Local market reports › BL area › BL1
Bolton centre market report BL1, Bolton
The BL1 (Bolton centre) house price history in full, 1995 to 2026, in cash and in today's money. Everything below comes from 30,812 sales recorded by HM Land Registry in BL1 (Bolton) since 1995, real completion prices from real purchases, alongside the ONS's current rent figures. No valuations, no estimates, no asking prices.
Covers registered sales to July 2026 and ONS rents for May 2026. Refreshed monthly as new sales reach the register.
In short: the middle 2026 sale in BL1 (Bolton) came in at £188,000, out of 281 registered, up 25% on five years earlier, and the mean stands at £225,900, and by floor area homes here have averaged about £2,250 per square metre over the last five years. The record behind it is 30,812 completed sales lodged with HM Land Registry since 1995, monthly refreshed, with no valuations or asking prices anywhere in the figures.
The postcode district BL1 covering Bolton centre, Smithills, Halliwell sits in Bolton. A district is the workhorse unit for reading a market: local enough to be meaningful, busy enough that the medians rest on a steady flow of sales.
Where BL1 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 a home in BL1 sells for
Across 281 registered 2026 sales, the typical (median) BL1 home went for £188,000. The mean is £225,900, well above it, the signature of a heavy top tail: a handful of expensive sales lifting the average.
What a square metre costs in BL1
Measured by floor area, the last five years of BL1 sales average about £2,250 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.
Set against the £285,000 England and Wales median, BL1 sits 34% below the national market.
BL1's median sold price, 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 | £188,000 | £188,000 | 281 |
| 2025 | £192,000 | £196,591 | 723 |
| 2024 | £175,000 | £186,061 | 709 |
| 2023 | £160,000 | £175,801 | 694 |
| 2022 | £154,500 | £181,169 | 878 |
| 2021 | £151,000 | £191,185 | 1,040 |
| 2020 | £135,000 | £175,165 | 761 |
| 2019 | £130,000 | £170,399 | 874 |
| 2018 | £135,000 | £179,958 | 945 |
| 2017 | £136,000 | £185,490 | 1,049 |
| 2016 | £125,000 | £174,876 | 1,019 |
| 2015 | £110,000 | £155,430 | 892 |
| 2014 | £110,000 | £156,054 | 871 |
| 2013 | £107,200 | £154,250 | 780 |
| 2012 | £100,000 | £147,188 | 614 |
| 2011 | £101,200 | £152,773 | 666 |
| 2010 | £105,000 | £164,667 | 579 |
| 2009 | £110,000 | £176,826 | 636 |
| 2008 | £116,700 | £191,296 | 778 |
| 2007 | £119,500 | £202,705 | 1,424 |
| 2006 | £108,000 | £187,474 | 1,248 |
| 2005 | £95,700 | £170,307 | 1,186 |
| 2004 | £80,000 | £145,296 | 1,319 |
| 2003 | £62,000 | £114,219 | 1,474 |
| 2002 | £52,200 | £98,214 | 1,554 |
| 2001 | £45,000 | £86,510 | 1,427 |
| 2000 | £44,000 | £86,350 | 1,163 |
| 1999 | £43,500 | £86,693 | 1,153 |
| 1998 | £42,000 | £84,780 | 1,118 |
| 1997 | £39,000 | £79,981 | 1,085 |
| 1996 | £35,000 | £73,813 | 1,013 |
| 1995 | £36,500 | £79,345 | 859 |
In cash terms the typical BL1 home went from £36,500 in 1995 to £188,000 in 2026, roughly 5 times the price. Inflation explains only part of it: in today's money the rise is still about 137%, a genuine increase in what a home here costs. In inflation-adjusted terms the high-water mark was 2007. The market now sits about 7% below it, so a peak-time purchase has yet to recover its real value.
Year-on-year change in the BL1 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 (+29.0% on the year before); the weakest, 2009 (−5.7%). 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) | −2.1% | −4.4% |
| 5 years (since 2021) | +4.5% | −0.3% |
| 10 years (since 2016) | +4.2% | +0.7% |
| 20 years (since 2006) | +2.8% | 0.0% |
Each row is compound annual growth of the median; ONS CPIH supplies the real-terms deflator. Annualising irons out the cycle, which the chart above shows in full, and past growth records what happened rather than predicting anything.
Detached, semi, terraced, flat: four markets in one
A single median hides the split beneath it. Sales of terraced homes dominate the record here, 47% of the typed total. A detached home currently trades at £380,000 against £110,000 for a flat, 3.5 times the price.
Median by property type, BL1
One line per type, years with too few sales omitted. Hover for the year's figures; click a legend entry to isolate a type.
| Type | Median (2026) | Sales that year | All-time sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | £380,000 | 42 | 4,703 |
| Semi-detached | £240,000 | 81 | 7,780 |
| Terraced | £148,100 | 118 | 14,626 |
| Flats | £110,000 | 40 | 3,703 |
How many homes change hands in BL1
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.
The monthly pulse, last five years
Monthly registrations. The sawtooth is seasonal; the register runs weeks behind completions at the right-hand edge.
Over the last twelve months of data, 584 sales completed in BL1. Like most of England and Wales, turnover never fully recovered from 2008: the market here averaged 1,349 sales a year before the financial crisis and 657 a year over the last five. Watch the volume as closely as the price. Thin years make jumpy medians, where one street's sales can move the figure, and the newest year is always incomplete because registrations trail completions by weeks or months.
Rents around BL1
For renting purposes BL1 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.
Set against the £188,000 median sold price, £883 a month is £10,596 a year, a gross yield of 5.6%: 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.
BL1 (Bolton centre): the questions that come up
How much did a house sell for in BL1 (Bolton centre)?
Are property prices falling in BL1 (Bolton centre)?
Is BL1 (Bolton centre) a good place to buy a house?
Will BL1 prices rise from here?
That question has no honest answer, only evidence. The evidence: the median is up 25% over five years in cash and flat 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 BL1 today
Everything above is what homes in BL1 sold for. This is what you could actually buy today: 212 homes currently on the market from 7 agents publishing to HomesIndex, at a typical asking price 9% above the BL1 median sold price.
24% of current listings sit under the prices comparable homes actually fetched. Every listing is measured against recent recorded sales of similar nearby homes.
"Under comparable sales" compares each asking price with what similar homes nearby actually sold for. It is a starting point for a conversation, not a valuation. Always look at the home itself.
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.
Bedroom by bedroom: BL prices by size
The Land Registry record, split by size: what each kind of home actually sold for across the BL area. How much a size step costs is a local fact: the third-bedroom premium runs from about a quarter to nearly four fifths depending on the area, and national rules of thumb miss it.
| 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. Blank cells mean too few homes for the figure to mean anything.
The risers and the fallers
BL1 ranks 3 of 10 in the BL 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.
Winners and losers across the BL area, five years
The biggest risers and fallers in cash terms; every row links to that district's report.
Inside BL1, sector by sector
Postcode sectors are the next slice down, each a group of streets with its own market report. Prices can differ sharply between two sectors a few minutes' walk apart.
| Sector | Median (latest) | Sales that year |
|---|---|---|
| BL1 1 | £75,000 | 2 |
| BL1 2 | £120,000 | 4 |
| BL1 3 | £143,500 | 43 |
| BL1 4 | £141,500 | 43 |
| BL1 5 | £315,500 | 56 |
| BL1 6 | £202,500 | 50 |
| BL1 7 | £253,500 | 48 |
| BL1 8 | £190,000 | 35 |
How BL1 compares nearby
Same city, different markets. The neighbouring districts of the BL area, dearest first:
| District | Median | 5-year |
|---|---|---|
| BL7 | £305,000 | +17% |
| BL0 | £262,500 | +12% |
| BL8 | £250,000 | +14% |
| BL5 | £230,000 | +19% |
| BL6 | £215,000 | +8% |
| BL9 | £210,000 | +22% |
| BL2 | £205,000 | +24% |
| BL1 (this report) | £188,000 | +25% |
| BL4 | £186,000 | +33% |
| BL3 | £181,500 | +30% |
Thinking of selling in BL1? Get a rough value first
Ground the asking price in real sold prices first. The average prices map gives a rough value in a minute: start at BL1'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.
Estate agents working BL1: the featured spot on this report is free for founding agents, one per district. Claim BL1.
Keep digging
Answers come from the same Land Registry data behind this report, and the AI knows you are asking about BL1. Free, with a one click sign in.
The live map plots every individual BL1 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.