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Childwickbury market report AL3 7, St Albans
The AL3 7 (Childwickbury) house price history in full, 1995 to 2026, in cash and in today's money. The raw material for this page is 3,081 HM Land Registry entries for AL3 7 (St Albans), going back to 1995: each an actual purchase at an actual price. Rents come from the ONS. Valuations, estimates and asking prices appear nowhere in it.
Sales data to 2026. Rents: ONS, May 2026. Regenerated with every monthly data refresh.
In short: the middle 2026 sale in AL3 7 (St Albans) came in at £600,000, out of 31 registered, up 11% on five years earlier, and the mean stands at £643,300, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £5,710 per square metre over the last five years. The record behind it is 3,081 completed sales lodged with HM Land Registry since 1995, monthly refreshed, with no valuations or asking prices anywhere in the figures.
A postcode sector like AL3 7 is a single group of streets within AL3 (St Albans), the finest slice the public record supports. Fewer sales stand behind each figure than at district level, so the lines jump about more.
Where AL3 7 sits
Shaded by median price on the same scale as the average prices map. Click any shape to open it on the live map with every sale plotted at its address, or zoom in past street level to see the sold homes right here.
What buyers actually paid in AL3 7
The AL3 7 median stands at £600,000 for 2026, built from 31 registered sales; the mean, the figure usually quoted as the "average house price", is £643,300, modestly above it, the usual shape of a market with an expensive tail.
AL3 7 prices by floor area
Per square metre, AL3 7 homes have averaged around £5,710 over the last five years of sales. The floor areas behind the figure come from Energy Performance Certificates, and the by-the-metre view is the fair comparison across home sizes.
Against a national (England and Wales) median of £285,000, AL3 7 runs 111% above it.
AL3 7's median sold price, 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.
See this chart as a table
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | £600,000 | £600,000 | 31 |
| 2025 | £585,000 | £598,989 | 77 |
| 2024 | £550,000 | £584,763 | 73 |
| 2023 | £605,000 | £664,747 | 49 |
| 2022 | £660,000 | £773,925 | 85 |
| 2021 | £542,500 | £686,875 | 117 |
| 2020 | £537,500 | £697,417 | 70 |
| 2019 | £485,000 | £635,719 | 83 |
| 2018 | £496,700 | £662,110 | 76 |
| 2017 | £500,000 | £681,950 | 96 |
| 2016 | £497,000 | £695,308 | 89 |
| 2015 | £471,200 | £665,806 | 74 |
| 2014 | £395,000 | £560,377 | 92 |
| 2013 | £356,000 | £512,248 | 94 |
| 2012 | £298,800 | £439,796 | 72 |
| 2011 | £332,500 | £501,947 | 92 |
| 2010 | £331,000 | £519,093 | 92 |
| 2009 | £298,000 | £479,038 | 80 |
| 2008 | £460,000 | £754,037 | 77 |
| 2007 | £305,000 | £517,365 | 105 |
| 2006 | £304,800 | £529,094 | 126 |
| 2005 | £300,000 | £533,879 | 111 |
| 2004 | £250,000 | £454,049 | 130 |
| 2003 | £227,000 | £418,189 | 123 |
| 2002 | £207,000 | £389,469 | 147 |
| 2001 | £186,000 | £357,576 | 130 |
| 2000 | £190,000 | £372,875 | 130 |
| 1999 | £145,500 | £289,974 | 154 |
| 1998 | £131,500 | £265,442 | 122 |
| 1997 | £116,000 | £237,893 | 99 |
| 1996 | £110,000 | £231,985 | 122 |
| 1995 | £92,000 | £199,994 | 63 |
In cash terms the typical AL3 7 home went from £92,000 in 1995 to £600,000 in 2026, roughly 7 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 200%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not merely more expensive on paper. In inflation-adjusted terms the high-water mark was 2022. The market now sits about 22% below it, so a peak-time purchase has yet to recover its real value.
Year-on-year change in the AL3 7 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 2008 (+50.8% on the year before); the weakest, 2009 (−35.2%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
What AL3 7 has returned, per year
| Period | Cash, per year | Real terms, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 years (since 2025) | +2.6% | +0.2% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | +2.0% | −2.7% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | +1.9% | −1.5% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +3.4% | +0.6% |
The table annualises median growth over each period, with the real column deflated by ONS CPIH. Smoothing hides the cycle (see the chart above for it), and none of this forecasts: it is the record.
The turnover behind the prices
How many homes change hands
Annual recorded sales. The post-2008 trough is the financial crisis; treat the final bar as provisional while registrations catch up.
Over the last twelve months of data, 31 sales completed in AL3 7. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 125 sales a year before the financial crisis and 63 a year over the last five. Price without volume misleads: a median built on few sales jumps around, and one street can tilt it. Keep in mind too that the latest year is still filling in, since sales reach the register weeks or months after completion.
The shape of the AL3 7 market
Only 31 sales completed here in the last twelve months of data, which makes AL3 7 a thin market. Each figure rests on few transactions, so single streets can swing the median and the charts deserve a sceptical squint.
The rental side of AL3 7
For renting purposes AL3 7 sits in St Albans. The ONS average private rent there is £1,925 a month (May 2026). Size sets most of the rent: one-beds average £1,266 a month here against £2,897 for four or more bedrooms.
Average monthly rent by size, St Albans
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
Against the £600,000 median purchase price, a rent of £1,925 a month (£23,100 a year) works out at a 3.9% gross yield, a ceiling figure that ignores letting costs, voids, maintenance and tax. Because rents are local-authority statistics, districts sharing the authority share the figure.
AL3 7 (Childwickbury): the questions that come up
Is AL3 7 (Childwickbury) a good place to buy a house?
How much did a house sell for in AL3 7 (Childwickbury)?
Are property prices falling in AL3 7 (Childwickbury)?
Are AL3 7 prices heading up or down?
That question has no honest answer, only evidence. The evidence: the median is up 11% over five years in cash but down 13% after inflation. Weigh the volume chart alongside the price one before deciding anything, and bear in mind every figure is a completed sale that reached the register weeks after completion.
On the market in AL3 today
This is what you could actually buy today: 76 homes currently on the market from 9 agents publishing to HomesIndex.
These cover the whole AL3 district, not just AL3 7: live asking prices are collected per district.
Of everything listed here, 17% asks less than the sold record of comparable homes. Every listing is measured against recent recorded sales of similar nearby homes.
"Under comparable sales" means the asking price sits below what similar homes nearby actually fetched. Treat it as the start of a conversation, never a valuation, and always view the home.
See every AL3 home for sale on the map →
These asking prices come live from estate agents publishing feeds to HomesIndex, refreshed each Monday and Thursday. They are a sample of the market rather than its entirety, and an asking price is not a sale price.
The price of an extra bedroom in AL
The Land Registry record, split by size: what each kind of home actually sold for across the AL area. Size steps are fiercely local. A third bedroom adds a quarter to the price in some areas and close to four fifths in others, which is why no national rule of thumb survives contact with a real market.
| Type | 1 bed | 2 bed | 3 bed | 4 bed | 5 bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | — | £605,000 | £792,500 (+31%) | £1,160,000 (+46%) | £1,685,000 (+45%) |
| Semi-detached | £397,500 | £490,000 (+23%) | £640,000 (+31%) | £865,000 (+35%) | £1,150,000 (+33%) |
| Terraced | £375,000 | £440,000 (+17%) | £506,250 (+15%) | £739,000 (+46%) | £950,000 (+29%) |
| Flat | £250,000 | £335,000 (+34%) | £552,500 (+65%) | — | — |
Built from the last four years of recorded sales by form and bedroom count. Bedroom counts are estimated from EPC records (the register carries none), so expect a small number of homes one size adrift. Blank cells mean too few homes for the figure to mean anything.
The risers and the 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 districts that gained and lost most in cash terms, each row linking through to its own report.
Other sectors in AL3
A few minutes' walk can separate two very different markets. Here are AL3's other sectors, each with its own report:
| Sector | Median (latest) | Sales that year |
|---|---|---|
| AL3 4 | £687,500 | 27 |
| AL3 5 | £650,000 | 47 |
| AL3 6 | £727,000 | 16 |
| AL3 8 | £460,000 | 29 |
Zoom out to the full AL3 district report for the type split, monthly volumes and how AL3 compares with its neighbours.
Before you sell in AL3 7: what the record supports
Start from what homes here actually sold for, not an estimate. Before booking a house valuation or flat valuation in AL3 7, use the average prices map for a rough value: zoom from AL3 7's shading down to the sold homes on your own street. The figures above are every recorded AL3 7 sale; agents price with this same Land Registry record, and now you have it too.
Estate agents working AL3 7: the featured spot on this report is free for founding agents, one per district. Claim AL3 7.
Dig further
The AI answers from the same Land Registry data this report is built on, already scoped to AL3 7. Free after a one click sign in.
The live map plots every individual AL3 7 sale at its exact address, and the average prices map zooms from neighbourhood shading to single homes. For a specific question, the report tool writes a custom answer, and any sale's mortgage and rent calculator runs the numbers on a real purchase.
Method, briefly: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0) supplies every sale, geocoded to address level; CPIH from the ONS restates prices in today's money; ONS local-authority figures supply the rents. Medians of real sales, not valuations. No part of this page is financial advice.