Local market reports › BL area › BL1 › BL1 4
Bolton centre market report BL1 4, Bolton
The standing BL1 4 (Bolton centre) property market report, rebuilt from the full public record every month. Every figure on this page comes from the public record: 5,035 sales registered with HM Land Registry in BL1 4 (Bolton) 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 recorded to 2026; rents are ONS figures for May 2026. The page rebuilds with each monthly release.
In short: the middle 2026 sale in BL1 4 (Bolton) came in at £141,500, out of 43 registered, up 18% on five years earlier, and the mean stands at £161,900, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £1,800 per square metre over the last five years. The record behind it is 5,035 completed sales lodged with HM Land Registry since 1995, monthly refreshed, with no valuations or asking prices anywhere in the figures.
BL1 4 is a postcode sector: one group of streets inside BL1 (Bolton). This is as local as the public record gets, but sector medians move on fewer sales than a district's, so expect the lines to be lumpier.
Where BL1 4 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 BL1 4
In the BL1 4 property market, the 2026 median sale price is £141,500, from 43 registered sales; the mean, the "average house price" most sites quote, is £161,900, sitting somewhat above it, as happens wherever a market carries an expensive tail.
BL1 4 prices by floor area
Measured by floor area, the last five years of BL1 4 sales average about £1,800 per square metre. Price per square metre is the fair way to compare a one-bed flat with a four-bed house, and it comes from the Energy Performance Certificate on each sold home.
For scale: the England and Wales median is £285,000, so BL1 4 trades 50% below the country as a whole.
A typical BL1 4 home, priced year by year (1995 to 2026)
One line records the median as paid; the other restates every year in today's money via ONS CPIH, the honest measure of getting dearer. Hover for year figures, click the legend to isolate a line.
See this chart as a table
| Year | Median (cash) | Median (today's £) | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | £141,500 | £141,500 | 43 |
| 2025 | £150,000 | £153,587 | 81 |
| 2024 | £138,500 | £147,254 | 107 |
| 2023 | £114,500 | £125,808 | 103 |
| 2022 | £125,000 | £146,577 | 147 |
| 2021 | £120,000 | £151,935 | 137 |
| 2020 | £88,500 | £114,831 | 91 |
| 2019 | £88,000 | £115,347 | 115 |
| 2018 | £87,200 | £116,239 | 115 |
| 2017 | £91,000 | £124,115 | 123 |
| 2016 | £78,500 | £109,822 | 145 |
| 2015 | £80,800 | £114,170 | 114 |
| 2014 | £83,500 | £118,459 | 154 |
| 2013 | £75,000 | £107,918 | 137 |
| 2012 | £77,800 | £114,512 | 98 |
| 2011 | £81,200 | £122,581 | 106 |
| 2010 | £76,000 | £119,188 | 94 |
| 2009 | £90,000 | £144,676 | 109 |
| 2008 | £95,000 | £155,725 | 91 |
| 2007 | £94,000 | £159,450 | 190 |
| 2006 | £90,200 | £156,576 | 216 |
| 2005 | £85,000 | £151,266 | 216 |
| 2004 | £70,000 | £127,134 | 265 |
| 2003 | £45,500 | £83,822 | 304 |
| 2002 | £37,000 | £69,615 | 306 |
| 2001 | £36,000 | £69,208 | 347 |
| 2000 | £33,200 | £65,155 | 204 |
| 1999 | £28,500 | £56,799 | 197 |
| 1998 | £29,000 | £58,539 | 171 |
| 1997 | £30,000 | £61,524 | 175 |
| 1996 | £29,000 | £61,160 | 188 |
| 1995 | £27,500 | £59,781 | 146 |
In cash terms the typical BL1 4 home went from £27,500 in 1995 to £141,500 in 2026, roughly 5 times the price. Even after inflation that is a real rise of about 137%: homes here genuinely became dearer, not merely more expensive on paper. In inflation-adjusted terms the high-water mark was 2007. The market now sits about 11% below it, so a peak-time purchase has yet to recover its real value.
Year-on-year change in the BL1 4 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 2004 (+53.8% on the year before); the weakest, 2010 (−15.6%). Single-year swings like these are why the annualised table below matters more than any one year's headline.
The long view: annualised growth
| Period | Cash, per year | Real terms, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 years (since 2025) | −5.7% | −7.9% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | +3.4% | −1.4% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | +6.1% | +2.6% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +2.3% | −0.5% |
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
The year-by-year sales count
Each bar is a year's recorded sales. 2008's dip is the financial crisis, and the newest bar always grows for a while as late registrations arrive.
BL1 4 recorded 43 sales in the last twelve months of data. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 256 sales a year before the financial crisis and 96 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 kind of market BL1 4 is
This is a thin market: 43 sales in the last twelve months of data. With that few transactions, one street selling well (or one block of cheap transfers) can move the median, so read the year lines as a range rather than a verdict. The record here is jumpy: year-on-year moves of ten per cent or more are common in the chart above, mostly a function of which homes happened to sell rather than the market lurching. Against the BL1 district median, BL1 4 sits 25% lower, marking it as a cheaper pocket of the district.
Rents around BL1 4
For renting purposes BL1 4 sits in Bolton. The ONS average private rent there is £883 a month (May 2026). A one-bed averages £646 a month here and a four-or-more-bed £1,433, so size does most of the work in setting the rent.
Average monthly rent by size, Bolton
ONS Price Index of Private Rents, May 2026.
£883 a month is £10,596 a year, which against the £141,500 median sold price makes a gross yield of 7.5%. Gross means before letting costs, voids, maintenance and tax: treat it as a ceiling. The ONS publishes rents by local authority, so neighbouring districts under the same authority share these numbers.
What people ask about BL1 4 (Bolton centre)
Are property prices falling in BL1 4 (Bolton centre)?
Is BL1 4 (Bolton centre) a good place to buy a house?
How much did a house sell for in BL1 4 (Bolton centre)?
What happens to BL1 4 prices now?
The record answers a different question than "what happens next": the median is up 18% over five years in cash but down 7% after inflation. Put the volume chart beside the price chart before drawing conclusions, and allow for the register's lag behind actual completions.
On the market in BL1 today
Turning to what is actually available: 212 homes on the market right now, from 7 agents publishing to HomesIndex.
These cover the whole BL1 district, not just BL1 4: live asking prices are collected per district.
Of everything listed here, 24% asks less than the sold record of comparable homes. The comparison behind each listing uses recent recorded sales of similar homes close by.
"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 BL1 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.
Moving up a bedroom in BL: the cost
What homes of each size actually sold for across the BL area, from the Land Registry record. 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 | — | £279,995 | £365,000 (+30%) | £530,500 (+45%) | £775,000 (+46%) |
| Semi-detached | £180,000 | £209,000 (+16%) | £255,000 (+22%) | £337,500 (+32%) | £444,000 (+32%) |
| Terraced | £131,000 | £153,500 (+17%) | £180,000 (+17%) | £245,000 (+36%) | £358,000 (+46%) |
| Flat | £106,000 | £135,000 (+27%) | £208,500 (+54%) | — | — |
Medians of recorded sales over the last four years, by built form and bedroom count. Sold homes carry no advertised bedroom count, so sizes are estimated from their EPC records; a small number of homes will sit one size out. Where too few homes exist to say anything meaningful, the cell is blank.
The risers and the fallers
The spread across the BL area is the point: the same five years treated these districts very differently.
Winners and losers across the BL area, five years
Cash-terms risers and fallers across the area; click any row for that district's full report.
Other sectors in BL1
A few minutes' walk can separate two very different markets. Here are BL1's other sectors, each with its own report:
| Sector | Median (latest) | Sales that year |
|---|---|---|
| BL1 1 | £75,000 | 2 |
| BL1 2 | £120,000 | 4 |
| BL1 3 | £143,500 | 43 |
| BL1 5 | £315,500 | 56 |
| BL1 6 | £202,500 | 50 |
| BL1 7 | £253,500 | 48 |
| BL1 8 | £190,000 | 35 |
Zoom out to the full BL1 district report for the type split, monthly volumes and how BL1 compares with its neighbours.
Selling in BL1 4? Start from the sold record
Ground the asking price in real sold prices first. The average prices map gives a rough value in a minute: start at BL1 4's shading and zoom to the sold homes on the street itself. Agents work from this same Land Registry record when they value; this page puts it in front of you before they arrive.
For local estate agents: each district report carries one featured-agent spot, free while founding places last. Claim BL1 4.
Take it further
The AI answers from the same Land Registry data this report is built on, already scoped to BL1 4. Free after a one click sign in.
Two maps carry on from here: every BL1 4 sale at its exact address, and the average prices map from area shading down to single homes. The report tool answers a specific question in writing, and each sale's mortgage and rent calculator prices a real purchase.
About the numbers: everything is computed from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data (Crown copyright, OGL v3.0), geocoded to the address; today's-money figures use the ONS CPIH index, and rents are the ONS Price Index of Private Rents by local authority. These are medians of recorded sales, not valuations, and none of it is financial advice.