Every figure on this page comes from the public record: 25,124 sales registered with HM Land Registry in AL1 (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.
AL1 is the postcode district covering St Albans (centre) in St Albans. Districts are a practical way to slice a market: small enough to mean something locally, big enough to have a steady flow of sales to measure.
Where AL1 sits
Click the map to open AL1 on the live map, with every sale plotted at its address. The average pricing view shades the whole country the same way.
£520,000median sold price, 2026
+2%five-year change (cash)
458sales in the last 12 months
4.4%gross rental yield (est.)
What a home in AL1 sells for
The 2026 median in AL1 is £520,000, from 123 registered sales; the mean, £600,600, 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 AL1 trades 90% above the country as a whole.
The price of a typical AL1 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
£520,000
£520,000
123
2025
£515,000
£515,000
638
2024
£545,000
£565,914
694
2023
£535,000
£574,106
634
2022
£536,000
£613,842
819
2021
£510,000
£630,645
909
2020
£460,000
£582,920
706
2019
£465,000
£595,269
680
2018
£450,000
£585,849
750
2017
£470,200
£626,328
756
2016
£452,500
£618,267
782
2015
£385,000
£531,300
834
2014
£384,500
£532,741
829
2013
£305,000
£428,615
920
2012
£318,500
£457,844
696
2011
£287,000
£423,141
782
2010
£310,000
£474,806
715
2009
£270,000
£423,891
555
2008
£280,000
£448,260
527
2007
£283,500
£469,664
972
2006
£265,000
£449,263
1,011
2005
£240,000
£417,128
767
2004
£245,000
£434,576
938
2003
£230,000
£413,820
781
2002
£197,000
£361,997
1,063
2001
£173,000
£324,816
933
2000
£151,500
£290,375
830
1999
£130,000
£253,032
1,069
1998
£109,800
£216,463
922
1997
£99,700
£199,689
939
1996
£83,500
£171,985
868
1995
£79,400
£168,572
682
In cash terms the typical AL1 home went from £79,400 in 1995 to £520,000 in 2026, roughly 7 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 208%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not just more expensive on paper. Measured in today's money the market peaked in 2021; the current median sits about 18% below that. Someone who bought at the 2021 peak has not yet seen that price back in real terms.
Year-on-year change in the AL1 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 2014 (+26.1% on the year before); the weakest, 2011 (−7.4%). 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)
+1.0%
+1.0%
5 years (since 2021)
+0.4%
−3.8%
10 years (since 2016)
+1.4%
−1.7%
20 years (since 2006)
+3.4%
+0.7%
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.
AL1 recorded 458 sales in the last twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 912 sales a year before the financial crisis and 582 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 AL1
AL1 falls under St Albans, 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 £520,000 median sold price, £1,925 a month is £23,100 a year, a gross yield of 4.4%: 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 AL1 prices rise from here?
Nobody can tell you that, and this page will not pretend to. What the record shows: the median is roughly flat over five years in cash but down 18% 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
AL1 ranks 7 of 10 in the AL area on five-year growth. The gap between the top and bottom of this chart is the difference between buying well and buying badly in the same city.
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.
Inside AL1, street group by street group
Postcode sectors are the next slice down, each a group of streets. Prices can differ sharply between two sectors a few minutes' walk apart.
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.