spread across the AL area is the point: the same five years treated these districts very differently.
Five-year change in the median, AL area districts
The biggest risers and fallers in cash terms; every row links to that district's report.
District by district
The area medians above hide a lot. Here is every AL district with enough sales to measure, dearest first; each links to its own full report.
How this page is made: the statistics are computed from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0), geocoded to address level; inflation adjustment uses the ONS CPIH index; rents are the ONS Price Index of Private Rents at local-authority level. Medians of recorded sales, not valuations. Nothing on this page is financial advice.